Why, God, Why? Or... What?

We ask this question all the time. Why does this happen? Why me? Why right now? I am learning that although this question remains constant in every Christian's life, we must ask a more important question: God, what are you trying to show me?

In Isaiah 38, King Hezekiah was a faithful king, but he became very ill. God healed him, restored his health completely and gave him 15 years of life after his healing. Hezekiah became comfortable in his healing, in his gift of a miracle and became prideful. His pride led to his destruction when he allowed the Babylonians to see all the treasures of the kingdom. His guard was down. He thought he was something special for God to heal him, so he became flippant in his ways rather than more cautious.

I say all this to simply say that every person, even the godly, have issues that they need to constantly keep in check. Sometimes, we feel that we are doing the will of God, but we are the farthest thing from it. We say we love God, but when we neglect his word and turn to man for our direction and guidance. We are not loving God by doing this. It is the things that we don't even realize we are doing that get us into trouble. We conform to the ways of our culture. "This is this way. That is that way." "This is normal.......why isn't this happening in my life?" We begin to fall into a nature of conformity based on what our culture is telling us and criticize our lives on our fear of our life not being "normal."

Since when was normal part of God's plan? I don't believe he ever said that in his word. In fact, I believe he said that we would be a "peculiar people" which is the farthest thing from normal.

Back to my point.... when bad things happen, God is always trying to show you something through it. He tests your faith, your perseverance, your attitude, your prayer life, your earnestness in seeking his face, your hope, your love and your integrity. He tests ALL waters with you to see what you will do. Will you give into temptation or will you stray far away from what you know is not holy and pure? The things that don't please God.

In a time when your world is falling apart at the seams, you want to give up. You want to find other things to distract you from your problems, your issues, the reason that you're losing things in your life. You don't want to seek God, you just want to avoid the situation hoping it will resolve itself. Giving up is not an attitude to have. Giving in to the godless things of this world is also not the way for holiness and wisdom. God says that you must "offer your bodies as living sacrifices" so that THEN you will be able to see what his good pleasing and PERFECT will is for your life. When you are subjecting yourself to the things of the world and not seeking God's will and clarity for your life and decisions, you are deliberately disobeying the Father. Praying for God's direction is unacceptable when you are not pursuing holiness. When you are not sacrificing things that you know are wrong.

So, in a time when you want to ask the question "why?", ask God the question "what do you want me to do?" "what do you want me to learn from this?" Pray his discernment. God gave you a heart that feels so that it will lead you. He didn't create the feelings of the heart to lead you astray, they have just been corrupted by the enemy. If you are seeking Godly wisdom and guidance, you will be pure of heart and your heart will be able to guide you to what is right for your life.... in God's will.

written 11.5.2007