Tripping Over Typeset

“What are we to do when God doesn’t behave the way we thought He should, the way we were taught He would?

What are we to feel when our Savior seemingly pulls a no-show, leaving us to wrestle with the pain on our own?”

~ Joanna Weaver

Life doesn’t always play out the way we plan. People disappoint and plans fall through.

We have a great idea of how things should go. We imagine how our ideas and plans would tie things up with a pretty little bow and our life could be presented as a beautiful, little package of grace and blessing.

It would be a beautiful thing.

Yet God often has a different plan and it usually plays out in a way we never imagined.

A year ago, I didn’t see this summer with its transition, life changes and ministry upheavals. Yet it was all on God’s radar and in His plan.

His ways are not our ways…He sees the big picture, we only see our snapshot.

He sees from the beginning all the way to end and He knows how each player, decision and consequence plays out in the big scheme of things.

And even though I didn’t have this planned, I am learning to trust His plan through it.

I can’t always see where His hand is taking me, yet I can trust His sovereign and good heart leading and bringing us through.

Joanna Weaver, author and speaker, writes about this very idea in her book Lazarus Awakening. Here is a little taste of what she has to share…

We must accept the reality that God’s answers are not always the answers we are looking for. Instead of saying yes to all our requests, like a wise parent, God often chooses to say no.

And sometimes, as in the case of Lazarus, His answer is… wait awhile.

Four days is a long time to wait for a resurrection, especially when you feel that all hope is gone.

Figuratively, you may be living in those dark 96 hours before dawn, wondering if the 5,760 minutes will ever end. Each of the 345,600 seconds that make up your waiting seems to hold its breath interminably leaving you suspended between faith and doubt. Wondering if the dissonant chord hanging over your life will ever be resolved.

Four days is a long time to wait. I know. I’ve endured their incessant length myself.

But believe me, none of it is wasted time.

Although we may be “hard pressed on every side,” Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, we are not crushed. Though we may feel “perplexed,” we are not in despair. Though we are “persecuted,” we are not abandoned. Though “struck down,” we are not destroyed.

Instead, the apostle — beaten and stone, shipwrecked three times — reminds us that we “carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (verse 10).

Don’t you love the creative irony of God! Paul is telling us that the very circumstances and events we believe will destroy us, the ones that generate so many of our whys, can actually serve as catalysts for the full manifestation of Christ in our lives — Jesus more accurately revealed in you and me.

After all, as 1 Peter 1:7 reminds us, these trials “have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire— may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

In other words, don’t get so caught up in what’s happening that you miss what is really going on. For if we’ll listen for the beat of a different Drummer and relinquish control of our lives to His loving, sovereign lead, nothing will be wasted.

Not the waiting, not our questions, not even our pain.

For when you can’t trace God’s hand, you can trust His heart.

Jump into the conversation:

• When do you find it the hardest to trust Him?
• What holds you back from trusting?
• What steps can you make today that will bring you to a better place of trusting Him?

Joanna is offering this “Giant Bible-Study-in-a-Box Giveaway”

It features everything you need for hosting a study for 24 people, including DVDs, books, and study guides – this grand prize drawing takes place July 21^st at 8:00 pm MDT.  Click here to enter for your chance to win. “Giant Bible-Study-in-a-Box Giveaway”

To view the promo video and learn more about Joanna’s new DVD Bible study, go to www.joannaweaverbooks.com.

You can connect with Joanna at http://www.Facebook.com/BecomingHis

Linking up with: