I walked into the house with my box tucked under my arm and
I began to weep. Kristy came over to me
and asked me what had happened. I told
her that I just lost my job. I had a mortgage, a car, a wife, a 2 year old son
and no income. I was devastated to say
the least, but I had decided that it wasn’t going to get the best of me. The
very next day I began searching for a new job. I woke up everyday with a
pressed shirt and determination in my step to find more income. However, at the end of four months I had no
job and no more savings. It was right then that I began to doubt! I began to doubt myself, my decisions and my
God.
We all have stories like this in our life. We come to the end of the road and the
unpredictability of life sneaks up on us leaving us to question what is going
on.
Life actually is fair.
It will bite all of us at one time or another. Deuteronomy 28:66 says it this way; “So your
life shall hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day,
and shall have no assurance of your life.” There have been seasons in
our life that we could not have said it any better!
We often say, “God, why did you let that happen to me?” We begin to doubt God because He has let us
down.
In actuality what happens is that we have put our trust in
every other thing except God. We put our
trust in our own abilities only to be let down when we don’t perform the way we
should. We put our trust in other people
only to be let down when they aren’t there for us in critical times. We put our
trust in our money only to be let down when the well runs dry. Children who have suffered abuse from their
parents doubt any other relationship that comes into their life. People who have been divorced doubt the next
love of their life. People who have
watched a loved one die doubt the reasoning behind it. Everywhere we go it seems like doubt is
always there to welcome us home. Life just has a way of making us doubt.
It is easy to blame God when bad things happen. We tend to view God as some sort of cosmic
vending machine that is supposed to keep everything in order for us so that our
lives can remain as comfortable as possible.
But God doesn’t work that way.
Actually God uses doubtful situations in our life to draw us closer to
Him. God’s desire is to move us
away from artificial faith and into authentic faith.
Artificial faith is anything man made and we tend to put our trust in those things. The things
we can create and control because they are tangible. Authentic
faith, however, is a faith that cannot be shaken by any of life’s circumstances. Why would God allow us to camp out in our
artificial faith when we could have the real deal?
He loves us enough to move our faith beyond our
circumstances.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways
declares the Lord. As the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts
than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
In moments of uncertainty it is impossible for us to know what God is doing in our lives
but as long as our trust is in Him then we have no reason to doubt our
circumstances. Let’s move beyond the
artificial and into the authentic faith that God is good and He is who He says
He is. He is on your side.
He is our strong
tower. A place of refuge and strength.
Psalm 61:3