Excerpts

1 ------------ Out of the Fire . . . or into It? At an early age, I was told, "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." It was the opening line of a greater invitation to surrender my life to Jesus and invite him into my heart. If I did, the promise went on, "God will forgive you and lead you in ways you could never imagine." While I certainly have no regrets about saying yes to that invitation years ago, I have come to realize that I made some serious assumptions about what God was inviting me into--­and you know what happens when we assume. Maybe I was reading between the lines. I assumed that the fruit of surrendering to God's wonderful plan was a life with less pain and no confusion. I reasoned that since I trusted him, I could not be disappointed or feel uncertain. After all, God would always be with me. It was a simple formula: my trust + his plan = smooth sailing. I do the trusting, he does the planning, and we're all good. It's okay if you're shaking your head, thinking, How naive. Life has a way of exposing our naivete. For me, all it took was getting picked on, seasons of intense loneliness, watching my parents' crazy fights, and experiencing financial hardships to realize that God's plan didn't equal smooth sailing at all. As my relationship with God deepened, I came to realize that a trouble-­free life is never part of the promise. In fact, the Scriptures guarantee the opposite. We will have hardships--­physical pain, sorrow, disappointment, and sometimes just general confusion. You have had your own tough experiences. Perhaps you are in one right now. Life has not gone the way you wanted. You are disillusioned. Hurt. Maybe just plain stuck while everyone else seems to be moving forward just fine. You might be none of those things, but living now in this post-­pandemic world has caused you to question the things that, until now, you thought were certain. While the season you've come through or are in right now might have been a surprise to you, it wasn't a surprise to Jesus. In his last lengthy talk with his disciples, just before he was betrayed and crucified, Jesus made a promise: "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Did you see the two parts to it? He guaranteed the trouble just as he guaranteed his presence. The disciples were going to face all kinds of opposition from the world, and so are we. They would be afflicted, and so will we. He called them to be strengthened in their resolve--­that is what "take heart" means--­because he has overcome the world. The one who has overcome the world would be with them. Jesus called for trust in the midst of trouble. If you're like me, you love to believe in the certainty of his presence but not necessarily the certainty of trouble. Can't we just have his presence without the problems? I think, I could learn to trust without the trouble. I'm a really quick learner. Just give me the good stuff, and I'll trust you! I promise. My unwillingness to accept the promise of trouble makes me wonder, Have I really outgrown my childhood assumptions about what it means to trust in God? I hate to admit that the formula still shapes my outlook in subtle ways. Life's difficulties expose them. And with every twist and turn, every time I feel shocked when life knocks me upside the head yet again, I have the opportunity to revisit what my faith means for living in this broken world. I suppose being shocked is better than the tragic alternative--­growing bitter and cynical to the point where we're suspicious if life goes smoothly. I have met people like that. The curmudgeon who refuses to receive any help from anyone. The friend who thinks that his failures are everyone's fault but his own. The boss who feels that everyone is out for her job, whose insecurity will never let her apologize. The embittered family member who feels as though the world owes her something. Pessimism and distrust have a way of sucking the life out of every moment. Like people wearing those high-­tech noise-­canceling headphones, some hear only one soundtrack to life. They are always looking for the angle or expecting the other shoe to drop. Gratitude goes extinct because they suspect there is always a catch--­some sort of karmic retribution that will make sure they end up paying for whatever moment of peace or joy might have come their way. Cynics didn't get that way overnight. They faced trouble and disappointment enough times to harden their hearts. At one time, they were hopeful. After they got knocked to the mat too many times, their best defense was to forsake the expectation that life would get any better. They just stopped hoping. They simply stopped trying. They chose bitterness because it was at least more predictable than dashed expectations. Is That All There Is? Are these your only options? Continually getting floored by the disappointments of life or growing cynical and expecting nothing but disappointment? I believe that God offers you more--­a third option, to trust him even when life is hard. The relationship he invites you to does not require nice weather to flourish. In fact, that is why God can deepen your faith even when the storms of life upend your dreams, plans, and expectations. No matter what life has thrown at you, it is possible to not only endure but even to move forward, trusting God for whatever comes next. Have you ever seen glimpses of this kind of faith in other people? In a cancer patient who seems to draw on a reservoir of strength that you wish could be bottled and shared. Perhaps in a boomer who has lived through incredibly hard times yet exudes the gentleness and sweetness of a child. I have been warmed by the resilience and never-­give-­up determination of colleagues who have devoted many years to fighting for the forgotten and overlooked. People like that are our heroes. We want to be like them. And I believe we can. There are no shortcuts, though. The kind of faith I am describing forms as we cling to Jesus's presence in hardships. And to cling to Jesus in trouble means it will take trouble. Another way to say it is that difficulties can therefore be redemptive. And "lucky" for you and me, we don't have to manufacture the trouble. Life will bring it. The life-­transforming truth is that we are left not at the mercy of our situations but rather at the mercy of a loving God who leads us and does have wonderful plans for us. Seeing him in the midst of the trouble will take some shifting of our perspectives, some personal reflection, and a lot of courage. We will need to remind ourselves over and over who God is and what he has done for us. And when we do, we will develop a reflex-­like disposition for our faith that informs how we respond to life's situations--­good or bad. The kind of faith I am describing expresses itself in . . . * resolve to trust God in ways that we never thought possible * endurance amid difficulties that we didn't know we had strength for * peace and hope that are so otherworldly, they can bless and transform others This kind of faith can flow from a simple but powerful declaration, one that catalyzed my own transformation and continues to this day. I was in the midst of a dark wilderness season, stuck and alone. Yet in the middle of my valley, God spoke two life-­giving words that resurrected me. Two words from a children's Sunday school story. Excerpted from Even If: Trusting God When Life Disappoints, Overwhelms, or Just Doesn't Make Sense by Mitchel Lee All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. 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