God in Time of Struggles

 October 21, 2024

Monday

Just about everyone cries out at one time, "Where are you, God?" Everything goes south. Every attempt fails. The best result you have had in weeks is breaking even. You wonder what you could have done for God to have forgotten you. You blame yourself for all the failures. Anxiety begins to command your mind. And you hang onto hope when there is no evidence that hope will produce anything.

It is at that moment that we must ask ourselves, "Am I being faithful?" Can that be more important than being successful? What does faithfulness do for you when you are failing?

Maybe we should ask Jesus.

Many of His disciples abandoned Him at His greatest time of need. He appeared helpless after being arrested. They beat Him, flogged Him, and scourged Him. They made fun of Him and spat in His face. There didn't appear to be anyone on His side. He is physically driven to exhaustion and hung on a cross to slowly die. Even then, there were those who ridiculed Him. Then, He died. 

It sure didn't look like faithfulness was all that important then. A couple of days later that all changed.

If we take what we can see, we will be depressed when we should be elated and elated when we should be depressed. We will compare ourselves with others. Condemn ourselves for what we can't seem to reach. And cry out:

Psalm 22:1 (NASB 2020) ¹ My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my help are the words of my groaning.

Yes, those were the words of Jesus, too. He had good reason for His Father had turned away from Him because He bore all of our sins. 

No, that isn't what we should cry. We should claim one more time:

Romans 8:28 (NASB 2020) ²⁸ And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

If we are faithful in His purpose, we will have all these bad things come to our good. After all, Jesus' death was for our ultimate good. It just didn't look like it at that moment.

Sometimes we forget that God is working all the time. Sure, we all would like to recognize His working. But often we can only see that in retrospect. We must remember that He is working around us and in us. Just wait, you'll see.