I have noticed in my counseling office that whether we blame a parent, partner, a child, or a friend it stunts growth. The blamer becomes so fixated on finding fault and seeking retribution from their offender, they cease seeking life and fall into bitterness and victimhood. That can happen with God too, if we aren’t mindful.
We can get very bitter when we believe that our faith is an insurance policy for which our good behavior is the premium we pay to protect us from harm. I can let God know in no uncertain terms, "I go church, I'm kind to others. I'll even throw money in the plate when it comes around. So why haven't you spared me from this difficulty, God?"
I went through feelings like this when I was first diagnosed with A-fib. I have always made it my mission to be a healthy person, eating salad when everyone else was having burgers, shunning cheese because it has too much fat, and pasta because it has too many carbs. I even gave up meat for a short time, all in an effort to maintain a healthy heart! I was ticked off, and I let God know it. How grateful I am that I can “have a fit and fall in it” as they say in the South, and that doesn’t dampen God’s unconditional love for me.
At the height of the Health and Wealth movement, when folks on nearly every channel with Christian shows had preachers touting us to demand perfect health and lay claim to Winnebagos, this woman looked into a camera during an interview and said, "I've lost my faith." She felt bitter that God had broken his promises."
She correctly realized that the god she followed does not exist.
She incorrectly concluded that the God of the Bible had let her down.
He hadn't; her church and her preachers had done that.
God never made the promises that she thought he'd broken.
To quote Randy Alcorn, "When hard times come, people could lose their faith in false doctrine, not in God. In contrast to jewelry-flaunting televangelists, Paul said,
"We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" Acts 14:22.
"If you are a Christian," Alcorn continues, "God will deliver you from eternal suffering. And even now he will give you joyful foretastes of living in his presence. That's his promise."
Charles Spurgeon wrote," I venture to say that the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the possible exception of sickness…If some men that I know could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God's grace, mellow them marvelously."
Though he sought to avoid suffering, Spurgeon said, "I am afraid that all the grace that I have got of my comfortable and easy times and happy hours, might lie on a penny. But the good I have received from my sorrows, and pains and griefs, is altogether incalculable…Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house. It is the best book in a minister's library."
WOW! I want to be like Spurgeon when I grow up. I want to be open to God when I am waiting for answers and not shut him out in my anger and fear.
I pray that my infirmity will "mellow me marvelously". God knows I need it as I spend time in His waiting room.
To journey with me further on our road to wait well, stay tuned next week.