Ummm…. Excuse Me, God… But just so You know… This life of mine ain’t always working out the way I think it should. And if I remember the Scriptures right, You said You came that I might have abundant life and that You would always work for the good of those who love You… Well I love You, so what seems to be the problem?
I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t always seem that God is working things together for my good. Sometimes life is stressful, sometimes it might even seem downright miserable. What is going on?
God tells me to trust Him to provide for all my needs. I am told to hunger and thirst after His righteousness… to seek Him first… and all of my other needs will be met.
I read these passages in the Bible that tell me if I will just keep seeking to be like Jesus and trusting in God’s plans, then I will have everything I need and even more than I could imagine. But it doesn’t seem that way to me on the difficult, stressful days. Some things that aren’t good are happening to me. So what is the problem? Is God not faithful to His promises? Or is my definition of “good” at odds with His definition?
When I ask these questions He reminds me – I am just a child, and He is the loving Father. You know what parents realize – sometimes what a child wants is not what he or she needs. Many times a parent knows what is truly good for a child, but that child wants immediate gratification or has wrong motives, and a parent says “no” to a request, because they are seeking the child’s greater good. And so sometimes I might not realize that what I think I want might not be for my own good, but God can look down the road and see what I truly need.
The other thing I have to remember is that God didn’t promise me that life would always be a bed of roses. Just look at the life of Jesus, the disciples, the prophets, and all the martyrs. Sometimes instead of the rose petals, we just get “stuck” with the thorns! We live in a sin-filled world of evil. Sometimes, because of the choices and consequences of sin in myself or others, I will face tragedy and pain. But God says that when I encounter those times, He will walk right beside me and keep working to bring good out of it for me.
I think the problem is that I have defined life to be all about me instead of all about Him. Maybe my definition of good needs to be more along the lines of Paul. To live is to live for Christ and that is a great joy no matter the consequences I encounter along the way, and to die would be even greater because I would then be with Him. But that is surely a hard place to get to.
Any thoughts on how we can reorient our thoughts such that we see living for Him and serving Him as our “good,” even when life gets hard?