Lately, I’ve been seeing God’s people get hammered by accidents, health issues, untimely deaths, unexpected job loss, home disasters (slab leaks, air conditioners going out, garage door openers failing, appliances breaking down, etc.) and failures in church leadership.  These are the normal pitfalls of living in a fallen world, but sometimes the frequency of these events signals that something out of the ordinary is going on…most likely spiritual warfare. When it keeps happening to month after month after month, it is easy to become weary and wonder where God is and what he is doing about your losses and hardships.  Some days it feels like the enemy is winning and God has left the building.

I’ve been reading through Psalms again in my quiet times and paying special attention to David’s writings. What I see are psalms that declare the goodness of God and thanksgiving for his protection and provision.  In these psalms. David likens God to his fortress, his deliverer, his rock, his shelter, his shepherd and so forth.  David sings the praises of a God whose grace, love, and power shield him from the onslaught of enemies.  There are also psalms in which Davis is lamenting and calling out for God to act on his behalf. In these verses, David seems weary, fearful, and almost abandoned.  However, inevitably the psalm ends with the hope that God will still come to his rescue and deliver him from the present pit he is in

Much of what we know about God comes from retrospect.  We look back at the times we thought would swallow us and then notice the hand of God moving and setting up a moment of victory or deliverance from our enemies. I think David’s psalms declaring “ten thousand may fall at your side but you will not be touched,” come from examining just how he escaped from the terror that he thought would surely devour him. When he saw no way out, a way would unexpectedly appear.  

We need to do the same. We need to notice God’s hand in our past and how he has brough us out of times of loss and despair and set our feet on solid ground again.  Having walked with God’s people for forty years as a pastor, I can tell you myriads of stories about men and women who believed life would never be worth living again, but then found that the grace of God had delivered them and provided joy and meaning again because they did not give up on the goodness of God.

We don’t learn to trust God in the good times because we don’t need to trust him. Everything is going our way and we feel in control of life.  We learn to trust when life is out of control and we are helpless to deliver ourselves.  Then we are confronted with the choice to continue to worship and serve a God who is allowing bad things to happen or to reject God because he is not protecting us from the pain and losses of life.  Those who hold on, see his hand of deliverance and restoration and learn, as David did, that God is our rock and our fortress…even when we can’t see it. When the hard times come, we don’t give thanks for the hard times but we give thanks in the hard times.  We do so because we know God is working to bring us out of the darkness into his warming light once again.  He has done so before so we can believe he will do so again. 

Let me encourage you to spend time tracing the hand of God in your life and in your past hardships.  Write it down. It will give you faith for his goodness in your future…even in the midst of hardship.  Blessings in Him today.

Questions are important and if you don’t ask the right questions you will miss much of what is most important in life. There are four essential questions in life. How you answer them determines almost everything else.
1. Does God exist?

2. Is God powerful?

3. Is God good?

4. Does God truly love me?

You may want to consider what you really believe regarding those questions.  If God doesn’t exist, all bets are off. You (and everyone else) are on your own in a dangerous world.  If God is powerful but doesn’t love you, you are still on your own and must protect yourself  at all costs…perhaps even from  God. If God is not good all the time, then he may abandon you or even hurt you on any given day on a whim.. And if God loves you but has no power, then you are  gratified but must still protect and provide for yourself.

All of us as Christians would probably answer “Yes” to all four of those questions if they were asked in a group of fellow believers.  But would we be expressing our aspirational beliefs or our actual beliefs?  Aspirational beliefs are those we aspire to have because we know we should believe certain things or want to believe certain things.  Actual beliefs can be different (and often are) and are revealed not by what we say, but how we consistently act.

To say God exists, he is good, he truly loves me, and he is unimaginably powerful answers the most important questions of life: Do I matter? Am I safe? Am I loved? Will I have enough? Can I face the future? To the extent that can honestly say I believe those things, I can live with peace and joy because I believe good is always coming my way, even in troubling circumstances.

Jesus believed that about the Father. I know he did because he slept through storms while others cried out. With small prayers he confidently took a few scraps of bread and fish and fed thousands. He walked on stormy seas and faced hostile leaders with the confidence that God would send a legion of angels to defend Him if requested. He walked confidently through crowds bent on his destruction because he knew that his appointed hour to suffer had not come and the Father would allow no harm to come to him until then. In the midst of a world in war and turmoil, he possessed peace.

But what about us?  How often do we worry day after day about having enough because we are not certain God will provide?  How many of us are “high on control” in our life and relationships as a means of self-protection because we doubt that God will protect us?  How many of us are plagued by anxiety and persistent fears of abandonment?  How many of us believe in our heads that we are children of the King, but believe in our hearts that we are orphans living on our own, left to meet our own needs, and always on the brink of disaster…about to lose whatever is precious to us?

Knowing who we are in Christ and believing it in our hearts is critical in every circumstance.  If we could answer “Yes” to each of those questions at a heart level, then peace would rule our emotions.  Paul prayed that God would give the church at Ephesus the Spirit of wisdom and revelation that they might know God better.  Many of us have aspirational faith in the character and promises of God but our actual faith lags behind. How do we know? Just look at what we do and feel consistently rather than what we say. We need these essential truths revealed to our hearts more than we need them deposited in our heads.  That is the work of the Spirit who reveals truth to God’s people.

Why did Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit in the Garden? Satan convinced them that God wasn’t always good and didn’t always love them completely. Convinced that God was withholding good things, they took and they ate. How often do we too disregard God’s commands and go our own way in an effort to meet our desire for love, our need for security or our hunger for significance? We do that while we claim to love God and trust him completely. I’m not exempt from failing to fully trust God for all things at all times either. It is the human condition but one for which faith is the cure.

What we need is a daily revelation of God’s presence, his power, his love, and his goodness toward us. Ask the Holy Spirit every day to write “yes” on your heart to each of those three questions so that you can live with the peace and confidence of Jesus. Ask him to give you eyes to see God’s goodness and faithfulness in your life each day. And as Paul prayed, may the Lord give you His Spirit of wisdom and revelation today and everyday so that you may know Him better (Eph.1:17).