As many of you know, I was a member of the marching band when I was in college. It was an incredible experience and I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. However, one of the peculiar features of our rehearsals is that we were never told exactly what we were forming on the field.

I realize that sounds rather odd, but from week to week, we had no idea if we were spelling out a word, or making some intricate design. The most that we were given by way of information is what your particular section was expected to do. So at the beginning of the week, for example, the tubas would be given this series of charts describing how we were supposed to march ten yards and then flank right, and then mark time for eight measures, and go left. But that was it! We were never told what anyone else was doing—nor, presumably, were they told what we were doing.

The end result of this, of course, is that when you were down on the field, things could feel a little chaotic. You would be marching along, trying to make it from point A to point B, and all of a sudden, you would have to stop, because here would come a row of piccolos barreling through!

Or you might be marching alongside a saxophone, let’s say—and you’d sort of get used to having them right there, matching you stride for stride—and then, without warning, and for reasons that were never explained to you, they would go peeling off in another direction.

But what I learned from the experience is that if any of us had just stopped and said, “Look, I’m not taking another step until somebody comes down here and tells me what’s going on!”—the whole thing would have broken down.

Indeed, what kept it from falling completely apart was our ability to trust that somebody, somewhere, had mapped all of this out. We may not have been able to comprehend what was going on, but there was, in fact, a reason that we were having to stop at certain points, and move at others—because we were forming something … only we couldn’t see it.

And every once in awhile, they would gather us all together in the band hall and show us the videotapes. And all across the band you could hear people saying, “Ooh” … “Ahh” … “Wow, will you look at that?”—because then it made sense. When you were down on the field, it just seemed like all of this randomness—people going this way and people going that way—and yet, all the while, unbeknownst to us, there was this beautiful pattern emerging!

The Apostle Paul put it this way: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, and who are called according to God’s purpose.” In other words, if we can just remain true to what we have been called to do—even in those times when all around us seems chaotic … and maybe especially in those times—then we may eventually discover that it will all start to make sense … and we shall come to understand fully, even as we have been fully understood.