Towards the end of my work day yesterday I spoke on the phone with a friend of our family who is hurting immensely. Interestingly, I have seen this sister more often than not in the realm of joy and strength but she is currently battling through a host of very real issues in life and she feels they threaten to swallow her. Unfortunately, some of her prior religious grooming has conditioned her to experience guilt and fear when she has no strength to offer the God she loves, so her pain right now is compounded with feelings of unworthiness. My counsel to her (and anyone else who goes through what she is currently) is that our great God ordains times like this. Yes, you heard me, God ordains times of brokenness and weakness for each of us. In one very real sense of the word, your various seasons of life are appointed by the God who has an unfathomable plan.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” – Ecclesiastes 3:1 {KJV}
Heaven is filled with purpose which streams outward. God’s redemptive purpose focuses squarely on planet Earth and, more precisely, upon mankind. Most of us don’t think of the concept of redemption beyond our moment of salvation yet redemption encompasses God’s activity for the whole universe. When sin entered into existence humanity was cursed. The animal kingdom was cursed. The kingdom of nature was cursed. Sin’s reverberation filled the cosmos. God has enacted the plan to redeem all things back to Himself through the perfection of Christ and the entirety of the universe will one day be restored to its intended glory. In this process of redeeming man, it is not merely your soul which God desires and He is not content to wait until you enter Paradise to commence working on you. His ultimate intention is restore you back to perfection for the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ. We must be made like Christ because He alone is perfect and only that which is perfect will abide for eternity with God. So what does this have to do with our family friend I mentioned above? What does it have to do with you?
If we are to be brought to perfection we will need to be convinced that Christ is everything. So much of our lives are lived out in reliance upon lesser things. We pursue other things and procure other things and worship other things. We are addicted as 21st century Christians to the underlying philosophy of Jesus+something=happiness. God precisely appoints seasons in our lives to enhance our spiritual math; He adds by subtracting. The equation is to read Jesus=happiness. Our +something’s make much more of a mess than we comprehend. Because God knows your appointed end He is absolutely qualified to lay down the precise bricks along your pathway. You need appointed pleasure along the way to bring Him glory so He ordains it. We need pain along the way because we cannot be said to be like Christ if our life has no experience of suffering. Therefore God APPOINTS a perfectly chosen, individually allotted portion of suffering for each of us who have been children of god through Christ. Our issue is that we see God all over the pleasure and presume His absence in the suffering. Rarely does one consider that the experience of suffering for the surrendered child of God is evidence of His direct involvement, overshadowing love and relentless work in enriching their relationship with Him. We are ease-addicts and pleasure-junkies so we panic when pain comes to stay a while. Honestly, we have a default view that pain opposes God’s plan for us. I submit to you that there can be no achieving of His plan for us in the absence of very real pain.
I encourage you today that the great God of redemption, light and love may sometimes situate Himself in your life-clouds. You are not the first of His children to be entrusted with the ache and throb of loss and pain. He’s clarifying your vision. Your vision of Him. He’s near and He’s good and He’s not changed one ounce in His gracious love for you. Endure seasons like I’ve described above with the intention of bringing Him glory. Keep moving forward as He leads you. You do not know where He is leading you and you long to feel the ground beneath your feet. You want solid footing under you so you may stand tall. Do you know why you cannot feel solid ground beneath your feet today?
Because God loves to carry His kids. Because today you are in his arms.
OMGOODNESS!! this is right on point!! Like always! We all need to hear these things, be reminded, that we are God’s children and He carries us and holds us. We do all these things for our children, so of course He does that for us! We all want to be Mr. & Mrs. big shot and do everything ourselves, we loose sight of JESUS and what He has already done for us. We couldn’t be here without HIM. We all fall and He is right there to pick us up!! Isn’t that what being our Savior means? Hallelujah!! Thank you Jesus!!
“You do not know where He is leading you and you long to feel the ground beneath your feet. You want solid footing under you so you may stand tall. Do you know why you cannot feel solid ground beneath your feet today? Because God loves to carry His kids. Because today you are in his arms”
That, brother, is a very profound insight! Never thought of it like that!
I, too, have been reflecting on this specific point from today’s blog. I often pray, and thank God for holding me in his arms but have not connected the dots like this before.