What if one or both of those blessings did not occur? What if I would have been hurt standing under those shelves, or even killed? What if we would have lost everything in those containers? Would God be less worthy of praise? My first reaction is, ‘Of course, not!” But in reality, many times we give Him less! To take the spoken words of ‘praise God for all circumstances’ and then live it out in action is not always easy! When we are mourning, or hurting, or enduring trials, we often ask ‘Why’ instead of saying ‘Praise Jesus’. My children have thanked me for many things I have done for them, but I never remember them thanking me for not giving them what they wanted, or for giving them a time of testing, or for disciplining their wrong behavior. They usually whined, complained, tried manipulation, or threw a down right fit! We are no better! Somewhere, in our Christian walk we have grabbed a hold of a false doctrine. This false thinking tells us that the better we are and the more God loves us, the more good things will happen to us. Now, I do believe that when we choose to live out God’s principles we will reap the blessings from those principles. However, those blessings are not a bubble that surrounds us, keeping out trials, testing, and all heartache. We still live in a sinful world where bad things happen. God does not promise us a life free of the effects of sin. He promises to be with us no matter what! Make sure you grasp the ‘no matter what’! That is, in my opinion, the best promise I could possibly have. He will not leave me. He will not forsake me. He will not abandon me. He will always be there! The false teaching that plays favorites, says that if you have two women who have lumps in their breast. One finds out it is nothing and the other one finds out that it is cancer; God loves the one without the cancer more? Really? I have known some amazing Christian women, who have had breast cancer, and some recovered and some died. What if you have two people who both owned homes they loved? A fire approaches: one house burns to the ground and the other house survives. The false teaching says that God loves the ones whose home survived more than the ones whose home burned to the ground. Really? I have known some Godly people who love the Lord, who have lost it all. I bet you are saying to yourself, I would never believe that! Really? Has the deepest part of your heart and soul ever said to God, “You must love her more than me, she is so beautiful?” “You must love them more than me, I am struggling financially, and they seem to have all the money they could possibly need”. “You must love her more than me, you bless her with a husband that adores her and mine, no matter how hard I pray, he doesn’t acknowledge I exist”. Oh, the false teaching can creep into our thinking in so many ways!
Let me answer my original questions. If God would have allowed the shelves to fall on me, or even have taken my life; he would have done it with the same love He had when he protected me. He would have a reason and a purpose for it! And if I would have died, I would have been in His presence! The only ones that would see that as anything other than a blessing are those left here to deal with their loss. I would instantly realize what an amazing blessing that would be and would want it no other way! Additionally, if every item would have been destroyed, He would have allowed it with the same love as He had when He saved it! We would have received His comfort, and peace, and strength! We would have experienced His presence in our lives in a mighty way. He would have been with us through it all! He would have healed whatever hurt our hearts felt. Though we might not have been able to praise Him for the circumstance, we could praise Him for His love, His faithfulness, and His compassion. That is why we can praise Him no matter what! That is why I can praise Him for his love, whether I see it in the valley or on the mountain top. Even though the view may be different, His love remains the same and "endures forever"!
O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy an loving-kindness endure forever!
1 Chronicles 16:34
1 Chronicles 16:34
2 comments:
It is hard to sometimes see that things that happen may have a good reason and that God is showing love through it all. This was such a great reminder that he loves us all equally and more than we could ever imagine!
Thank you so very much Tonya for all your blogs. They are a blessing to all who read them. I look forward to reading them every day.
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