We were sitting in our staff meeting, heads bowed in prayer as we do each week. I had just shared some personal struggles related to several circumstances requiring a lot of patience from me. I was happy to share, but as we began to pray, I was still distracted by the things I said and the chaos of my own mind. Then one of my pastors began to pray for me, and he said, “Lord, in all these things, you are an efficient builder...”
The words struck me like lightning. I had never heard God described that way before, but his words immediately rang true—and they challenged me in that moment. Amid these difficult circumstances, what might it mean to see God as an efficient builder? It’s a worthy thought for anyone to consider, especially in the midst of hard circumstances.
The Efficiency of Wisdom
The first thing to recognize is that God’s idea of efficiency is very different than our own. To our western, hyper-commercialized minds, efficiency means fast. “How can I get the quickest result with the least amount of effort?” This isn’t how God thinks. To truly understand God’s efficiency, we need to understand his wisdom.
Connecting this picture of the “builder-God” to the concept of wisdom is more natural than you may initially think. J. I. Packer defines wisdom this way: “Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.” Wisdom sits at the intersection of knowledge and skill. My seminary professors often likened the proverbial “wise person” to a skilled craftsman—one able to not just envision what they aim to create but make it a reality.
On a jobsite, it’s easy to spot the craftsman with the most experience. They are the ones with no need for a cumbersome arsenal of the latest tools. They know what’s needed for the job. They can take a few old tools, some less than adequate materials, and create something beautiful. They know what they’re aiming for and are skilled enough to make it happen in any circumstance.
God is a craftsman par excellence. Everything he builds is for his glory and our good (WSC 1; Isa. 48:11; Ro. 8:28; 11:33-36; Rev. 4:11). And because he’s both wise and powerful (Job 9:4), he will make his aim a reality—even in this sin-cursed world. Like the journeyman, God can take the brokenness of this wayward world and use it to create something beautiful, good, and glorious. This is where we see the efficiency of God’s wisdom—not because he builds quickly, but because he wastes nothing. God uses everything at his disposal to build for our good and his glory.
Efficient in Every Circumstance
That’s the key to weathering the storm. When we understand that God in his wisdom, power, and providence wastes nothing of our experience, then we begin to see our experience in a different way. We begin to see that God is actively—and not just retroactively—building something beautiful out of the wreckage of our circumstances.
Perhaps you’ve heard these words of John Flavel before: “The providence of God is like Hebrew words—it can be read only backwards.” The idea is that the works of God are often clearer when we look back on them as opposed to trying to discern them while they’re unfolding. This idea echoes the heart of Joseph’s words to his brothers at the end of Genesis. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good...” (Gen. 50:20a). They’re a beautiful reminder of how hindsight helps us see more clearly the goodness of God’s power and plan.
That said, I think we sometimes apply these words to difficult circumstances in a way that practically amounts to little more than hope deferred. It’s almost as if we tell ourselves, “If I can hang on long enough, I’ll eventually see God’s goodness.” Everything will eventually be better in hindsight.
This kind of posture—though partially true—ultimately undermines the comfort and encouragement that comes from seeing God as an efficient builder. It acts as though the artist’s work can’t be seen at all until the unveiling, but that’s not the case. If God truly is a wise, powerful, and efficient builder, then we should expect to see marks of his handiwork in every single circumstance we find ourselves, which transforms our entire outlook on them.
What does this look like? It looks like a conversation my wife and I recently had with an older saint well acquainted with God’s wisdom and difficult providences. She shared an experience she went through filled with inexpressible pain and sorrow. When we asked her how she got through it, she said she wept to God and prayed, “Lord, I have no idea what you are doing. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this, but I will not abandon the belief that you are good—even in the very midst of this.”
What does it mean to recognize God as an efficient builder in difficult circumstances? It means that even in the worst experiences of our lives, we can actively trust that God is actively good, working every inch of our experience to build something for his glory and our good. He is next to us in every broken moment building something beautiful. He wastes nothing.
Footnotes
J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 101 (emphasis mine).
