Moving Past Devastation

So, the Bible study at church this morning continued off of last week.  Beth Moore continued talking about getting past our devastation (anger and fear of God).  She said a few things that really spoke to me.  One of the most significant things that Beth said is that the greatest work that God will ever do in your life is on the other side of devastation.  It was noted in the Bible that David’s most passionate worship to God came on the other side of devastation.

 While Scott’s death could never be interpreted as good here on earth, God promises that ALL things work together for good.  Sometimes this promise makes me angry at God and keeps me in the devastation.  I think that in my humanness I often feel that by accepting that promise, I am saying that whatever happened was good.  Then I hold on to guilt, anger, and fear toward God.  It is a choice to trust God and claim the promise that God is good.  Obviously this is not an easy step, particularly when going through devastation.  I cannot say that this has been an easy step for me, yet when I look back over the last few years I see God’s hands all over my life, preparing me, strengthening me for what was to come.  It is only in seeing God’s hands in my life that I find the strength to take the steps past the devastation.  For if He cared enough for me to prepare me and strengthen me for this devastation, then how can I not trust him to continue to take care of me and prepare me for the future journey.

Beth shared, “Your God has good things for you – not painless things for you, good things for you.”  Too often as Christians we expect our lives to be a bed of roses.  But if we look at the lives of the men of God in the Bible, their lives were far from easy, sometimes challenging as a result of their disobedience and sometimes challenging for other reasons – sometimes unknown at the moment.  Beth made an interesting point – Life is hard, but it is not going to be less hard by remaining angry at God.  Anger and fear of God remove the most tremendous strength and support in our lives – I would say that life is hard and remaining angry at God is only going to make it harder.  It is a choice every day to step out in faith and say, “Today I am going to trust God in everything.”  Trust me, I have days when I would love to just stay in bed, pull the blankets over my head, and just pout.  My life hasn’t turned out the way that I hoped, but if I think that I know better than God, then He isn’t God, He is just a puppet.  I don’t know about you, but I want a God who is God – if I can explain Him, then He isn’t God.  In order to have a true God, I have to trust that He knows more and better than I do, and have faith that He has wonderful plans for me.  I am so thankful that my God is trustworthy.