When God Doesn't Make Sense

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. ***No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.***  Psalm 84:11 (emphasis mine)

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."  Jeremiah 29:11

Last night was one of the worst nights of RLS I've had in a while. I've finally been able to see a doctor and get some medicine to help and yet last night I felt like I was in a battle. I may have been laying in bed physically but spiritually and mentally I was fighting. It could've been the Wendy's I ate yesterday. It could've been an attack of the enemy knowing today was church day. Whatever it was, it really messed me up. When it was finally time to get up this morning, feeling bleary-eyed and half-dead, I thought to myself "There's no way I'm going to church like this."

I was angry. I was bitter. "Why do You allow me to go through this?!" I yelled at God. If He wants me to be at church, I thought to myself, He's going to have to start helping me get some sleep. Then I did what I normally do when the world doesn't make sense and I need my Father to make sense of it for me. I began to pour out my heart in my prayer journal.

Teary-eyed, I began to remind Him of His promises about not withholding good (Psalm 84:11) and having plans for welfare and NOT harm for me (Jeremiah 29:11). I wanted Him to see that He was not holding up His end of the bargain. But as I continued to write and remind HIM of these promises something amazing happened. I also began to be reminded of them. And instead of a bitter, fist-shaking rant toward my Father, it began to turn into something gentler, something that made a little more sense than my chaotic ramblings.

It was as if the communication direction changed. Instead of from me to Him, it began to flow from Him to me, You see, when I began to offer up the deepest cries of my heart the Lord began to remind me of His truth. When we see painful circumstances and heartache around us we begin to think our world is out of alignment with God's word. But this is not the truth.

Sometimes, what we think is good and right and true, is actually not. Sometimes what we think the plan should be, is not God's plan. When we make the choice to follow Jesus (though it's really HIS choice we just come to realize it) we have to be prepared to let go of our ideals of what a "good" life looks like.

I know, it's hard to imagine a God who loves us allowing us any pain or trouble. But yet it remains a fact of life. The difference is, when you walk through the heartache and the trials with Jesus, you have a fortress, a foundation, and a refuge to run to. You are not alone and you are not helpless.

Sometimes His "plans" for our lives may include hard things. We can either chose to tun away from Him in bitterness and anger and be no worse or better off than we were before. But we can also choose to turn TOWARD Him. We can chose, as Psalm 91 says, to find refuge under His wings. When we do that is when we will find strength and joy that we so desperately search for. And not a strength that comes from our resolve to put on a smile a "fake it till we make it". No, a strength that comes from the Holy Spirit within us. The same power that rose Jesus Christ from the dead is the same power and strength and joy that will carry us through even the valley of the shadow of death.

Life throws things at us that make us want to run and hide. Sometimes you just have to make the choice of where you want to run.