Today a friend of mine has been feeling so discouraged. My friend feels that she is doing all the right things, but bad things keep happening. All I could do was listen, as I couldn't provide much comfort in her situation. As I look at my own situation, there are some aspects worse and some better.
Why didn't God seem to be answering her prayers and this was something taking years and years, so it's not like it's something that just happened. What does a person do in this situation? Give up hope? Forsake God? What?
I was reminded of a woman many years ago. A Christian woman who was delivering food to a couple that needed food. They were sort of down & out and she was being kind, helping others less fortunate than her. I believe she did this through her church, but went alone on this. I do not know if there was a policy from this church about doing things like this alone or not, but she somehow didn't have a reason to fear.
This couple took the food, raped & tortured her for hours before killing her. A true story and that story has haunted me for over a decade. Why would this godly woman doing a good thing have to endure such a death? Did she do anything to deserve this? Of course not! Wrong place, wrong time.
What about all the little children at the Children's Hospital -- some with cancer, others with brain tumors or other fatal diseases that will kill them early in life? Do these children deserve this? Absolutely not.
So then, why does this happen?
What about the man who has cheated millions of dollars, people out of their pensions that took a lifetime to earn and still drives a beautiful luxury car living in a mansion, not having to pay a cent back nor serve time in jail? How fair is that?
Life is not always fair. Sometimes we are dealt hands that seem less than kind.
As an American living in America, there are many luxuries we have that others do not have in this world. For example, most places in America, you can get a meal to eat, at least once a day, even if you're homeless. Most areas have clean drinking water. There are millions of people who do not have clean drinking water, or at least not daily. Do those people deserve to not have clean drinking water that isn't contaminated with all sorts of diseases and yucky things that can kill you? I don't think so.
God did not create these injustices or this unfairness. God is good and can do no evil. It is just not possible for Him to do any evil, to cause people to suffer, be tormented. Satan is evil. He only does evil. There is no good in him. He is a liar and a deceiver. If something appears good and it is not, it is a deception and that is not from God.
I don't have the answers to how to help her, to help her turn her situation around, to get her to a better place. God doesn't work on our timetable, nor can we threaten or bribe God. I've tried it. It doesn't work. God is God and who am I to tell Him what to do. He is has the master vision and plan for my life and He knows what to do with it. He sees the big picture, when I see through my own hurts & filters, my brokenness.
There are some things the Bible does tell us to do. One of them is to draw closer to God and He will draw closer to you. That makes sense, right? It's not like God is playing chase with us. You chase Him and He gets further away.
How does one draw closer to God?
Psalm 100 says that we enter into God's courts with Thanksgiving and Praise. This isn't, well, God, I gave you thanks for getting me safely home, so now you have to do what I want. No, true thanksgiving & praise means that even in an undesirable situation, you thank Him for what you are learning and that God is giving you strength and whatever else is needed to get through things.
Have you ever noticed that although someone may say "thank you", they don't really mean it. And, then, there are others when they say "thank you", you know they really mean it. If we can discern such a thing, God who knows us inside out also can discern whether our gratitudes are sincere or not. I keep a gratitude journal now that's almost 4 yrs old with over 18,000 gratitudes. There have been some days that have been so challenging, when I would start writing my gratitudes for that day, I really didn't mean it because I really didn't feel thankful. However, I would force myself to continue writing until my heart, mind & spirit truly meant it. Sometimes this would mean finding over 50 things to be grateful for.
There are things that we sometimes just need to do whether we feel like it or not. We can have a stubborn attitude and resist, then we get nowhere. Or, we can submit and do it, and choose to change your attitude. What happens then? We then are able to often get into it and genuinely mean it. We then reap the benefits of making right choices.
I don't always feels like working out, but when I begin taking steps to actually workout, I find that once I get going, I'm fine. Day-by-day I reap the rewards of making right choices there and eventually, all those small rewards will ultimately reach my goals. Sometimes we just want to reap the goal without the small incremental steps. There is a Chinese proverb that says, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
I believe that people who are close to God are very grateful people. They love to praise God, worship Him. They love to thank Him. Satan doesn't want us being grateful, because being grateful makes you more in tune with the Holy Spirit. The Bible says you enter into the courts of God. Why would Satan want that? If he can get you complaining, griping, being dissatisfied, comparing, being jealous, you won't have any time to be grateful.
Another thing that draws us closer to God is repentence. Repentence means not just forgiving and asking for forgiveness, but it means a change, a transformation. It's a letting go of the control, of your right. Repentence is also very humbling. The Bible says that God opposes the proud. God does not like pride. It was pride that got Satan in trouble and thus began his fall. Satan wants to encourage people to hang onto things, to not forgive, to not ask for forgiveness, to not acknowledge their sins or that they wrong others. Afterall, isn't it your right to vent? to be angry? to be justified in your feelings?
THANKSGIVING, PRAISE/WORSHIP, REPETENCE!!!
Those are 3 very powerful ways to draw closer to God. There have been sermons galore, commentaries, studies, etc. written on all these subjects to the nth degree. I'm just touching briefly on them.
When you feel yourself asserting your rights, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal why and ask God to forgive the pride that is coming up. It doesn't mean we can't defend ourselves if some person is physically threatening our lives, but there are times when I feel I have a right to respond. Sometimes just laying down that right to maintain peace is better.
Anyway, that's it for now.
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