Often, when speaking with people who are in the middle of suffering and trials, I hear the narrative of someone who believes they are being wronged by God. The sentence, “Why would God let this happen?” comes up so many times, and I see anger flickering in their eyes.
I understand this: wanting to blame God for the shortcomings of this evil world and believing that He has left us. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so much pain and suffering in this life. Right? Wrong. God does not will us to go through challenges and hurt. Rather, we live in a broken and devastated world in which the enemy is running rampant and trying to lead us down dark paths of destruction. Jesus is the one that shows us that light and love are surrounding us despite the trouble we are going through.
God does not put trials into our lives just because He can. Nor does He sit by and watch as we struggle. Rather, God allows adverse situations to fall into our lives to test our faith so we may see how deep it runs. God knows how faithful we are, but we do not always know it ourselves.
When people begin to explain how angry they are with God because of their situation, I encourage them to find the gift within it. I prompt others to believe that God is not the creator of agony or despair; rather, the enemy brings forth hatred and pain. God is the way to finding safety, healing, peace, and joy.
Our God is not hateful or scornful or full of spite. He is LOVE and LIGHT.
It is not Jesus who is bringing pain to the world. Instead, God is healing and bringing people to know His name as a father and friend.
I have had many people ask me how I have held on to faith after everything I have gone through. I wish I could give a cut and dry answer. I wish I could say that my faith is constant 100% of my life. Sadly, it often takes me falling just a little bit into an adverse situation for me to begin to lean on God and open my eyes to Him. I am strong-willed and stubborn, which propel me to continue walking down dark paths until God really sits me down, forcing me to listen. He allows me to see the destruction my life will end in if I follow my humanness and not Jesus.
Yet I find that God is faithful enough to hold me while showing me my wrongdoing and guiding my next steps to know Him and find healing.
When I find myself in the middle of the fire, my eyes are lifted to see how great God is and that there is nobody besides Jesus who can walk me out of the fire safely. I have several personal testimonies of how this faithfulness has saved me. God has been my strongest fighter through periods of loneliness, seasons of rejection, great transitions, struggles with anxiety or depression, and my battle with an eating disorder. He is my steady rock.
When I asked for a burning bush, He showed me that He was there the whole time while I struggled to find clarity. When I prayed for any sign as to who God truly is, He provided answers from the people closest to me. When I needed to find connections, He sent me to churches and gave me the courage to talk with others. When I needed comfort, He brought me pastors and the best health technicians I could ever know. When I needed a sign, He sent repetition and songs and words. When I needed answers as to where I was to go for treatment, He gave me names and personal testimonies, He had my pastor and His wife come to me, and He put up signs all through my life.
Through every rough situation I have felt stuck in, I have seen God’s hand in it all. He is the one who provides a way when I see no way because my human eyes can only see what is right in front of me. There is no single way to explain the amount of love I feel when Christ has been the one to hold me up by the smallest strands of my will.
I have found faith in my darkest moments because I see how God is walking with me no matter what happens. I cannot flee from it, and nothing can pluck me from it. In the middle of the fire, Jesus is the one who is holding my hand through it all.
I find gratitude in God’s faithfulness to me. He never leaves my side and has always provided a way for me to be redeemed.
Each time I walk out of my fire, I can look back and see that it is by faith alone that I was able to hang on to Jesus and come out the other side. I now look at my current walk of life and dedicate it to living faithfully to Christ by Jesus’ example. I am determined to have faith in the fire and faith in freedom.