Being a believer is exciting and fun until something happens to you. Your faith is tested and suddenly the world isn’t filled with praise and worship choruses. All of the preaching, quoting Bible verses and claiming things in Jesus’ name doesn’t mean much when you are going through some of the hard things in life.
Life will throw you. You can’t always plan for it either. It will come at you whether you are ready for it or not.
I remember many years ago when I was stationed at Dyess Air Force Base near Abilene, Texas I was attending a small church near the base. Tragically one of the teens in the youth group was killed in a freak car accident. It was devastating. When I later went to the family house, I sat next to the mother and wanted to be a help. I made the mistake of saying “I know what you are going through” with which she came back with “You have NO idea what I’m going through!” and left the room.
I learned a value lesson. We don’t always know what someone is going through until we go through it ourselves. Words rarely do any good to ease the pain.
The super religious people will act like nothing bothers them. They have their hands in praying position and always looking to the sky while the rest of us mortals absorb the realities of living in a fallen and imperfect world.
Being a believer doesn’t mean we are immune to hurt and pain. We still shed tears when we are hurting and - yes - we also question God. He doesn’t always share with us what He is doing. He doesn’t have to. As for me, I like answers! I want to know why! God does what He does and never obligated to answer to me.
Where is God in this?
That’s a common thought. He allows things to happen and we just don’t understand why. It’s not so easy to have faith then. It is in these times when our faith is truly tested. Having faith and enduring pain doesn’t mean we will go through it with a smile nor doesn’t it mean we won’t go through it without being battered by it.
The only way to get through it is to go through it. There aren’t always shortcuts. We can’t avoid feeling pain. When we walk through the storms of life, we will feel it but we have to keep going.
If you know I am a believer and ask me “where is your God now?” I can only tell you that I don’t really know. I know He promised not to leave me or forsake me but I certainly can’t tell you how or why. You can’t have faith until it is tested.
Life happens to us all. Don’t look at me. I don’t have it all figured out. Just doing the best that I can and putting one foot ahead of the other.
