I wish there were simple answers to all of life’s tough questions, but we often find that many of our questions cannot be packaged into a box that is easily and neatly tied up. This is a question that is difficult. What we discover in our lives is that as we strive to follow God we have this sense that life should get easier, but our experience is that many times life gets even harder. This leads to us questioning if God is mad at us or if we have misunderstood God’s leading:
Here is another cause of deep perplexity for Christian people…. They have set off along the road which God seemed to indicate. And now, as a direct result, they have run into a crop of new problems which otherwise would not have arisen—isolation, criticism, abandonment by their friends, practical frustrations of all sorts. At once they grow anxious. …Is their own present experience of the rough side of life (they ask themselves) a sign from God that they are themselves like Jonah, off track, following the path of self-will rather than the way of God?
It may be so, and the wise person will take occasion from his new troubles to check his original guidance very carefully. Trouble should always be treated as a call to consider one’s ways. But trouble is not necessarily a sign of being off track at all…[as the Bible] teaches in particular that following God’s guidance regularly leads to upsets and distresses which one would otherwise have escaped. Examples abound.
God guided Israel by means of a fiery and cloudy pillar that went before them; yet the way by which he led them involved the nerve-shredding cliffhanger of the Red Sea crossing….
Jesus’ disciples were twice caught by night in bad weather on the Sea of Galilee, and both times the reason why they were there was the command of Jesus himself.
[Paul] told the Ephesian elders whom he met on his way, “I am going to Jerusalem, bound in the Spirit, not knowing what shall befall me there; except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.” So it proved to be: Paul found trouble on the grand scale through following divine guidance.
…For a final example and proof of the truth that following God’s guidance brings trouble, look at the life of the Lord Jesus himself. No human life has ever been so completely guided by God, and no human being has ever qualified so comprehensively for the description “a man of sorrows.” Divine guidance set Jesus at a distance from his family and fellow townsmen, brought him into conflict with all the nation’s leaders, religious and civil, and led finally to betrayal, arrest and the cross.
…By every human standard of reckoning, the cross was a waste—the waste of a young life, a prophet’s influence, a leader’s potential. We know the secret of its meaning and achievement only from God’s own statements. Similarly, the Christian’s guided life may appear as a waste—as with Paul, spending years in prison because he followed God’s guidance to Jerusalem, when he might otherwise have been evangelizing Europe the whole time. Nor does God always tell us the why and wherefore of the frustrations and losses which are part and parcel of the guided life.
Sooner or later, God’s guidance, which brings us out of darkness into light, will also bring us out of light into darkness. It is part of the way of the cross.
But thankfully, what I have found in my own experience is that even though I might be taken to difficult places by the guiding hand of God, the great news is that He not only holds my hand taken me to there, but he also never lets go as He leads me through them.
And there is a purpose for me going through it, even if I don’t understand it right now. I just have to trust Him even when I can’t see the end result.
I also need to remember that the purpose may not be about me, but rather about building up His kingdom. Since I have pledged my life to be His servant and to build His kingdom, then even if my life is crushed in the process, I am to be willing to be crushed for His sake.
I agree with the words of a song: “I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus, than to walk in the light of my own. I’d rather go through the valley of the shadow with Him, than to dance on the mountains alone.” The Christian life is tough. It is not for the weak… it is for the courageous. It is for those with the courage to follow God even when the path isn’t clear and even when the road is rough.
(Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer, and from Wayne Watson’s song: Walk in the Dark)