I also have been tempted to turn away from Him in my pain, wondering why a good God would let his children suffer. Yet the Lord has proven abundantly, as He has filled those hollow places faithfully. I am convinced that God ways are far better and wiser than my ways.
Ecclesiastes chapter 3 gives 28 times and seasons in life:
a time to be born, and a time to die.
a time to plant, and a time to reap.
a time to kill, and a time to heal.
a time to tear down, and a time to build.
a time to weep, and a time to laugh.
a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
a time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them.
a time to embrace, and a time to part.
a time to search, and a time to give up.
a time to keep, and a time to throw away.
a time to tear, and a time to mend.
a time to be silent, and a time to speak.
a time to love, and a time to hate.
a time for war, and a time for peace.
There are different times and seasons in life, the one time I cannot find in there is a time to quit. There is no time to quit.
You may have bars; you may have chains but blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. God loved you so much that He gave his only begotten Son to die for you. Never allowed again to let the attitude of defeat come into you, because God honors you as more than a conqueror. It takes courage to trust in God when you do not understand why God has allowed certain things to happen.
You will go through a season of lack, but God created you to conquer lack. You will go through a season of weakness, but God would bring you through that season stronger than you have ever been before. In there we will understand what David said, that it was good that I had been afflicted. WHY? Because it was in affliction that he learned God’s faithfulness. It was in affliction that he learned how to run into the secret place of the Most High and dwell in the shadow of Almighty. It was in affliction that he learned that God is our refuge and strength. The Name of the Lord is a strong tower and the righteous run into it and are saved.
It is easy to trust God when everything is good and everything’s happy and all is going according to plan. It is one thing to worship God because you have a nice house, car, because everything good, because all your people are blessed. That is wonderful. But it is other whole deal to trust God when things are not so good. It is another thing to worship God despite trials and bars, chains, tribulations, heartbreaks, and tears. When you can do it then, when you can praise in pain, when you can lift your voice and say ‘The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, I praise You despite of my hardships: You are worthy of the praise.
Remember, all things work together for good for those who love Him.
When you have that attitude, it changes you, it shapes you and it molds you. You look at struggles as an opportunity and season for you to gain strength and it pour the rock-ribbed confidence into your soul. God is on His throne and everything is going to be alright, and you can say that “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be made glad in it.”
Because God has promised that He is going to take care of us – God is going to supply.
God has intentions of which I’m unaware. God has resources that I do not know anything about. Thus, though things look to be hopeless and dark yet I do not look at the circumstances, the man of faith looks at the Lord who is above all our circumstances. And He does not look to his own abilities but to God’s ability to take care of him and to supply for him.
Child of God, all things work together for good. All things are not good, but we have a God who is greater, and He said I’ll use it for good. God is on the throne. The Lord will take care of you. God has provisions about which you do not even know. Rejoice, be lifted, that is the position that faith takes. Above the circumstances, you are looking to God, that He is in control.
Sometimes when you are following Jesus, He leads you right into a storm. There is story in the bible where the disciples found their selves 2 times. But if not of those storms they would never have discovered truths about Jesus. There are things they have saw about Him that they had never seen before and they could never learn any other way except by going through the storms they experienced.
My tendency when it comes to storms is I want to go around the storm, I want to find a way around the trouble. But sometimes God lead you straight into the middle of it all because the Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm – He says ‘Trust Me.’ When you are in the middle of the storm, that’s when you look for God in the way things are, not in the way that you hope they will be.
As uncertain as things are, I am certain that God Almighty still on his throne. Interceding for us. Do not deny the problem because the problem is real but the God you served is greater.
You are doing better. Keep going, by God’s grace. You have the best wing Man beside you.
Here is the assurance we have. Not that we would go through life without difficulty, struggle, without some storm of some kind or some need arising but when we go through life, He has promised that in our struggle He is our strength. In our struggle, He is our provider. In our struggle, He is our healer, we have a firm foundation and Jesus is His name.
