When you believe in God, it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that He has allowed adversity to come into your or your loved one’s life. Author David Biebel talks about this fact in his book If God Is So Good, Why Do I Hurt So Bad? He says there are two truths suffering people have to reconcile: Sometimes life is agony, and our loving God is in control.
Think about it.
If God knows everything, this diagnosis did not surprise Him.
If God sees everything, He saw the bad news coming.
If God has power over everything, He could have stopped it.
But He didn’t.
Perhaps He didn’t stop you or your loved one from getting cancer or some other life-threatening disease. Or He didn’t keep your spouse from leaving you. Or He didn’t end the lies your co-worker spreads about you. Or maybe He hasn’t answered your pleas to be blessed with a child or a life-partner. You know all too well that sometimes life is agony and you’re trying to wrap your head around the fact that a loving God is in control.
It’s times like these that we need to run straight into the arms of the God who is enough.
Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash
Throughout scripture we meet this God who is enough. In the Old Testament He drops food from the sky in the wilderness to teach the Israelites that He “could be trusted to provide exactly enough–maybe not what they wanted, but enough,” according to our church’s youth pastor Pete Waller, whose recent excellent message inspired this blog.
In the New Testament, Jesus takes a little lad’s lunch, blesses it and feeds thousands of hungry people with it–not to mention baskets of leftovers.
“Jesus knew that He would take what wasn’t enough and make it more than enough–not so they would know what He can do, but who He is,” Pete explained.
Jehovah Jireh: the God who provides. That Hebrew name is not just what our God does, it’s who He is: the God who will provide enough.
Will you believe that today? Will you choose to trust that God is enough for whatever you’re facing? The reality is that God’s Word never promises He will stop all the bad things from happening to us. As The Message Bible explains in its paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 :
“We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized;
we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized.
But God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.”
Go ahead and hand Him your “not enough” and watch the Creator of the Universe transform it into enough… and even more than enough for whatever unwanted journey you’re on. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Be sure to open in your browser to hear the song “Jireh’ by Elevation Worship & Maverick City song by Brian Nhira.
