This last week in Facebook I read a story of a mother who is a believer and yet she felt that God had forsaken her. I was also reminded of a conversation with a man I play golf with when he made a statement, “If there is a God how could he allow my daughter to have MS.” Then there is a young couple I know with two children and the mother dies of cancer. How about an older couple I love who served God their whole lives spreading God's word, and the wife gets a crippling disease and then God takes her husband home, and now she is all alone in a care-home. Or how about the man who never wanted to make a vow to God but was led by God to make one. This man did everything that he said he would do and yet God did not answer the man's prayer in the way he thought.
Life at times seems very confusing and difficult to understand; yet when our life is over, and we stand before God and ask him "why?" He will say that when you were going through these things you were only halfway through your book of life. Just like a mystery novel halfway through never makes sense, it only makes sense when you know the ending.
I wish I could say wise and comforting words to the young couple, the father and his daughter, or the elderly couple, those whose lives seem so useless now. But as the one who made the vow to God and didn't get what he expected then, I can say: WAIT! Wait to see what God has planned for your life, with all the hurts and losses and even doubts about God. Don't give up your faith in the LORD! Stay in His Word believing what He says. It's in the waiting on God that we come to know Him better and better and how He feels about us and how His plans and ways are so much higher than ours. God is for us, not against us!
When our life is complete will others who have watched your life be able to say that your life was not useless at all? 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 "Therefore, we do not lose heart. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, fix your eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
When life gets hard it is very hard see this glory that God is talking about, therefore, we must be patient and soon we will understand it all. For now we only see through a glass dimly, but later we will see Him as He truly is: face to face. Our life in retrospect will make beautiful sense and give glory to God.
