5.16.2013

When God Thwarts Our Plans

To be clear, much of what I'm about to say I'm not a fan of; though the truth of it allows me to hope through many hardships.

My adulthood has been plagued with the statement 'If ____, then I'll be okay.'  Constantly I've striven to do right and well, to which God consistently seems to let me sit in my frustrations and failures.  Why is this?  Is it that God is sadistic, or impotent?  What I've seen from Scripture and the journeys of others is that God's up to something that I just can't see or often make sense of.

My first experience with ministry ended after I gave it all I had.  As this really good work slipped out of my grasping hands, it seemed to me that God just stood by and let it peter out.  Like a fire turning cold and dark, regardless of how hard I fanned the flame of ministry (through fundraisers, prayer, small groups, large groups, camps, meetings...you name it), it seemed determined to smolder and die.

Relationships often seems to consist of this same struggle.  I remember believing in 6th grade that if only I had a girlfriend, then everything would be okay and right in my world.  Then I got a girlfriend, now I just needed her to not break up with me...or be like this or that...or if I just get married...or can just get along and not fight...and on and on.  It's always been 'if just ____, then I'll be okay.'

So what's the point? It seems that all my toil and effort seems to be for naught; that every time I take a step towards gaining whatever it is that will help me be okay (finances, relationships, career, etc.), God seems to step in and thwart my plan.  So what's He after?  I think it's simply this, in the words of John Eldredge:
"God promises every man futility and failure; he guarantees every woman relational heartache and loneliness.  We spend most of our waking hours attempting to end-run the curse...God must take away the heaven we create, or it will become our hell"
Like Israel in the desert, Abba knows my heart, that if I ever received the relationship with a woman I had craved since Jr. High, I would abandon the life-giving God to worship connection with a woman.  Had Israel left slavery in Egypt and walked untouched into this beautiful land with its bountiful fruit, their hearts would have quickly deserted their Savior and would have began serving the dead idol of food that comes and goes with the temper of the seasons.  I have to believe that had I succeeded in ministry my eyes would have turned from the desperate need and intimacy with God I have experienced in the years of failure and frustration since, and instead I would have seen the works of my labors and declared that I don't need God nearly as much as He needs me.  I wonder if this is similar to why Paul could never quite seem to get to Rome, his destination from the outset of ministering to the Gentiles.

What a fool I've been.  All this time I've thought God was harassing me, teasing me with success only to snatch it away at the last minute, He's actually been saving me from creating my own life-draining hell.  Often the pain, frustration and failure we endure can't see it's full purpose for years, or generations, or even millenia as in Israel's case.

Be encouraged.  Your pain, frustration and failure are not all for naught.  Enduring through the plagues of hardship may seem to come with a promise of futility, but they also hold the promise of drawing us into a deeper dependency and intimacy with Abba.  We can hope for the revelation of Christ right now through the midst of trouble (1 Pet. 1:13).  He thwarts our plans to gain satisfaction in order to grant us what we so deeply desire; water that always satisfies, bread that doesn't perish, life to the limit.