And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here. God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God”~ Genesis 44:5a, 7, 8a
I am one of those people who rarely worries during the day and I’m typically out like a light within minutes of my head hitting the pillow. I would love to tell you it’s because I am some sort of a super Christian who has completely conquered the sin of worry.
That would be a lie.
I do worry on occasion. Sadly, it’s never at a time when I can constructively deal with the issues or problems. For some reason I will never entirely grasp, my brain simply prefers to focus in on all the unsolvable problems of life around three-o-clock in the morning. It never fails to amaze me how I can feel perfectly relaxed and anxiety-free at ten-o-clock only to wake up with an extensive list of thoroughly bizarre concerns that appear to require my full attention just a few hours later.
I was back at it the other night.
Wide-awake at 2:45 a.m. staring at the ceiling, mulling over an issue that’s been vexing me on and off for months. The situation in question can only be categorized as an interpersonal disaster. I cannot figure out for the life of me how exactly the situation got to be so bad or even where it all went wrong in the first place.
Looking back, there are things I could have (and probably should have) done differently. That said, I’m not sure doing things differently would have improved the outcome all that much. The whole thing is a big, stupid mess that appears to have been fated to become a big, stupid mess from day one. And the mess just keeps getting messier no matter what I do (or stop doing) to fix it.
As I lay awake in the wee hours of the night praying for wisdom, it struck me that there are times in this life when it appears as if God has simply ordained trouble for people. such was the case with some of God’s best and brightest. Paul, Joseph, Naomi and David are just a few examples of men and women who found themselves in serious trouble they did not create and were powerless to escape without God’s intervention (Ruth 1:1-22, 2nd Corinthians 1;8-11, Galatians 6:17, Philippians 1:17, Genesis 37,39, 40, 1st Samuel 16:1-2nd Samuel 1:1).
When Jesus promised we would have trouble in this life (John 16:33), He was not overstating the facts. Friends betray our confidence, the wrong people get elected, persecution occurs, financial misfortune appears seemingly out of thin air. As if all that were not enough, spouses are sometimes prone to wander, terrorists attack without reason or forewarning and kids who were raised right can still go horribly wrong. Even the seemingly most secure and peaceful of situations can and sometimes do transform in the course of a single day (Job 1:1-22).
God’s purposes are largely hidden and almost always easier to understand in the rearview. Sometimes, as with Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth, God has a much larger plan that is unfolding, and our pain is simply a stepping-stone to our true purpose in this life. Other times, God uses trouble to prepare us for responsibilities or blessings beyond anything we could possibly imagine, as He did with Joseph and David. Other times, trouble or persecution is simply the natural consequence of a life of obedience, as with the apostle Paul.
God also uses trouble to reveal truth we need to see about ourselves. In the process of revealing those truths He refines us and makes us better people (Zechariah 13:9, Psalm 66:10, 1st Peter 1:6-7). Sometimes God uses trouble to draw us into a closer relationship with Him, and sometimes God uses trouble to reorder our priorities and steer us back to our original calling.
If you live long enough and serve faithfully enough you will likely find yourself in the middle of a mess you did not make and have no clue how to fix (1st Peter 1:6). When trouble comes and life feels out of control, the natural response is to wonder what we did wrong or if God has somehow abandoned us. That response makes sense on a natural level but is an enormous waste of spiritual time and emotional energy.
Rather, we should get busy praying for wisdom, direction and the ability to be flexible because something infinitely bigger and better is likely right around the corner (James 1:2-4, 2nd Corinthians 1:4).
The trouble you are facing today is simply God preparing you for the blessings and responsibilities of tomorrow.
