Psalm 46:1
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
We live through tragedies, some of us more than others. We live in a world that’s experiencing this thing called suffering and it’s nowhere near easy. The hardest thing about all this is when we start looking to our good and sovereign God, pointing fingers and questioning and doubting him
Our world is broken and Jesus makes that very clear. He shared with his disciples (and all of us), that in this world we’ll suffer, things will get tough, but we don’t have to worry because Jesus overcame the brokenness of the world. We have access to his peace, comfort, and joy, even in the suffering.
So why then, when life gets crazy and messy and hard do we look to God in fits of rage questioning if he truly loves us, if he truly exists?
Maybe it all starts with a box. Hear me out here, but maybe it starts with the mental box we’ve created in our minds and placed God into. We feel as if being a Christian means, life is simple, life is good, life with Jesus means rainbows and butterflies and happiness. The box we’ve squeezed our much too great and mighty and all-knowing God into makes things much harder for us.
I hear this argument so often, “If God loved me wouldn’t he want life to be easy and wonderful for me?” God does love you, but his love goes beyond our preconceived notions of ”love.” We can easily snuggle into our box and say, “GOD! Come on. I’m following in your ways, you said you’d give me life and life abundant… why did my car just break down? Why are my parents fighting? Why are my friends starting drama and my sister making me so angry?” We forget that life and life abundant with God doesn’t eliminate the brokenness of our world.
Sometimes when we put God in a box, we forget about sin, the choices of others, free-will, evil, etc. We become selfish in thinking God’s going to make my life exquisite because he loves me; when in reality making your life a fairytale is the farthest thing from showing you, true love.
Want to know how God longs to show you love? He wants to show you love through relationship, through tragedy, through the hard stuff we reject. He wants to be your source of peace when life’s stressful, your source of comfort when life makes you lonely, your source of joy when life’s irritating.
I want to share a song with you that might just help you step out of your box. Take some time today and listen to this song. Maybe once, maybe twice, and let the reality of the lyrics wash over you, change your mindset, and tear down the constructs of your box.
I first heard this song when I was going through a difficult season, I didn’t make the dance team in high school and it tore me to shreds. This song flipped my world upside down and my box disappeared. When my mom’s best friend passed away this song took on a whole new meaning and the more I pressed into those lyrics the more I understood how God loves me in the trials, in the tragedies, how vast his love is, and how my box, the box I squeeze God into, used to make me miss his blessings altogether. Stop living in that box and experience the true love and blessings God has for you.