“Life Is Full of Trouble”
by brian rushing
If life was able to be ordered at the drive-thru window, we’d say something like: “God, I want combo #1… the Trouble-Free Life with the side of popularity and success. Leave off the pain, problems, and frustrations. Oh, and be sure to add lots of extra cash. And go ahead and Supersize it!”
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.
Life is not Burger King. You can’t “Have it your way.”
But when we don’t get our way, and instead find ourselves on a path full of pain, heartache, and trouble, we often get disappointed with God. We wonder, “Why, God? Why is this happening to me? Why aren’t you keeping me happy?” When we have taken the false view that God’s job in our lives is to keep us happy, we’ll find that disappointment overtakes us quickly.
“But this idea of God’s intention is a complete mistake: God’s wisdom is not, and never was, pledged to keep a fallen world happy, or to make ungodliness comfortable. Not even to Christians has he promised a trouble-free life; rather the reverse. He has other ends in view for life in this world than simply to make it easy for everyone.”
Well that’s not what I want to hear!
If that’s the case, then what is His plan for my life?
If His plan for my life is not MY happiness, then what should I be looking for?
Maybe J. I. Packer has it right when he tells us that God is working for His Happiness.
It is staggering that God should love sinners; yet it is true. God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the objects of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused. God loves people because he has chosen to love them and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure.
God was happy without humans before they were made; he would have continued happy had he simply destroyed them after they had sinned; but as it is he has set his love upon particular sinners, and this means that, by his own free voluntary choice, he will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again till he has brought every one of them to heaven.
God is always working, but it is not toward my temporary happiness on earth based on a trouble-free life. Rather, God is working toward my eternal happiness based on me being with Him forever. And I have to learn that it is not my circumstances that bring me true joy and pleasure in this life, but rather it is my relationship and daily walking with Him. So trouble-free living living isn’t the goal that He has for me on this earth… walking with Him in contentment is.
How well am I walking in contentment with Him?
(Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)