Have you ever come across a construction site where the workers were laboriously laying a tile floor—one of those mosaic floors with thousands of tiny tiles that create a picture when finished? While it’s being put in place, the picture isn’t clearly visible because the workers use grout to fill the spaces between the tiles, and the grout leaves a heavy gray film over their work that hides the beauty of what they’ve done. But then, once the grout between the tiles is dry, the film is washed off and the picture is revealed.
That’s similar to how God works in our lives. In His infinite wisdom and all-encompassing love, He understands exactly what we need and goes to great lengths, with intricate detail, to provide those things.
Often He uses the troubles of life, such as economic difficulties, personal struggles, and mistakes, to work in ways we aren’t expecting. We don’t always realize how He’s preparing us, or understand why He has allowed something “gray” to cloud our lives, like the grout on the mosaic as it is being fashioned. But that only makes His loving and attentive care all the more profound and beautiful when it’s finally revealed.