GOD AT WORK
(This is a 7-minute read)
IF GOD WERE TO TELL YOU that He wants to take you to a new mountaintop experience with Him, you’d need very little persuasion to join Him for the adventure. But if He were to lay out the possibilities of fatigue, dehydration, altitude sickness, if he were to talk about the reality of natural hazards and adverse weather conditions, if He were to warn you about bugs and mosquitoes, your susceptibility to blisters, injuries and skin irritation, and not to mention the load of supplies you have to carry, the intensive training before the trek, or how the trek will test and expose your deepest anxieties and fears, would you still sign up?
In truth, sickness, job loss, divorce, widowhood, relationship breakdown and life transitions are paths to mountaintop experiences with God. Recall that God blessed Abraham as the father of nations only after he completed the gut-wrenching trek where his loyalty to God was tested (Genesis 22:1-8). Joseph, a favoured son in an affluent household, suffered much injustice and cruelty at the hands of his brothers who sold him to slave traders, was later accused of seducing his master’s wife, and wrongly imprisoned, yet through his God-given gift of interpreting dreams, he became Pharoah’s chief of staff and in that position, saved his family and many people of starvation (Genesis 50:20b NLT). All the trials that Abraham and Joseph went through reveal to us that God was quietly working around the convoluted plots towards his grand finale.
If 'spiritual adulting' is a thing, then the apostle Paul certainly knew what it meant. More than anyone, he suffered severe hardships yet they only convinced him that we are hard-wired to be conquerors and that we are not condemned by God even when we go through them (Romans 8:1, 37). What most people today see as an impingement on the blessed life, he considered them normal in our growth towards Christian maturity. He was convinced that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28). However, this does not suggest that all problems will automatically sort themselves out and disappear over time. We cannot think of life as an automatic elevator ride that takes us to God’s ultimate good and hopeful verses like this are elevator announcements to make our ride more pleasant. Scripture verses are not spiritual aspirins we take to alleviate our pain and distress when we face challenges!
Paul called attention to the fact that blessedness is not the be-all end-all of Christian living, but loving God and growing in Christlikeness is. Inadvertently, this means that we should not expect life to always be easy and smooth-sailing.
Ironically, to many who embrace the hope and promises of God, life seems great only when they are either experiencing spiritual peaks or living on a long path of serenity. But can anyone harbor illusions about mountain-top experiences with God and not consider the difficulty of the climb as integral to the experience? Can we talk about spiritual peaks and not the pain points that emerged to spur changes in us? Even Christian empathy is often misplaced towards fellow believers who find themselves in God’s refining furnace because instead of encouraging them not to lose heart, we are alarmed by the fire. There seem to be more crisis helpers than champions of the Word of God among us!
The heart of Romans 8:28 is this: And we know that in all things God works together with those who love Him to bring about what is good – with those who have been called according to His purpose.
Oftentimes, however, what we know is at odds with how we feel because of what we are going through - alone. At the same time, we need to know that ‘all things’ do not mean anything and it certainly does not absolve us of all sins, even subtle ones like vindictiveness, passive-aggressive behavior, pride, and self-importance. We need to know that all sinful behavior has consequences that hurt us and others in our lives, and we should ask God to help us redress them so that we can take responsibility to turn things around for good.
We also do not need to be alarmed that ‘all things’ include overwhelming odds and challenges we go through in life. We don’t necessarily have it worse than others but all believers will certainly experience life challenges like any human being.
Romans 8:32 tells us this: “What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also along with Him, graciously give us all things?”
What is the trek God has called you to walk through in this season? Embrace it and endure it fully. Ask God to send someone who is committed to seeing His will unfold in your life to be your guide and cheerleader – someone who knows that God is indeed at work in your life to work all things together to bring what is good according to His purpose.
“When you can’t see His hand, trust His heart.”
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR session held on 20 November 2021.
