Psalm 32:7

Providence. We toss the word around. But have you ever analyzed it?

It comes from the Latin, providentia. Pro means "before" or "ahead of time"; videntia is from videre, meaning "to see."...Put them together and you have "seeing ahead of time," which is what Almighty God does. He sees the events of life ahead of time—something that we of course can never do.

We're great at history. Our hindsight is almost always 20/20. But we're lousy at prophecy, that is, the specifics of the future.

Stop and think. We've no clue as to what will happen one minute from now, no idea what's going to happen next. But our invisible God, in His providentia, is continually, constantly, and confidently at work...

He never changes. He knows what He is about, and He pursues it with relentless determination.

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Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001).Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.