Then Life Happens: Trusting God Through the Valley - Part #1

     It's the age old question, why is there sorrow and suffering in the world if God exists?  The simple answer is this, none of us are good, we all deserve hell therefore a perfectly righteous and holy God is merciful in simply letting us take our next breath.  Because of our sin, there is sorrow and suffering and that is not God's fault, it is ours.  Can God stop bad things from happening, yes, but is He required to or no longer good if He doesn't?, no.  That is the black and white answer.  It is easy to live by until....those bad things actually happen.
     We can thank God for the good things but we have trouble trusting God when the bad things start to pile up.  The question of, "Why God?", starts to role through our minds when friends turn their backs on us, death suddenly takes a loved one away, cancer rages through the body of a young acquaintance, a baby is born who will not live more than a few hours and the list goes on and on.  Out of desperation and a broken heart we cry out, why God?  Can their be comfort for the brokenhearted in the arms of the God who could have
stopped all the bad things from happening?  Does He even care?
      It's the shortest verse in the Bible but possibly one of the most powerful, "Jesus wept."  Upon reaching the tomb where His friend Lazarus lay dead, Jesus grieved.  The God who allows suffering and sorrow is not a God who does not feel pain or know our grief, but rather One Who, for the sake of love, suffered and died on our behalf.  There is comfort in His arms.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction...

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 

     While God allows suffering, He is by no means responsible for suffering.  We can't blame God for the pain that we go through because it is a consequence of sin.  However, God is still sovereign over the suffering that goes on in this world.  He has a plan that we cannot begin to understand or comprehend.   Knowing that our good God is working in ways we can not begin to understand or comprehend allows us to trust Him.  After questioning God, Job simply responded, "these things are too wonderful for me."  Job could not understand the why behind God's sovereign will so he chose to trust God and find comfort in the knowledge of who He was.  Even through the fog of grief and pain we must allow the light of hope to shine through as we remember that our God holds all things in His hands, orchestrating them according to His will.  He promises that, "all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purposes." (Romans 8:28)  Though we do not understand or know the big picture we must trust Him.  This is what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are My ways higher than your ways
and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:9
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  God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience.  I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notion of what He is up to.
Elizabeth Elliot