Disclaimer: Please do not be offended by what you read here today. This is just me trying to hash things out for myself and sharing it with you! I trust God, I just want to trust Him more!
Sometimes things happen that make me wonder what God was thinking or why He would allow things to happen. When good people experience tragedy, when little children suffer, when God's hand seems to be distance from the circumstances of our lives, these are times when I can't help but question God. This week I have personally seen a few situations that broke my heart and made me want to shake my head at God, and ask Him why. Why would God allow a mother to be taken from her small children? Why would God form a baby in a way that was so broken from birth that he had no chance of long term survival? Why does God not intervene when we are dealing with things and we feel like we are praying to the ceiling? Why God? And the terrible truth is I don't know if I can understand the answers to these questions this side of heaven.
But there are a few things I think I am catching on to. As I wonder why God would allow one small mistake that took less than a minute to be a fatal one, it occurs to me that God probably saves our lives thousands of times through out a week. Think about it; you are running late to work or school, those few minutes could be God preventing a car crash that you would have been involved in had you been on time. Who knows how many times He moves our hand or directs our feet to insure we are safe. I know in my life I rarely think about this. Every day my girls come home safe from school, that is God protecting them and allowing me to have them one more day. Every morning when Tommy and I wake up, that is Him guarding our lives through the night, so we can live for Him another day. Why God would choose to save us a thousand times and then on the thousand and first allow a tragedy I do not know, but am I thankful for the unseen protection and unnoticed rescues? "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Job 1:21b. I am personally very guilty of not acknowledging all the things that the Lord gives on any given day, but I am quick to questions when He takes things away. I want to be in a place with Him where either way I can praise His name.
Isaiah 55:8-9 “'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.''' I cannot understand why bad things happen especially to little children, they are so helpless and innocent, but I am trying to trust that God's ways and plans and thoughts are in fact higher and better than mine and that in His great love and wisdom He is working things for our good. God is good even when circumstances are bad, I believe that!
There are seasons that I have experienced and am now seeing some one very close to me experience when God seems so distance, like a far off deity that has left us on our own. I know what it is like to feel as though your prayers are going unheard and your suffering is going unnoticed; like God has withdrawn and you are alone. It is a terrible, desperate place to be. In my own life this feeling lasted almost a year once, and caused me to doubt everything I thought I believed. I questioned my salvation, my purpose, God's plan and goodness. I even questioned whether God was even real, and this was all AFTER I had given my life to serve in the ministry, which doesn't even make sense, but it's true. I tried to keep praying and hold fast, but it was so very hard. In numerous places the psalmist has similar feelings and ask how long the Lord would remain silent. I don't know why this happens some times, but I do know that what we feel is not always what's true. God is always faithful and always merciful, no matter how things seem. On the other side of this God "fog" is a place where we can see clearly and understand all that God taught us during the time we had no choice to walk by faith. We grow to cherish the moments when we clearly hear God's voice because we have heard His silence.
So I guess I say all that to echo the father who brought his sick son to Jesus to be healed. “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) I have faith that God is the best and knows what He is doing, but I need some help to quieting that pesky doubting voice in the back of me head.
