The Life of God in You in the Midst of a Broken World
God, why? Where are you? How could you let this happen?

Do these questions sound familiar? It the midst of great struggle and pain, particularly, three years ago, when we almost lost my eldest daughter in a devastating plane crash. When we learned that the four young men who were traveling with her on a ministry trip had lost their lives, it felt like there was absolutely no way to process the pain and grief. Our world would never be the same. These questions were on my tongue. There were times when I wasn’t just sad, but I was mad at God. I would pray, “God, I don’t think you caused it, but how could you even allow this?”

I think sometimes instead of getting mad at God we are “polite” with him. Then we give God the silent treatment and walls begin to develop between us. You know, I don’t think God is intimidated when we express our emotions to him. It’s better to let it out and allow him to help us work through it. I did a lot of that—crying, and yelling, and praying, and just letting God hear my heart through all of it.

How do we keep moving forward when tragedy strikes, and frankly, disagrees with my theology! I’ve thought, Lord, you need to get your theology right around here because it doesn’t really line up with what the Bible says! There are things we don’t understand. First Corinthians says “we see through a glass dimly,” we don’t see the full picture. We don’t always get the explanation. But that doesn’t mean we stop following. When we look at people like Paul, he was in jail, whipped, stoned, left for dead, ship wrecked.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” He is living this paradox: outwardly, it looks like I’m destroyed. I’m being emaciated and obliterated. But I am renewed day by day; I’ve got this fountain of life on the inside.

He lives this paradox out in front of everyone and I think it’s a picture of resilience. It’s possible for us to have things outwardly appearing to be totally caving in on us, but inwardly we have the life of God breathing in us—it more than compensates for the outward circumstance.

My prayer for all of us is that, in faith, we would walk in this sort of resilience: God breathing life in us as we trust in him. No matter what things look like on the outside. No matter what.

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