My immediate reaction to those disappointments was much the same as what I see in other people as they struggle through disappointments in their lives...God, where are you?! Those of us who have been in church most of our lives can easily quote Deuteronomy 31:6 " Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you" But the truth is during those times of disappointment early in my walk in relationship with God, I didn't believe it! I would cry out to God with that same verse asking where He was. I wanted so badly to believe He was beside me, but honestly, I felt alone and abandoned. I had head knowledge....I wanted to believe what God's Word said, but my circumstances just didn't speak to that. My experience was not lining up with truth.
When that happens, our immediate human nature response is to throw out "truth"! Our experiences must be what is accurate in our human, world-based mind, so we come to the conclusion that the "truth" has to be wrong. And that is the biggest lie from the pit of hell! It is exactly what the enemy wants us to believe. Because when we begin to believe that our experience trumps truth, we start to doubt God. If satan can start us on the path of doubting God, he can unravel just about any part of our faith and our testimony.
When we face disappointments, and view them through our flesh, through our experience, through our circumstance we are left with three conclusions:
- I didn't hear God right in the first place
- God is not trust worthy
- God doesn't really exist
Can I be honest? I have entertained all three of those conclusions at times of disappointment in my life. After I came home from Sierra Leone without Eden, number 3 was my conclusion. I was ready to walk away from God. I was so close to the line of denouncing God and going about my days living life for what felt good and right to the senses, to doing what made me "happy"! But that is why God says we are to live by faith and not by sight! I praise God that in that exact time, I was reading Captivating. I had amazing people in my life to speak truth during that time right after I returned without my daughter. But I wouldn't talk to them. I knew what they would say, and frankly, I didn't want to hear it! But for some reason, I kept reading this book which is evidence that God will use whatever He can to reach us in our time of despair and need! In Captivating, the author speaks of a woman who is so at ease with herself because she finds her strength and identity in the Lord that women are at ease with themselves in her presence. I don't remember the exact wording, but it spoke of being able to "breath" in this woman's presence because there was room to breath based on her ability to rest in God. I didn't know about all the God parts of that woman, but I knew deep down, throwing out all morals, all laws, all boundaries, the thing I wanted more than anything else in life was to be that woman! As soon as that thought came over me, a still small voice said, "And how do you think you will be that woman without me?" And that began my journey back to God.
The next steps of faith were harder to take as I didn't want to experience disappointment. I struggled for almost a decade with how to handle when walking by faith didn't produce anything I thought I would see! But God was so faithful to continue to write and perfect my faith through calling me to acts that would test my ability to trust Him. To be able to handle disappointment and not turn all the emotions of that disappointment into disappointment in God.
I was watching the Bethel sermon from last Sunday, March 17, 2013. If you are struggling through any disappointments, I would highly encourage you to watch it! And Bill Johnson said, "God's ability to redeem hellish situations is so profound, the Church has jumped to conclusions assuming God designed the hellish situation....We must distinguish between what God approved, what he ordained, and what the enemy meant for evil." That is profound people! Until we can do that, we will never fully trust God. Until we can do this, the enemy will always taunt us with questions of whether God is truly good or whether we can truly trust God. Until you have walked through horrible situations and can say without a doubt God is good and can be trusted, the enemy will call those truths into question in your mind. Bill goes on to say that death, loss and destruction are the enemy's fingerprints. God can absolutely, and he does in amazing ways, use those circumstances to draw people to Him or to transform His people, but they are not from him!
One of the statements that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck this past week was about adoptions situations and when they don't go as we plan. The statement pretty well said just accept it. It was God's will. I just wanted to scream, "NO! IT'S NOT!" God is a God of restoration, healing, life! Anything that is death, destruction and loss is from the enemy! Does God allow those things, yes! Will I ever understand why He allows them? Not fully...His ways are not mine...or yours! But when we fall into the thinking that those events, those circumstances that bring death, loss and destruction were His ordained will, we have created god who is not to be trusted. We create a god who is not love. We create a god who is not faithful. And that is not the God I serve!
It has taken me nearly 10 years to be able to write this post with confidence and absolute belief! Meaning, I know in my core, I have experienced in my inner being that even when things don't go as planned, God is good! God is trustworthy! God is faithful! I could quote the scripture before, but it was just empty words....now those words are supported with belief and "knowing"! It took "losing" another daughter to get to that point.
To be continued.....
No comments:
Post a Comment