Life happens. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s an unexpected blessing, sometimes it’s an unfortunate loss. Sometimes it’s welcoming a new child into your home, sometimes it’s losing a loved one. No matter what, we have every reason to stay confident toward God, knowing that he only has good plans for us.
When the bad things happen we tend to seek answers. How we see God will color what kind of answers we seek and which kinds of questions we’ll ask in the first place.
Our church family just experienced one of those tragedies that beg difficult questions.
I’m sorry to say that we lost a beloved member of our Forward Church family this weekend, Michael Owens suffered a massive heart attack and entered the arms of Jesus around 3pm Saturday, December 14, 2019. His wife Donna was by his side as he entered into his eternal reward.
I know Michael, he was a friend. He wasn’t just a “church member,'“ he was part of my life. He was always the first person to talk to me about my sermons and how much he got out of them. He would tell me that God would use my words to instruct him throughout the week. Of course, they were God’s words to begin with, but he would always relate back to me what he was applying each week from the message. He did this for years. He told me the reason he stayed at Forward after his first visit was because I seemed to really believe what I was preaching about the goodness of God and it helped him believe. Michael was an electrician, he rewired our church without charging us labor costs, he gathered other friends and raised money to bless Sara and me with landscape lighting for our yard, and he would always buy my lunch if I ran into him in a restaurant. Mike was the salt of the earth. Above all, Michael was 100% convinced that God is good and only good! I’ll miss him.
Now allow me to address the questions that arise in difficulty from a more general perspective.
Questions
When someone leaves us prematurely, we have questions. When a child suffers a debilitating illness we have questions. When we lose our job, we have questions. When our marriages fall apart, we have questions.
It’s fine to have questions but you really don’t need answers, you need resolve. Resolve over the character of God. Before you arrive at your conclusions about God and the circumstance you find yourself in, make sure you are standing firmly on the true character of God.
Before adopting beliefs about God from your circumstances, and before changing your approach to faith, take time to reinforce the truth about God in your heart. Tell your mind and heart who God is rather than letting the circumstance inform your belief about God.
Sometimes that’s really hard to do, especially if your circumstances don’t reflect a particular character trait of God. It’s especially hard if you were standing on one of his promises but it didn’t come to pass.
The most important thing to do is guard your heart, even from yourself at times. Always reinforce who God is to yourself, especially in times of questioning his faithfulness.
I’ve seen people go through difficulty and then distance themselves from God. Sometimes because their faith was shallow, sometimes because the relationship that failed was unhealthy, and the sometimes distance themselves from God because they are holding God responsible for the circumstance.
God has given us free will, some folks call it permissive will. He has plans for us but sometimes our choices derail us from arriving safely into those plans. If we blame God for our derailment we will come to the wrong conclusion about his faithfulness. All I can say is be careful! Guard your heart against anything that contradicts the character of God, including your own thoughts and emotions.
God Is Good
If we’re willing to be honest with ourselves, we’ll always come to the conclusion that God is for us, he’s seeking to bless us and he’s not introducing the pain in our lives, but how we respond to difficulty will determine if we’ll keep our hearts open to all those truths about God.
It’s easy to amen preaching about the promises of God when things are going your way, but do you continue to trust that God is faithful to his word when your life is not working out?
The world needs to see a group of people, Jesus followers, who are confident in the identity of God. The world, even the believing world, is starving for truth, for something to believe in.
We believe in God, we trust God, we stand firm in the knowledge that God is merciful, kind and loving, and we can’t back down from that conviction.
It’s not just a positive confession, it’s a decision to always believe the truth about God. God is a healer, God is a provider, God is a comforter, always, no matter what. When we don’t experience those promises and attributes it’s not because he changed or is withholding himself, it’s because life happens.
In this world there will be trouble, you can’t avoid it. And along with that trouble is the opportunity to question the character and faithfulness of God. But we must have a spiritual and eternal perspective of God, he is who he is no matter what. Stand firmly on that foundation and you’ll always have a lighthouse to lead you back to the harbor in the middle of the storm.
This Is God’s Heart Toward Us
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
God desires to provide and care for us because he has great value for us. When we face any adversity and are tempted to question the faithfulness and integrity of God, we must take time to remind ourselves of passages like this, passages that affirm God’s kind heart toward us, so we will not drawback.
There is no going back! Stay confident in him and who he is!
