Friday, September 01, 2006 |
I have been making the point over and over again that what God does and what God allows to happen is completely out of our logic. I can't understand why God has been allowing me to be hurt the same way over and over again but I know that He has a purpose for it. While that doesnt make it any less painful, it's nice to know that every tear that I have shed has had a purpose and has gone towards making me stronger or making someone else stronger. I have a lot of choices that I can make. I can allow myself to believe and to feel anything that I want. Did Kim love me? Did Tiff love me? Did Kendra, or Tanya, or Amber... I can believe whatever I want. For some of those girls, it doesnt really matter. Honestly, to me at this point -- it doesnt matter. Romans 8:28 tells us that everything that happens works together for the good for those that serve God. There is no exclusion in that scripture saying that something bad happening to us is not working toward something better in the future. So how do I decide what to believe? Well, its a matter of listening to my heart. I believe that Kim loved me and I believe that Tiff loved me. Do either of them still love me? Well, thats something that I can't answer regarding Tiff right now but I can for Kim. I was struggling last night with how someone can really love you but not want to fight for you and it really hit me today... Kim loved me with her whole heart. When the attack came from her parents it clouded what she felt in her heart and two things are possible. Option 1 is that she lost sight of what was in her heart and option 2 is that because of the forces that opposed her, her heart was able to fall out of love with me. Either way, that does not have to dilute the fact that she did love me. But there is still a struggle with it. Why did God let this happen? Obviously what I said above applies here -- I cant fully understand because it's outside of our logic. But one thought came to my mind. "Skin for skin!" Satan replied. "A man will give all he has for his own life. But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face." The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life." -- Job 2:4-6 Undoubtedly, Job is one of the hardest books of the Bible to understand. And if you look at the above Scripture without considering the entire book of Job, it seems very odd. But the feelings that we have naturally as humans when we read the above Scripture are actually very hippocritical. Anyone who follows Christ wants to serve Him and wants Him to be glorified. We'll pray and tell God that we want to do anything we can to glorify Him -- unless it involves what we feel is unfair. Consider that when you want to buy something that is very important to you. You save your money and go buy that and what you buy is worth every penny that you spent. You dont think "That is so unfair that Wal Mart took all that money from me." We can understand the material so that we know that there is a price associated with what we want to purchase. So why is it that we can't understand that glorifying God comes with a price as well. God allowed satan to do some pretty nasty things to Job. I really believe that this is true today. I can just picture satan standing before God and saying "You know, Bob has failed you every other time someone broke his heart" and God responding by saying "Yes, that is true. But I love him and I have been working on him." A thought that is becomming more and more clear to me is the fact that God does allow bad things to happen to us -- but when He does, it is because He thinks very highly of us. It's because He knows that we are at a point that we are able to handle those things. What we often don't see is that these bad things are things that will produce some extreme glory for Him and if glorifying God really matters to us, then we need to understand that there is a price associated with that. The really awesome part is that it doesnt just stop there. God blesses us for what we go through. He allows us to learn from those problems and become even stronger people. The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. -- Job 42:12-15 Job was blessed more than he was before all of this happened and thats saying alot because Job was blessed very much even in the beginning. We understand the material ideas of buying things at a store but imagine what it would be like if you spent thousands of dollars to Wal Mart over years and years of shopping and all of a sudden Wal Mart called you and said "you've have done great in helping us raise our profits so as a reward, we want to refund all of your money for everything you ever bought here and we also want to give you a $5,000 gift card." That is beyond human logic but it is exactly what God does for us. It doesnt mean that we didnt work to earn money for those things that we bought. It doesnt mean that we didnt suffer unfair things at our jobs to earn that money. It was a reward -- something we didnt have to earn. None of this takes away the fact that I am in emotional pain right now and it doesnt take away the fact that when bad things happen to you you will be in pain as well. It doesnt even fully explain what is going on because this is all outside of our human logic. Maybe it helps us understand a little bit more about why bad things happen to good people and why God allows us to be in pain. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. -- 1 Corinthians 13:12 (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
