Life is hard. How often we forget that this is the way it is supposed to be. We push against the difficult circumstances in our lives instead of allowing them to work God’s character in us. We act as if the good life is what we deserve. Even the good life we will enjoy in heaven is not what we deserve, so what business do we have assuming everything will be easy down here?
Everything we are going through is for a purpose. God does not waste any experiences on us; He uses everything. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28). There are no qualifiers on this. It doesn’t say everything except the stupid things we do, or everything except when we blow it, or everything except for our sin; it just says “everything.” No exceptions.
The only reason this isn’t always tremendously good news for us is the little clause: “according to his purpose for us.” We forget that it is His purpose that is being worked out in our lives, and the only time this would be a problem is when His purpose is not necessarily ours. At issue here is who defines the success, fulfillment and purpose we are seeking — our culture or the Lord?
We get into a lot of trouble when we use our culture’s definition of fulfillment and apply it to our understanding of God’s purpose for our lives. We often assume God is blessing us when things are going great, and God is cursing us when things are going poorly when the opposite could very well be the case. God’s hand and his love are hidden in the difficult things. We should actually be wary when things are “easy,” for this world is not our home nor is it a place to seek the comforts of life. These are culturally, not spiritually defined.
The spiritual things in our lives have to do with what builds character in us, and these are most often the more difficult things. “We can rejoice, too,” says Paul in Romans 5:3&4 (NLT), “when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us — they help us learn to endure. And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation.”
So when things are not going well for you, stop and remember: God has something good in mind.
John Fischer The Catch 
Just caught a snippet of a piece CNN was doing (didn’t get to actually watch it, unfortunately) called “Where Was God in Aurora?”. Kind of gave me chills, just imagining some of the things that were going to be said by all sorts of folks, believers, non-believers, scientists, psychiatrists, atheists, etc. There are hard things we’ll never ever be able to reconcile, and certainly not in words that make sense even to ourselves sometimes.
Sometimes it’s hard to explain the “why” and keep it separated from the “what God will do with what happened”. We don’t want to think of ourselves as “puppets”, yet at a moment like this, we want to expect God to intervene dramatically.
Went to a friend and fellow Christian’s funeral Saturday after she lost a brave fight with cancer. Why she had cancer, I don’t know. What God did through her cancer, the evidence was in the room… many people were touched by her as she went through treatment. She truly felt God used her cancer to reach others. I worry when people go as far as to say “God gave her cancer”… I admit that I have looked at many situations and said “why”, without ever coming up with a good answer to those asking.
We are not promised that we will now, or ever know why. But we are expected to keep on believing. While all of Job’s friends kept trying to answer the why question, Job was just trying to believe. They distracted him quite a bit. We should spend more time helping people believe than trying to answer questions outside of our jurisdiction anyway.
Oh John! I would say to your closing remark, “That’s easy for YOU to say,” except that I know you are speaking from your own past and current experiences. I would add that Paul tells us to be CONTENTin whatever state we are in; he doesn’t say anything about “happy.” Happy is a fleeting emotion based on our circumstances, but being CONTENT is something much more, based on something much deeper and endures beyond our circumstances of the moment. It’s like being a little kid walking through a forest at night – it’s dark, maybe cold, and briars tear at me as I walk past them; the bugs are biting and I hear the noises of creatures that could rip me asunder and gobble me up. I’m probably NOT happy about it, but I’m walking with my DAD and He’s got the FLASHLIGHT, so I can be content knowing that sooner or later, He’ll get me Home.
John:
Thanks! I need that reminder – every day.
TimC
Although, i truly would not want nor wish to add an Amen to this: “So when things are not going well for you, stop and remember: God has something good in mind.” simply becauz i can easily and very plainly see the truth in it. i know for me it goes back to the early eighties when i was in bad car accident and went into a coma for a few months and when, thx be to God, I a-woke from it and while i was laying in bed, before that happened, I was force to look up and how many nights did I just cry myself to sleep not knowing where I was, or what had happen to me. All I knew was I would everyday see these people in white coats, so to me I thought, Ok it finally happed, I took my beliefs a bit too seriously and became a “Jesus Freak” LOL as my Dad and some friends used to jokinly (sp) call me, yet one night as I was crying myself to sleep and struggling w/ what had happen to me, before i woke-up, i simply didn’t know where i was and an old Gospel song came to mind: “The Chains that seem to bind you, will drop helplessly behind you, when you praise the Lord”
I did that and the very next day I awoke from the coma. Then back a few years ago when I had the stroke, so again I’m laying in a hospital bed forced to look up. All I could think was what the darn is going on w/ me now Lord!?! Yet just like from the time in the coma and it wound up being a great big blessing, because my car insurance had to pay me close to $500 a week for 3 years, so needless to say that paid for my college education, or a major part of it. (Oh it’s Michigan law that a car insurance company has to pay 95% of a person salary for three years and I just happened to go back to work full time as an auto body repair man in an Auto Body Collision Repair shop a few weeks after having to stop attending college because a lack of funds, so God solved that! 🙂
And now in talking to a number of athlete trainers and coaches they tell me, Mark not only are you offering a product that’s guaranteed to help an athlete w/ their performance, or their money back – You’re also are offering them a way to be blessed more by helping you work your way off of disability income and believe them, the players don’t get a lot of that where someone is wanting to help them as athlete, plus promise to give them exceptional customer service and work their way off of disability…
So now i’m trying to see my storke as a blessing – i wrote all of that too long message to say, Dear Pastor John and his gorgeous & lovely wife Marti i know y’all are going through some hard times, i’ll jus offer all of the encouragement I can, that our Savoir knows, sees and cares what the Fisher family is going through and I believe and know: this too shall pass! And I believe you’ll come out of this with flying colors! Amen 🙂
Thanks Mark. You are so dear and so faithful.
Your welcome my good brother-in-the Lord Pastor John and let me plz add this, I seen it on FaceBook the other day and thought it may fit: “When you are going through something hard and wonder where God is, remember the teacher is always quiet during a test.”
God gives some happiness, occasional joy and sometimes sheer ecstasy, but he never gives us a lifelong settled happiness for He knows that then we don’t need Him. (C.S. Lewis) In the midst of troubles the first thing God has in mind is that we seek Him and further deepen our relationship with Him. I see evidence of this John and Marti in the Catches that have been written since your financial troubles surfaced on this medium. The Catches have been awesome! So something good has already come out of a situation that is not going well. Wow what is yet to come!
Through circumstances in my life God has shown me that living in the humanly impossible allows God to do His best work and He gets all the glory. He also has something good for me as you so aptly state. If it deepens my relationship with God it is enough. The heat of my troubles have many times tempted me to bail on God. By not bailing He has shown me how to look through my troubles and see the good. John you and Marti have done that via excruciating pain, you look for the good. James 1:2 Count it all joy when trials come, is one of the weirdest verses in the Bible. Yet the rewards are great when one can do that verse.
Your Nothing is Impossible with God fund raising campaign was innovative, authentic and humble, better said it was beautiful. I can’t wait to read the catch every morning to see what God has laid on your heart to share with us.
So something good will continue to come out of a situation that is not going well!
Thank you, Peter. This is encouraging.