“For we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called in accordance with His purpose.” – Romans 8:28
It takes some people a long time to acknowledge that God hasn’t caused the bad things in our lives….although He often does get the blame. It’s the reason why many choose to walk away from faith, or don’t develop it at all. The sometimes-challenging pill to swallow, is that He does allow the bad to happen. There isn’t one thing satan can do to us, or consequence of sin that falls upon us, that God hasn’t allowed to happen in our lives.
So many of us want to understand why God allows things to happen… the troubles, trials, suffering, that we go through in life. When we remain focused on the WHY, we often will miss out on HOW God is going to use what we’ve had to walk through. If there’s nothing that is truly wasted, that’s to be used in some way, somehow for our good… doesn’t that make you want to know HOW He’s going to do it? Because it says that He will…no matter what it is. The problem is that one aspect of it rests on us: whether or not we allow God to work out the good IN us and not just FOR us.
He is a compassionate God. A comforting God. Which can be hard to see, and believe, in times of trouble…but it can also be where we find Him / see Him / experience Him the most. When our dependency for help falls to Him alone…when we’re so desperate for strength to take the next breath, we find that strength from the Life-giver Himself.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”
- 2 Corinthians 1:3-7
It is often our mess that brings a message of hope to someone else in a similar situation. Where what was once our misery, can turn into a ministry. Where God takes what we see as the “wasted” parts of our lives and uses them to bring patient endurance into someone else’s life…helping them to take the next breath. To keep going and not give up. Nothing is wasted from what we’ve walked through. Let’s be asking God HOW He’s going to use our mess, instead of staying stuck focusing on trying to figure out the Why’s.
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