The Blessing in Troubles

After they had evangelized that town and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch, strengthening the hearts of the disciples by encouraging them to continue in faith, and by telling them, "It is necessary to pass through many troubles on our way into the kingdom of God." Acts 14:21-22

 

Paul had just been stoned and left for dead. He survived, yes. He and the apostles had been through a lot for their obedience to God. I imagine that, without faith in God and trust in His sovereign ways, their response would have been, "Lord, what did we do so wrong and that you are you putting us through this?" Unless they believed Jesus, not just  in Him, they could very well have become whiney, self-entitled Christians. And they would have settled for miserable or mediocre lives had that been the case. 

 

The wise words in Acts 14, spoken by Paul and Barnabas to the disciples, are not among the most popular scriptures verses in today's American Christian culture. In fact, it's quite the opposite – “God loves us, He will make us rich and heal all of our problems." And then there is another extreme- "This is your punishment from God. When you learn to be good and follow all the rules, God will love you and bless you." 

God does love us and sometimes it is His will to heal all our ailments or give us Earthly riches. His generous heart loves to bless us, but blessings are more than meets the human eye. And not every bad thing is a punishment for something someone has done, much less is the world's mess His fault. Yes, scripture mentions God's wrath; it is real - but don't underestimate His patient and enduring love either. 

Sometimes His plan is for something far greater than any fleshly idea of "good." Sometimes that “something” has nothing to do with what we want, but what we need. More often than not, His plans have more to do with teaching us to trust Him than making us happy every living, breathing moment. Trust is a hard thing to learn among human relationships. Perhaps it is the very difference between us and God that make trusting Him a lifelong process. 

That process is hard for us because we think we know what we need better than He does. It's hard because we crave independence even though we were never created to be independent from our Creator. The selfish desires of the human heart have to die so that we have a servant's heart. Why? Because our King was and is still a humble servant. Our King suffered so that the veil could be torn and we could know the Father like He does.