There are times when God simply fences in our way and sets darkness in our path. Yet, it is through those times that we learn that God is working out other things through the dark moments, and our understanding is enlarged to embrace new dimensions of His will and purpose for us. God will never sanction any evil or sin no matter what the situation, for He is Holy. He will however, allow and even send afflictions, bereavements, losses, crosses, pains and sorrows into our lives, if they have a holy purpose in them.
At times, He gives liberty to our enemies, and allows them to trouble us, and for a time, to even prevail against us. He sends good and evil sometimes in quick succession. For instance, He sent the fish to preserve the life of Jonah, and grew a gourd over his head to provide him shelter and screen him from the hot sun. But He also sent the worm to destroy the gourd which in turn destroyed his shelter to teach Jonah a life lesson. Who can read the life of Jacob or Joseph, of David or Daniel, and not see that the Lord allows good and bad things to come upon his people. Romans 8:32 reminds us that God did not even spare His own Son, but gave Him up on our behalf, as Jesus endured the cross.
As we learn gradually what we must, we also learn to cease our struggle and yield to His workings in us, and then and only then do we no longer think of our restraints in terms of punishment and judgment, but in pure "the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Heb. 12:11.
For it is during those tight restraints and dark times, that we might share the experience that Job went through, when for a time he had no conscious sense of God's presence, and cried out, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might even come to His seat! Will He plead against me with His great power? No; but He would put strength into me. Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; on the left hand, where He works, but I cannot behold Him: He hides Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him. But He knows the way that I take: when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23:3, 6, 8-10; and this sweet friend is how you and I must look at our situations on every side.
Like Paul we will affirm the same truth that he himself learned as he endured hardship, and declared, "Having come to this settled and firm persuasion concerning this very thing, namely, that He who began in you a work which is good, will bring it to a successful conclusion right up to the day of Christ Jesus." Phil. 1:6.
God will bring your salvation to its intended final result, no matter the methods that he will choose to use to accomplish it. We can be confident that once the good work begins in us, God will do everything to complete it. He will not be disappointed. His redemption of us will come to pass.
So remember this, that in spite of your prayers and best efforts, as you see your situation worsen as God may be what appears to you, troubling you, hang in there, pray with a greater confidence and embrace those new dimensions of His will and purpose for your situation and know; just know that as you turn to Him because of them, you will move through them with more ease and peace, never to forget again that sometimes, God takes you through those troubled waters, not to drown you, but to cleanse you!
To the unsaved, God is using your hard times to draw you to Him for salvation. For the saved, God is using them to chisel out those things in you that are not reflecting His Son and make you more like Himself. God Is not absent during those dark times, but simply trying to speak to you through them. Listen close to what He is wanting you to hear!
Hold Fast,
-Bren
