Trusting God Regardless of our Circumstances

Early yesterday afternoon, I was quietly reflecting to myself just how godly, easy to relate with, loving, funny, and trusting of the Lord a certain woman in my life is. She also happens to be stunningly beautiful with a wonderful husband and four precious children.

So THEN I was thinking about how easy it would be for an outsider to look at her faith and her happiness and think, “Sure! If I were beautiful, happily married, with healthy children and a lovely home, I’d be a really happy person who loves and trusts God too. No problem.”

But outside appearances don’t show the REALNESS of her true happiness (BLESSED-ness). And her faith in God is surely not in response to an easy life. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Yes, she truly does radiate a confident assurance in the goodness and sovereignty of God–but it has come through the fires of suffering:

– Abandoned by an unbelieving spouse when she had a toddler;

– Remarried years later, the young couple was betrayed by Christians and experienced incredible financial setbacks as a result (and they did not retaliate legally even though they may have “prevailed” in the courts);

– Multiple miscarriages culminating with a happy and healthy pregnancy, only to have her child die in her arms only a few hours after being born.

I could actually go on, but I won’t.

It just all reminded me of today’s Slice of Infinity by Jill Carattini:

Draw Me Near

I hope that you will read the entire essay! And I’ll close with just a snippet to hopefully sufficiently tempt you:

“In The Problem with Pain, C.S. Lewis refers to pain as God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Convincingly, he explains what we know to be true of suffering, pain, and evil, what we know of the meaning offered in Christ’s suffering and the strength we are given to bear it when the peripheral questions of life are answered by a good God. Years later, in the pages of A Grief Observed, Lewis describes watching his wife lose her battle with cancer and wrestling with God through the pain. He is then writing as a man who bitterly, tortuously, and intimately knows what he knows to be true of God and evil, suffering and Christ though his soul is breaking.

Writes Lewis, “Your bid for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity, will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high.” He continues, “Nothing will shake a man–or at any rate a man like me–out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.”

I believe the first time I really and fearfully looked my faith in the eyes was while I was pounding my fists against the chest of God, half demanding, half pleading, to know why my father was dying. Those indelible days gave new meaning to Paul’s admonition, “Work out your salvation in fear and trembling.” In our prayers we cry, and in our hymns we sing, “Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord, To the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer, To Thy precious, bleeding side” but when the stakes are at their highest, do we really mean it? Have we counted that cost?”

May we trust God today, friends! No matter what.

Blessed Wednesday to you–

Yours,
Tara B.