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Humans are very attached to outcomes. We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together.
Though we can’t predict or control or demand the outcome of our circumstances, we can know with great certainty we will be okay. Better than okay. Better than normal. We will be victorious because Jesus is victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57). And victorious people were never meant to settle for normal.
Sometimes to get your life back, you have to face the death of what you thought your life would look like.
The disappointment that is exhausting and frustrating you? It holds the potential for so much good. But we’ll only see it as good if we trust the heart of the Giver.
In the quiet, unexpressed, unwrestled-through disappointments, Satan is handcrafting his most damning weapons against us and those we love. It’s his subtle seduction to get us alone with our thoughts so he can slip in whispers that will develop our disappointments into destructive choices.
Remember, this is a love story. And we will never appreciate or even desire the hope of our True Love if lesser loves don’t disappoint.
As we talked about earlier, everything on this side of eternity is in a state of decay. This is simply the natural result of sin entering the equation.
This constant threat to our deep feelings ushers in depression, anxiety, callousness, and, quite honestly, a skepticism about the goodness of God. Unless. We see that all those harsh realities aren’t the end, but rather a temporary middle space.
To wrestle well means acknowledging my feelings but moving forward, letting my faith lead the way.
Physical death is the only way to start the process of receiving our heavenly bodies that will never wear out, decay in any way, or ever be reduced to dust.
If I want His promises, I have to trust His process. I have to trust that first comes the dust, and then comes the making of something even better with us. God isn’t ever going to forsake you, but He will go to great lengths to remake you. What if disappointment is really the exact appointment your soul needs to radically encounter God?
Feeling the pain is the first step toward healing the pain. The longer we avoid the feeling, the more we delay our healing. We can numb it, ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t exist, but all those options lead to an eventual breakdown, not a breakthrough.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
And God longs to help us.
He longs to help us through the process of being made into the image of Christ.
so the more we become like Him, the more we learn to trust God, no matter what our human eyes can see.
Jesus learned obedience from what He suffered. He was fully God but also fully human. His divinity was complete but His humanity grew and matured and learned how to be obedient.
So, the only way to gain the kind of trust in God we must have to survive and thrive in this life between two gardens is through the things that we suffer.
God doesn’t want you or me to suffer. But He will allow it in doses to increase our trust. Our pain and suffering isn’t to hurt us. It’s to save us. To save us from a life where we are self-reliant, self-satisfied, self-absorbed, and set up for the greatest pain of all . . . separation from God.
However, God sees things I can’t see. He knows things I don’t know. Only God knows what the good plan is and what it will take to get me there.
God doesn’t just stand back while we are suffering and say, “Good luck. I hate that you’re in pain, but welcome to the reality of living in a sin-soaked world. Hang on. Deal with it. Eventually, I’ll do something good with it all.” No. God sent His Son Jesus to be His help with skin on. Jesus came to share in our humanity. To feel what we feel. To hurt like we hurt. To suffer like we suffer. To be tempted like we are tempted. To defeat what we fear. To set us free from the curse of sin and death. And to lead us through this life between two gardens.
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death . . . For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:14–15, 17–18)
Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. (Hebrews 3:1)
That’s why God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge it would give them was a burden God never wanted them to carry. And maybe that’s why we don’t have all the answers about our situations. God isn’t trying to be distant or mysterious or hard to understand. He’s being merciful.
If only she would have noticed that other tree. The tree of life. The tree of God’s best way and perfect provision. It was there for her. She had a choice. And so do we. Scripture reminds us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12).
Thus then, Jesus Christ hanging on the cross is the tree of life in its wintertime.”
“Nothing you desire compares to this wisdom. I will turn your pain to peace. I will turn your heartbreak into honor. And it will be worth it.”
But when my brain begs me to doubt God—as it most certainly does—I find relief for my unbelief by laying down my human assessments and assumptions. I turn from the tree of knowledge and fix my gaze on the tree of life. I let my soul be cradled by God’s divine assurance. His Son. Who completely understands. And who will walk me through every step of this if I keep my focus on Him. That’s how I survive the 86,400 seconds called today.
God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way.
Make no mistake, those who are the most eager to harshly criticize others are often the ones most desperate to keep hidden their own secret sins or unresolved pain.
The enemy wants us paralyzed and compromised by what-ifs, opinions, accusations, and misunderstandings.
We must let God’s Word become the words we park our minds and hearts on.
We are imperfect because we are unfinished.
