Seeing Disaster as God Sees It
The ability to see disaster within a framework that is good requires us to love God more than the things we lose. This means I must know him, believe him, and trust him. In the amazing conversation in the Upper Room, Jesus connected these two concepts and added a third.
He started by telling the eleven, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me’ John 14:1). When he told them he was leaving (for the cross), Thomas wanted to know where he was going and Jesus responded, “l am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me (John 14:6). Further, Jesus tells them that if they loved him, they would keep his commandments (John 14:15).
The connection is striking. We know, believe, love, trust, and obey Jesus. When it comes to dealing with sadness caused by loss, the non-Christian is at an incredible disadvantage because he cannot believe and love someone he does not know. When we know God loving him allows us the choice to see our catastrophe as his tool.
We know that God loves us and that he is all-wise, so we know that whatever he allows into our lives will be for our good and his glory. While we might not be able to see and understand it at the time, we can trust like Martha did. Martha believed and trusted Jesus even if Lazarus had to stay in the grave until Christ’s second coming.
We can depend on God the same way. We know that whatever we lose, God intends to use that loss well and wisely. Eve’s illness took on a completely different meaning when she could see God rearranging her life. That dulled a lot of the pain associated with the losses, they became, as Paul said, lost things he could now count as gain because of the way God used them (see Phil. 3.7).
This is an excerpt from a book Good Mood Bad Mood: Help and Hope for Depression and Bipolar Disorder by Charles D Hodges. If you would like to buy this book please click here.