Austin's Blog

We often get upset with the Lord when He fails to keep promises He never made to begin with. “If I’m good, He will bless me.” “He will keep my children safe.” “He will never give me more than I can handle.” “Because He is good, He would never allow bad things to happen to me or my loved ones.” These are false assumptions, unmade promises, and perhaps even lies. Why do we lean on and believe these lies? Theologian John Webster writes, “We invent lies because, for whatever reason, we want to invent reality. And the false reality which we invent, the world we make up by our lying, has one great advantage for us: It makes no claims on us. It demands nothing. It doesn’t shape us in the way that truth shapes us; it faces us with no obligations; it has no hard, resistant surfaces which we can’t get through. A lie is a made-up reality, and so never unsettles, never criticizes, never resists, never overthrows us. It’s the world, not as it is, but as we wish it to be: a world organized around us and our desires.” Believing lies, no matter how noble, will eventually harm us.

The reality is that God makes hundreds of promises to His people that they can take to the bank. But, their bodily protection in this life is not one of them. We struggle with, “How could this happen when I’m following God” not realizing following God does not remove crosses, but affords the strength to carry them. We run the risk of shipwrecking our faith by overemphasizing the physical and material blessings it can bring within this life. Trevin Wax notes, “If you believe that coming to Christ will make life easier and better, then you will be disappointed when suffering comes your way. Storms destroy our homes. Cancer eats up our bodies. Economic recessions steal our jobs. If you see God as a vending machine, then you will become disillusioned when your candy bar doesn’t drop. You may get angry and want to start banging on the machine. Or maybe you will be plagued with guilt, convinced that your suffering indicates God’s disapproval of something you’ve done. When we emphasize the temporal blessings that come from following Christ, we plant the seeds for a harvest of heartbreak.”

We must adjust our expectation that everything will go well with us. That is not a promise made in this life. Unending ease, bliss, and rest from our labors are realities promised in the life after this life. This life, however, isn’t fair. We all know this but this bitter pill is hard to swallow. Refusing to try will lead to disappointment and more sorrow. Philip Yancey remarks, “We tend to think, ‘Life should be fair because God is fair.’ But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment.” That crashing disappointment will then bleed into other areas and wreak havoc.

Where does this leave us? Jared C. Wilson writes, “You know, it’s possible that God’s plan for us is littleness. His plan for us may be personal failure. It’s possible that when another door closes, it’s not because he plans to open the window but because he plans to have the building fall down on you. The question we must ask ourselves is this: Will Christ be enough?” Will I trust and treasure Christ because He is beautiful or follow Him only when He is useful to me? Will I submit to His lordship when it suits me or in every area of my life? Will I believe the Gospel only when it goes well with me or in all moments and every area? Will I honor Him as faithful in the bad times as well as the good? Is Christ worth it? I invite you to take your pain, sorrow, and heartache to Christ, the Man of Sorrows, and see that He is, in fact, enough. He makes good on the promises He makes.