“Yet I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living.” Psalms 27:13
In Laura Story’s heart gripping song “Blessings” about the hardest trial and breaking in her life… she asks the question: “What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life, is the revealing of a greater thirst, this world can’t satisfy?” That revelation leads her to another question: “What if trials of this life, the rain, the storms, the hardest nights, are Your mercies in disguise?”
Suffering always brings us to a dead stop. Everything stops. Yet the world goes on around us. And we’re expected to continue operating in it. At our core it seems cruel that others celebrate while we grieve, others flourish while we wonder if we’ll survive. We question the meaning of life and we question God and his role in it. Theologians, you and me, we have all wrestled with these questions.
Nothing and no one escapes the brokenness of this world. Even the Earth, the beautiful trees, bees, and very air we breathe, they break and groan and suffer and are corrupted under the curse of separation from God. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Scientists say the human body is a scientific wonder. Our design is so perfect that we should live forever. The body is made to heal itself and to adapt - but it doesn’t. For some reason unknown to scientists, it starts to breakdown and die.
On more than one occasion I’ve answered a hurting friend’s “why” with “it’s not supposed to be this way”. That’s why it hurts, that’s why it happens, and we can’t seem to keep from touching each other with the shards of our own brokenness.
God in his goodness walks with us in it. He takes what was meant for evil and redeems it for our good. That doesn’t mean it turns out the way we want. Because God is patient with every one of us, we won’t get to see the full joy of how he redeems our circumstances until he makes everything perfect. In the meantime our joy comes from how he is redeeming us, and our relationship with him.
In my own life I’ve frequently spoken that while I would never want to go through my hard things again, I also would not trade what God has done because of it. Knowing this helps to give me hope for the future.
A friend of mine who has suffered in a very long season of unbearably hard, said to me not too long ago, “you know, somebody wrote a book about that, about how ‘it’s not supposed to be this way’”. Tears were shed as each of us discovered the excellent truths and encouragement the book had to offer. My friend’s story still has a long way to go and we are hoping and praying together to see the amazing ways God is redeeming her story while we are still in the land of the living.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalms 27:14
You have a story and part of your story includes the hard and evil you’ve encountered. God wants to redeem it. He wants to redeem you. He wants good for you, his good. He wants joy for you, his joy.
It’s my experience of knowing the Holy Spirit in my life that confirms to me God is real and so affirms Jesus Christ is the Son of God. No other god offers this love or assurance. It is this assurance that keeps me clinging to faith when the road is so dark I cannot see the way to go, the pain so great I cannot feel his presence, the trial so long that hope appears foolish. The Holy Spirit comforts and reminds us, of the goodness and faithfulness of God.
In the book Unexpected the author advocates becoming a prisoner of Hope so that the unexpected trials of life lose the power of fear to control us, allowing us to move forward in faith. When we find ourselves wandering in the wilderness we can become disillusioned about the promise, but God has a hope and a future for us if we’ll follow his directions. God restores in ways we can’t design. It’s time to dare to hope, to trust God.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
Names of God*
-Adonai: Master Over All
Verse: O Lord God, (Adonai) You have begun
to show Your servant Your greatness
and Your strong hand; for what god is there in heaven
or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as Yours?
Deuteronomy 3:24
-El Roi: The God Who Sees
-Yahweh Yireh: The Lord Will Provide
-Jehovah Rapha: The God Who Heals You
-Jehovah Shammah: The Lord is There
-Elohim Chaseddi: The God of My Mercy
-El Simchath Gili: God My Exceeding Joy
-El Emunah: The Faithful God
Verse: Know therefore that the Lord your God is God;
he is the faithful God (El Emunah), keeping his covenant
of love to a thousand generations of those who love him
and keep his commandments.
Deuteronomy 7:9
*credit: Tony Evans
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