CAN GOD TRUST YOU WITH ADVERSITY?

(8-minute read)

People who embrace utilitarian thinking tend to avoid any action that causes harm and displeasure as their highest moral code. They protect themselves from everything unpleasant and seem almost obsessed with eliminating setbacks in their lives. The thinking that goes with it sounds like this: if my boss gives me a poor review, I have a bad boss. If I have an illness that requires lifetime medication, I have a bad life. If technology is not all good, it is best to avoid using new apps. If a vaccine does not have 100% efficacy, it is not reliable at all. Such binary perspectives shrink our life experiences to one where there is very little we need to change. The truth is, we do not like the ambivalence of trying new things and weighing up the cost and benefit of taking risks as a necessity for progress and growth. It is simpler and safer to see the world in black and white. If God is good, He must deliver the goods and God must be good. It is all or nothing.

This makes it difficult for them to accept that God also wants to trust us with adversities. Towards the end of His ministry, Jesus told all who followed Him, “In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” (John 16:33 The Message). The second part of the verse emphasizes that Jesus has conquered the godless world, but we tend to read it as His promise of an adversity-free life. 

When we are in hot soup, we naturally ask, Can we trust God? Yet, the Bible has recorded many accounts when God turns the tables and asks, Can I trust you with adversity?

Look at the lives of Joseph, David, Job and Paul. God could easily create short-cut success stories out of their lives but instead, He trusted (not tormented!) them with adversities. 

Let’s see how they lived through the succession of setbacks in their lives.

Joseph had a great dream and thought he would have a dream life. But things quickly went south when his embittered brothers sold him to slavery. Yet, when he could finally take revenge, he told his brothers instead, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20). 

David was anointed by the prophet Samuel to replace King Saul while he was still in his teens. That would have set him up for a successful life but instead, he was hunted down by the jealous and mad king as though he was a criminal (1 Samuel 16:12-13). In the midst of being in Saul’s hot pursuit, he confessed to God, “But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. For what you have done I will always praise you in the presence of your faithful people. And I will hope in your name, for your name is good.” (Psalm 52:8-9)  

Job lost everything he had on a grand scale - his possessions, herdsmen, children, wealth, friends and networks. And for good measure, he was even afflicted with painful sores that covered him from head to toe. What else was there for him to lose but his heart for God. In his response to the three friends who tried to fix his mammoth problems, he stood his ground, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27). 

PAUL was frequently imprisoned and exposed to death, caught in shipwrecks and all kinds of danger, gone without sleep, food and clothing; and on top of it, he lived with an unknown ‘thorn in his flesh’ (don’t we all have one?) that made him feel ‘less than’ in his mind.  When he pleaded with God to remove his sore point, God revealed to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” As a result, Paul had a new resolve to live with what he had to live with: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

That was how much God trusted these people with different adversities. What do we mean by that?

Can we trust God? Of course we can. We can trust God to give us children, but can God trust us to bring up our children to flourish in His design and not according to our pipedreams for them? We can trust God to develop us as strong Christians in the marketplace but can God trust us with complex problems that need His wisdom and courage to solve? We can trust God to give us a life partner but can God trust us to be faithful to Him and stand on His Word when the marriage goes through a rough patch?

We cannot live in hibernation and escape from the realities of life and expect God to trust us. As Sarah Hauser opined, we need to look at our circumstances through the lens of who God is. To do so, it is important to see our adversities in three ways.

See adversity through GOD’S HEART

We have a God whose deep love for us surpasses all human knowledge and understanding. Job, David, Joseph and Paul knew God’s heart deeply and up close. They spoke to God with the full confidence in nothing but only that He cared deeply and personally. We do not have a God who is distant and detached. God is not heartless and He sees the pain and discomfort we experience in our trials. Learn to speak to Him intimately and not like you need to beg Him for attention and action.

We can be comforted that God commiserates with our pain because the apostle Peter experienced the same compassion from God we can be assured of, “Be glad about this, even though it may now be necessary for you to be sad for a while because of the many kinds of trials you suffer. Their purpose is to prove that your faith is genuine. Even gold, which can be destroyed, is tested by fire; and so your faith, which is much more precious than gold, must also be tested, so that it may endure. Then you will receive praise and glory and honour on the Day when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (1 Peter 1:6-7GNT).

See adversity through GOD’S EYES

We perceive situations through various cognitive biases and reach our own conclusions, paying attention only to information that confirms our beliefs and ignore opposing facts. Our emotions also interfere with our ability to look at adversities clearly, so it is imperative that we see them through God’s eyes.

Suddenly being thrown into the deep end as a survivor of a horrific crime or accident, becoming a single parent without financial resources, or having our lives interrupted when we have to care for a loved one with lifetime disabilities does not make us special people, but it can force us to sharpen our focus on what really matters in life on this side of heaven. 

The apostle James had the clarity that would serve us well in how we see adversities: “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” (James 1:2-4 The Message).

See adversity through GOD’S HANDS

God’s Hands represent His direction and divine order in our lives. Joseph did not bail out on God in the 13 years that he was enslaved by his Egyptian masters. He held on to his God-given dreams and even became a ‘dream whisperer’ who could interpret what God was telling people in their dreams.

God reveals His best dreams to us in hard places. In Jeremiah 29:11, He revealed to a people facing an abject future of uncertainty, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” God can say this because His thinking and His ways are superior to ours, and He sticks to His plans! (Isaiah 55:8-9). “What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do.” (Isaiah 46:10-11).

No one likes to journey through life with unresolved problems that plague them day in and day out. At the same time, as humans, we cannot live our entire lives insulated from adversities and have faith that is never tested and is useless when we or others experience hardships. 

We are reminded in James 1:12 that “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.” 

Now, the question to ask yourself is ‘Can God trust me with adversities?’.

This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 13 July 2024.