Until God Becomes Our All

Life has been interesting these last few months. I haven't known exactly how to write about what's been going on because although as a result of what's going on parts of it do affect me, the core story isn't about me, so I have to be sensitive.

Life sometimes doesn't make sense. Life sometimes isn't fun. Hard things happen in life and I believe that it's all about how we deal with these things that makes us who we are and pleases (or not pleases) God and hopefully in the end brings us closer to Him.

The sermon at my church on Sept. 27 was titled: If God Exists, Why Is There So Much Suffering and Evil? The next weekend I went down to Snohomish, WA to visit my friend Tiffany and her pastor spoke on The Life of Joseph and used one of the same passages that my pastor had used for his sermon. Gen. 37: 12-36 talks about how Joseph's brothers wanted to do him harm so they threw him down a well shaft and then later sold him. Joseph was first a slave and then ended up in prison. He could've cursed God and asked him why this was happening to him. In the end, it all came together and God used it for good.

The last thing my pastor said that brought me to tears was:

Once we get to Heaven, everything sad is going to come untrue.

That, my friends, gives me hope. There will be an end to our suffering. Rom. 8:18

The last thing Tiff's pastor said was:

Even when it doesn't seem like it, God is in control.

I'm counting on that because I know I'm not in control. This situation is so far beyond what I could've imagined and yes, it makes me angry, but not at God. It makes me angry that Christians who know better would allow Satan to get ahold of them and tear them away from what they know to be right and true. Tiff's pastor also said that God doesn't call us to understand what's going on, He calls us to remain faithful.

Today I was reading Walking with God by John Eldredge again and this is what I read (pgs 85 - 87):

God wants us to be happy, but He knows that we cannot be truly happy until we are completely His and until He is our all. The sorrows of our lives are in great part His weaning process. We give our hearts over to so many things other than God. We look to so many other things for life. Especially the very gifts that He Himself gives to us - they become more important to us than He is. That's not the way it is supposed to be. As long as our happiness is tied to things we can lose, we are vulnerable. We are created to enjoy life. But we end up worshiping the gift instead of the Giver. We seek for life and look to God as our assistant in the endeavor. We are far more upset when things go wrong than we ever are when we aren't close to God. And so God must, from time to time, disrupt our lives so that we release our grasping of life here and now. Usually through pain. God is asking us to let go of the things we love and have
given our hearts to, so that we can give our hearts even more fully to Him. Our first reaction is usually to get angry with Him, which only serves to make the point. Don't you hear people say, "Why did God let this happen?" far more than you hear them say, "Why aren't I more fully given over to God?"

Now, I am not suggesting that God causes all the pain in our lives. But pain does come, and what will we do with it? What does it reveal? What might God be up to? How might He redeem our pain? Those are questions worth asking.

Don't waste your pain.

Lord, help me to love you above all else.