An Eye For God’s Mercy
Dirkie Joubert's father, who built the little house in Montagu that still stands on the main road - now as a museum - was a true Christian man, and her stories in this book Crab Soup and Other Stories blessed me as I read them.
Life was hard, in those years! We really do have it easy in many ways, compared to the people in those years, whose comforts and privileges were nothing like the ones we enjoy today. But in another sense, we are just like the people of those times, because we also face illness and death and suffering.
Finding Mercy in Trials
The Joubert family went through a particularly tough season at one point - Dirkie's husband lost his hearing completely and had to give up his work. Her brother contracted a serious illness too, and Dirkie's father was telling a friend about all this and the fact that he had lost one of his most valuable cows that morning, finding it dead in the stable when he awoke.
His friend said to him "But you don't seem upset?" And Piet Joubert replied "Upset? Why should I be? Herbert and Pieter have both been seriously ill, and if it has pleased the Lord to send His Angel of Death into my stable rather than into my home, I have nothing but the deepest and most humble gratitude in my heart for His mercy." Dirkie then writes "this attitude characterised my father's whole life".
Choosing Your Perspective
What attitude characterises your whole life? A determination to see God's merciful hand in any and every situation? Or a tendency to see what God didn't do, and get upset about that?
So often we focus on what we think God should have done, but didn't. And we get very upset that He did things His way instead of ours. But I think there are so many layers that we can't see - so many angles to each situation where we can't see what He can see, and so we need to trust that He is making the wisest decisions, to intervene when He does, and not intervene when He doesn't.
Piet Joubert seemed to have that ability. He was grateful for God's mercy, even in a difficult situation where there was much suffering. He had an eye for God's grace where others would only have seen the negative.
May you and I look at our situations today and see God’s hand of mercy, where others might only see what He didn’t do.
