“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal.” -2 Corinthians 4:18
Last week I hurt my neck. And by “hurt my neck,” I mean I heard lots of cracking in my spine, sharp pain stabbed through about five places in my vertebrae, and searing pain shot from the base of my skull to my mid-back as I pulled all the muscles in that span.
For a few days, I was confined to my bed, unable to turn my head more than a few inches to the side or to look up. More than a few minutes of sitting or standing without support gave me a headache and nausea that made me regret my over-zealous courage. Sometimes I would get tired of seeing light, and I would try to take a nap, even if I wasn’t tired.
While some people may have jumped at an unexpected opportunity to cancel all events and stay in bed for a few days, I felt like an unproductive slob. An unproductive, in-agony slob, that is.
But as I lay in the dark one day, I started talking to God about all the things I take for granted, like the fact that my neck muscles carry a ten-to-twelve-pound bowling ball called my head all day long each day. So I asked God what I was supposed to be learning about my pain.
I felt like He whispered, “Tera, just because you’re not able to do anything doesn’t mean that I’m not able to do anything.” He told me to think about how many things in the unseen world had to work correctly for my body to not be in so much pain on a daily basis. Then He asked me to see with my spiritual eyes the possibilities of what He was working for my good in the unseen realm, just like all those invisible things working in my body on a daily basis that I had never noticed before.
Many times, even when we’re put on the backburner, God is just waiting for us to get to the end of what we can do so He can do what only He can do. I’m not sure what all He was doing while I spent those few days in bed, but I’m pretty sure it was more than I could ever ask or imagine.
I believe He’s doing the same for you right now.
Just because you’re confined to your house with a screaming infant and a whining toddler doesn’t mean God isn’t doing infinitely more than you could ask or imagine on your behalf. Just because you lost your job to the pandemic doesn’t mean God isn’t preparing the right door of opportunity to burst open at the best time.
C.S. Lewis said that the Christians who did the most for this world were precisely those who thought the most of the next. We can become so confined to the reality we see that we forget the less-tangible, unseen reality is the more real of the two. Our prayers often have the power to affect more change than our actions ever will.
If you’re feeling stationary, left out, or isolated right now, look to the unseen. Look the invisible God who is more real than anything you’ve ever seen with the eyes He created. Pray for the God of the impossible to do the miraculous in your life. You never know when the unseen workings of your yesterdays will play out in the miraculous workings of today. He’s doing more than you know.
by Tera Bradham
Tera Bradham is an author, speaker, podcast host, and fitness coach, but she has also been a Spanish teacher, a swimming coach, a journalist, and a travel vlogger. After growing up in Round Rock, Texas, she swam for the University of Arkansas and for Texas A&M University before heading to South America on a year of missions with the World Race. God added another plot twist to her life when she met the man of her dreams, who happened to be from Montana. She now relishes the beauty of Bozeman’s mountains each day with her husband, Jacob. Her heart’s deepest passion is for others to know her extraordinary God who makes every day a miraculous adventure. More information can be found at terabradham.com.
