Poor theology breeds false expectations. False expectations lead to disappointment with God and that disappointment often leads to offense. I continue to run into believers who hold the assumption that God promised his people a “trouble-free life” if they are just doing the right things. So, if trouble comes while they are attending church, tithing, teaching Sunday school, and trying to live a moral life, they often feel betrayed by God. They often take up an offense towards the Father that sometimes lasts for years or a lifetime. They feel justified in rejecting God because, in their minds, he rejected them by breaking a promise – but it was a promise he never made.
It is critical that we are clear about life on planet earth. Think about every great man or woman of faith in the Bible. Without exception, in the Old Testament or New, they each faced hardships during some season of their life and most had numerous seasons of hardship. Consider Hezekiah. “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook…In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them…This is what the king of Assyria says:…Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand? Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” (2 Kings 18:5-7, 13, 32-35).
Scripture says that Hezekiah had a heart for God and served him faithfully in extraordinary ways. God was clearly please with him and yet in his fourteenth year as king, the armies of Assyria marched against him. Assyria was the dominant world power of the time and clearly out- numbered and out-classed Israel militarily. In the natural, Hezekiah could not stand against Assyria. Trouble had come to this man of God in an overwhelming way. Ultimately, God delivered Hezekiah and Jerusalem from the Assyrians when an angel of the Lord moved through the Assyrian camp at night and 185,000 Assyrian soldiers died mysteriously. In the morning, the remainder of the great army went home. But Hezekiah had to face his own fears, the political ramifications of a vast army camped around your city, the fears of his own people and the great probability of defeat and death within a few days.
There are numerous stories of God’s people being attacked by armies, falsely accused by political enemies, betrayed for money, facing famine, arrested by police, beaten and sometimes killed. Every apostle, except John died a martyr’s death and he died in exile. The letters to the seven churches of Asia in the beginning of the book of Revelation reveal persecution, imprisonment, and even death for other believers. Jesus himself told all his followers that in this world they would have trouble (Jn.16:33) and that persecution would always find the righteous in a world hostile to the things of God.
In addition, we live in a fallen world where the sin of man brought a curse on the natural world so that it does not operate as God designed it to operate before Adam sinned. As a result, floods, earthquakes, famines, blizzards, and tornadoes sometimes ravage the earth. On occasion, God uses those for judgment against nations he has warned time and again, but usually they just happen. Because of a fallen world and our fallen natures, disease crops up along with genetic abnormalities. Sometimes, those who serve God with all their hearts have to deal with what is common to man. God promises that in heaven we will face none of those things, but in this world we can get caught in a storm or have children with birth defects just like everyone else.
The difference for us is that then trouble comes we can call on the Lord. Sometimes he rescues us from the trouble just as it appears on the horizon. At other times, he simply helps us ride out the storm. Paul tells us, “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 have received from God” (2 Cor.1:3-4). This is a revealing verse because it tells us that we experience the comfort of God in the midst of our troubles. If we were not in trouble, we would not experience his comfort and could not point others to his comfort in the midst of their troubles.
The revelation here is that we would never experience much of the nature of God and who he is for us unless we face trouble and hardship. We would never know him as the God who provides unless we faced a season of lack. We would never know him as our shield and high tower unless we were under attack. We would never know him as our healer unless we needed healing and the restorer of life unless we had lost everything. We would never know him as our vindicator unless we had been falsely accused. I’m not saying that God sends trouble so that we can experience him, but he doesn’t always insulate us from the effects of a fallen world and a fallen race. Facing hardship makes us stronger and gives us a revelation of who God is for us that we would never know otherwise.
When trouble comes, too many believers simply blame God for not protecting them from the same things that the world faces rather than looking for God’s provision and deliverance in the midst of trouble. If God had kept the apostles from facing a life-threatening storm on the Sea of Galilee, they would never had known the power of Christ to silence the storm nor would they have ever had a hint that he had given them the same authority.
Let’s face it, who needs faith when everything always goes your way? Who would ever struggle with their theology of suffering if no suffering ever came to believers? Who would ever grow in intercessory prayer if troubles never lingered? The truth is that hardship is a much greater catalyst for growth than ease. As you study the lives of God’s people, even when they were faithful, seasons of hardship and trouble came their way. God sprinkled in seasons of peace and plenty but difficult times came to all. We should not be surprised, then, that they come to us as well – even when we have been serving God with all of our hearts. When they come we have not been betrayed or forgotten by God. He is there for us and we then have the adventure of seeing how God will see us through each struggle.
When we trust God in the storm, we will not only learn great things about him but about ourselves as well. I think of the Lord of the Rings and the life of Hobbits who lived in a comfortable, country setting and never wanted anything or anyone to disrupt their peace or their pleasant routines. But those few who were forced to face dragons and orcs, discovered things they would have never found in any other way. God allows struggles to do the same work in us. When trouble comes, we don’t have to ask where God is because he is because he is always with us. We only need to ask what he would have us do so that we can see what he will do. That is the great adventure of faith.
