Welcome to the struggle. Navigating your way through piles of bills, screaming kids, looming deadlines, nasty coworkers, ruthless peers, debilitating depression, too much to do and too little time to do it in.
Maybe you pray. Maybe you search the Bible (when you’re not mopping spilled milk off the floor or finishing paperwork at 2 AM). But maybe, sometimes, you start to doubt. What do eviction notices and inescapable heartbreaks have to do with God’s purpose for my life?
The truth? Everything.
Still doubtful? Well, since we have a spare moment, let’s pick up where we left off in that coffee-stained, jelly-stained, tearstained Bible of yours.
Let’s take a look at the life stories of some of God’s greatest heroes: desert-bound Abraham, who took a 600-mile trek through barren wastelands to settle down someplace he’d never even heard of; wandering Moses, who led the stubbornly disobedient Israelites on a 40-year hike through the desert; down-on-his-luck Job, who lost everything he held dear on a whim of the Devil.
(And you thought you had problems.)
At first glance, the lives of these Bible heroes look way less than glamorous-- are they are. Decades of wandering, of suffering, of heartache, of pain. Doesn’t sound much like a happily-ever-after fairytale, does it?
Truth is: it’s not. But that’s the thing-- God doesn’t use fairy tales for His mission. He uses the oddball, the ordinary, and the less-than-perfect. He uses you! (Even if you still haven’t gotten around to removing the grape-juice stain from the living room carpet.)
“But why would God want me to go through all these struggles?” you ask. “What purpose do they serve in God’s purpose for my life?”
Let’s go back to Abe, Mo, and Job for that one.
Abraham made a big move to the great unknown because God told him to. It was long, hard, and puzzling-- why leave prosperity for “perhaps”?
Moses traversed barren deserts (along with his divinely-ignorant Israelite friends) for four decades because God told him to. It was hot, challenging, and seemingly pointless-- why follow an invisible God through the Land of Nowhere if Egypt had been sufficient?
Finally, Job. Job lost everything-- livestock, children, a way of life-- all because God gave Satan the OK. Why would a good and perfect God--with our best interests in mind--allow such sorrow to befall us?
Here’s my point: Abraham took a leap of faith and left all he’d ever known. And what did God do? He gave Abe a promised land.
Moses took a leap of faith and led his misbehaving people on a looong trek across lifeless wastelands. And what did God do? He gave the Israelites a promise fulfilled--land for their people and freedom for themselves.
Job had a lot of faith-- and lost all he owned. And what did God do? He replaced everything and then some.
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So here’s my message to you-- you with your broken dishwasher, your overdue electricity bill, your tardy English essay and your life crumbling apart:
God is using your struggles for His glory. He is taking all your everyday messes and making something extraordinarily beautiful, something far better than a happy ending; He is weaving your pain, your heartaches, and your difficulties into His glorious grand design.
It may not be pretty, and it may not be painless, but something remarkable will come of these trials of yours (broken dishes, broken bones, and broken lives included).
So here-- grab my hand, and we can take that fabulously freeing leap of faith together--
The stack of bills can wait. 🍂
