Can you trust God when everything falls apart? Do you trust God when the worst case scenario seems to be the running theme of your life?
I understand the appeal of the idea that God wants you healthy, wealthy, and good looking. But what happens when you are far from any of those signs of blessing? What happens when God says “no”?
You have a few options. You can throw your hands up and walk away from God. You can climb up on your judge’s bench and declare God to be unjust and walk away. Are we in any position to judge God?
You can become angry and bitter against God. You can have a controversy with God because He didn’t do things the way you wanted Him to. You might not walk away into paganism, but it’s just a dark place to be angry and bitter against him.
You can check out and give up. Give up on God, give up on your family, give up on life and harden your heart and jump feet first into eternity, or the bottle, or hedonism. Whatever – you are out.
The last option is the obviously the right option. You can trust Him. You recognize first of all that God sent you the trial. God didn’t want you to be healthy, He wanted you to be sick. God didn’t want you to have a flourishing business, he wanted you to be bankrupt. God didn’t want you to have a mega church ministry – God wanted you to flounder. How do I know? Because that is where you are. God is sovereign, is He not? Otherwise suffering is meaningless. There is a purpose to pain and sorrow.
God is Sovereign. God is good. When you can’t trust God in the hard times, you don’t really trust him. Do you believe what you say you do? Satan was wrong about Job, but would he be wrong about you? There are a lot of people who the Devil’s strategy would have worked and he would have been right. Take away health, wealth, family, and spouse – throw your hands up? Walk away? Check out? Curse God and die?
Job said, this hurts. This is confusing, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. But God is good and I trust Him. What are you going to do? Who are you going to turn to? What are you going to grab hold of for life and safety?
The furnace is hot and you have an appointment. If you are God’s child it is coming. You are going to be tested. You are going to be put through it. You’ll either be proved to be unfaithful, faithless, or found in Christ.
