Ever feel like God has put you in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Sometimes life isn’t easy. The day didn’t go like you expected. People let you down. And we wonder… “Where are you God.”
I think sometimes we’ve associated God’s blessing with comfort. If everything is going well & life is good then we’re enjoying God’s favor, His blessing. And when things aren’t going so well we’re quick to question God, wonder where He is & sometimes even make the leap to questioning His existence. We think, “Surely if there was a God He wouldn’t let this happen!”
We could talk for days about the implications of how we think about God, how we think about how He works in our lives & more. But just consider this… think about the men & women in the Bible that we call heroes of the faith. Which ones of them had it easy? Who among them lived comfortable lives? How many of them gave up their faith at the first sign of trouble?
If we associate God’s blessing with comfort – we’ve got the wrong equation. God’s blessing doesn’t = comfort. A quick look at the lives of spiritual heroes like Moses, Noah, Abraham, Esther, David or Paul, Mary, Peter, & even Jesus himself will show you in sharp contrast what it looks like to follow hard after God. It’s often difficult. Rarely easy. Never comfortable. If we could eject the notion of comfort from Christianity in our brains we would do well. If we could end the questioning of God & replace it with reliance upon God in the middle of the present crisis, difficulty, sorrow, depression, confusion, or complication then we would be more like those men & women who have gone before us in the faith.
And I’m convinced that sometimes God puts us in the wrong place at the right time. It feels wrong to us. Because things aren’t going well. But its in this place that we are most reliant upon God. It’s in these days that we seek Him day & night. It’s here that we’ve come to our end & have to fully depend on Him. The shortest route from where we are to where God wants us to be sometimes is suffering. And He leads us through the valley with fire by night & cloud by day for our good & for His ultimate glory.
So if you find yourself in the middle of a mess right now, don’t give up. Take heart. You’re not alone. God is good. He’s working in the waiting. He hasn’t promised comfort. But He has promised His presence. He has promised to be faithful to you. To us.
“Here on earth you will have many trials & sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” – Jesus
John 16.33
