Day 2896 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 5:3 NIV

Do we truly trust in God? Like really trust Him? As much as we say we do? With our lives? With our hopes? With our eternities? With everything?

You see, we claim that we do. We share all these upbeat and uplifting quotes and little images speaking to our trust in Him. In fact, many of the messages shared in our faith are aimed at testifying to our trust of the One in whom we worship. We offer all of this praise to the God who did all that He has done in order to secure our freedom, our forgiveness, our salvation. Forever. But, still it somehow seems incomplete when viewed in combination with our reactions to life's difficulties.

If we truly believe that God is the God who loves, who saves, who heals, who redeems and revives, then why is it that we seemingly find no issue in resorting to all of the complaining that we do when faced with one of life's more challenging moments? Why, if we actually believe that God is truly good, truly faithful, truly kind and compassionate and caring, then why do we not trust Him to have a point and purpose for even the hard days?

We humans are indeed a strange bunch. We take the good days, the undeserved blessings, the wonderful experiences and joyful memories for granted. We assume them to be some sort of debt to which we're owed. We see life's good days as what should be the normal outcome, the usual standard, the status quo. We expect comfort, peace, calmness, provision, and prosperity.

And we loathe the days that don't go according to that expectation. We hate the moments of hardship and hassle. We rage against God for leading us into the desert where our preferred comforts and riches are stripped away. We find ourselves overwhelmingly filled with doubt and discontent when the clouds roll in, the winds pick up and the rains start falling because we think they're only ruining what had been a perfectly wonderful, bright and sunny day.

So what it is? What's the truth? Do we really believe in God to be a good God with good purposes aimed at our growth? Do we trust Him to have a reason for the stormy seasons that life holds? Do we find ourselves not only willing to endure the sufferings we face, but to actually glory in them, find joy in them, be thankful for them?

Or are we fair-weather followers of what's really nothing more than an expectation of perfect outcomes and a reason for unhappiness when those outcomes are inevitably imperfect?

Do we see God as nothing more than a genie in a bottle that exists only to ensure our health, wealth, peace and prosperity? Or is He the God who is willing to sacrifice His Son for the greater good of all creation?

The truth is that we can't separate the two as we so often attempt. We can't have just a God who is good, who sends us blessings, who answers our prayers, who wakes us up every morning to another picture-perfect day free from the true misery we've honestly earned. Because He's not a God who simply exists for our benefit. He is a God who orders, purposes, defines, ordains, and conducts everything as He sees fit according to His perfect will.

Truth be told, He is both a God who heals and a God who wounds. He saves and He destroys. He loves and He hates. He is the God of both the good days and the ones that we selfishly consider not so good. He brings the rain as well as the sunshine. Where is this foolishness coming from that has us willing to detest one half of who He is, one half of what He does, and one half of what we experience? It can only come from this sense of entitlement that we've long accepted.

We feel as though He owes us something, when in reality, all we really deserve is the miserable death we see Christ suffering upon the cross. All we are really owed is a date with destruction brought about by our adamant refusal to humble ourselves before our Maker. When we got it in our heads that God owes us this perfect life we like to envision, I don't know. But I know when we should let that foolishness go. And that's right now.

If we believe that God is a God who can raise the dead, then surely we can trust Him to break us down a little bit if it means raising us up better and stronger than before. If we believe that He can heal, then surely we can trust Him to lead us through the fire in order to refine us. If He is truly a good God, which we claim to believe Him to be, then why do we have such disdain for the things that He has ordained to make us better?

The simple fact is that a garden doesn't grow if there isn't any rain. Plants can't grow unless the seeds split apart allowing the shoots to scratch toward the surface. We can't appreciate healing if we're never wounded. We can't understand peace if we've not endured hardship. We won't know salvation until we're on the brink of destruction. And we can't fully know God until we're in this place where all we have left is Him.

That's where He leads us. That's the purpose of life's deserts. That's the reason for the pruning. It's all to help strip away the things we'd rather hold onto so that we can finally understand that He is all we really need. The hardships we face are there to help us realize we cannot rely on our own strength. The challenges we endure offer us amazing opportunities to experience His faithfulness, His healing, His provision, His protection.

But so often we look at those challenges as the enemy of our peace when in reality, they're the perfectors of our peace. That’s because we can't know His peace until we're forced to rely on Him to be the peace that we can’t find anywhere else. And what better way to learn to rely on Him than when everything is falling apart and there's nothing we can do about it?

That's why we not only can but should glory in our sufferings. Because they offer us a window to see God in a way that easy days and calm moments and tranquil lives simply can't offer. They allow us to do more than imagine His healing, His redemption, His promises. They allow us to experience them! The sufferings we face in this life give us the chance to actually experience faith rather than simply thinking about it or talking about it.

We have to break out of this mindset that has us categorizing everything based only on the temporary comfort or benefit we personally think it has. This isn't on us to figure out, to define, to understand. Our only role in this story is to fully trust the One writing it. And if we do, if we really do trust God to be who He says He is and who we say we believe He is, then we should be thankful for every moment of every day of this entire ride.

Because, whether we think it good or bad, it's all unfolding according to His will. And if we really do trust in that will, then we should know that it's all for our good.

Contrary to all this foolish entitlement that we've chosen to accept, life doesn't have to be easy to be good. It doesn't have to be free from pain to have purpose. It's simply not about what we think benefits us at the moment. It's all about what makes us better in the end. And, to put it bluntly, if God sees fit to break us apart so that we lose all this selfishness and entitlement and arrogance and vanity and pride and greed and gluttony and ignorance, then we should be unspeakably thankful for it.

All because He does what needs to be done to make the ends of the will meet as He planned and purposed before our time on this earth even began. If He has been holding all of creation in His hands since He started the clock of life, then surely we can trust that He knows what He's doing.

But do we? Will we? Will we walk by faith when our eyes see only mountains to climb blocking our way? Will we walk by faith when the path ahead calls us out of the boat? Will we walk by faith when we, like many who have gone before us, find ourselves on trial, enduring persecution, facing prison, even being threatened by those who still deny Him?

Friends, I don't know who came up with this idea that a life of faith frees us from all pain or suffering or confusion or hardship or challenge. But it's a lie we simply have to stop referring back to when life gets hard. God sent Christ to die for our sins. Do we really expect Him to now hold back on doing what needs to be done to continue the good work that He began in us?

Seems kind of stupid if you ask me!

He is the still the same God who asked Abraham to sacrifice the son he had yearned for. He's the same God who watched Joseph's brothers ship him off to Egypt. The same God who told Noah to build the ark. The same God who was with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fire. The same God in the lion's den. The same God that provided manna in the desert.

He is the God of both the cross and the stone that was rolled away.

Do we trust Him on both sides?

That's what faith is all about my friends. It's not a ticket to a first-class ride all the way home without any stops or bumps or issues. It's not a means to bypass life's trials and tribulations. It's not a way to avoid suffering. It's a reminder that suffering has a purpose as it has been written into our story by the same hand that we trust is leading us toward Heaven's promise. Faith is a reminder that God is in control and working all things for the good of those who love Him.

Do we love Him enough to follow this narrow road into the fog of chaos and uncertainty? Like it or not, that's where this is heading. The life of a follower of Christ is one that has been promised to bring hardship and harassment. Rather than expecting otherwise simply because we arrogantly feel entitled to do so, maybe we should actually trust Him even when He leads us into a storm that destroys the ship we're sailing in.

As I've always said, our reward for our faith isn't an easy life. It's a home in Heaven where all the hardship and trial and pain and persecution is finally gone. Our reward is Christ and eternity in the presence of such a love that would lay down His life for us. If the road home is hard, so be it. Appreciate it. Embrace it. Glory in life's suffering because it's there to help us learn to endure to the very end, because it’s only at the finish line that we can fully and finally step into the hope that all of this is leading toward.

Anyone can find the joy in a good day. But if you can learn to find joy in the hard days, then you've found one of life's rare secrets to happiness and peace. Because it's in the hard days that we learn the most about ourselves, our faith, and our Father.

Don't wish those away just because they're not as much fun. Learn to appreciate what makes you better, not just what makes you comfortable. Because while suffering may not be very comfortable, it teaches us one very crucial lesson: To keep going. To never settle. To refuse misery the pleasure of distracting us from the prize to which we’ve been called. To never stop chasing every chance to grow our faith and learn the perseverance necessary to undertake this journey.

So may we learn to embrace the sufferings of life, because they’re nothing more than chances for us let God lead by helping us learn that only He can.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold