Know my heart

Back in October, our church did a series called When God. I mentioned this on the blog back then, but I have recently listened to them all again over the past several weeks and they have continued to speak truth. In his second message titled When God is Uncooperative, Andy brings up many good points but there was one I thought was worth sharing on here. Now, hear me out and in the words of my friend, Heather, know my heart when I say this...

When something bad happens to you and it causes you to question God's love or maybe even lose your faith all together... this can be a very selfish way of thinking.

Now I know most of you are probably a bit offended like I was when I first heard Andy say this, but here's why...

Have you ever noticed that when bad things happen to other people... or maybe there is a natural disaster that kills thousands of people... it will make you sad... or maybe you will say "That is just awful, I will pray for you (them)"...  or maybe you will feel compelled to donate money or volunteer... but never once will it cause you to lose your faith or question God's love? But when something goes wrong in our own personal life and we feel as though the rug was ripped out from under us... suddenly, God seems non-existent and we feel as though He must not really love us or He wouldn't have allowed this pain and suffering. Why is it that when bad things happen to other people, we remember how big God is and trust that He ultimately has a plan through it all... but when bad things happen to us we suddenly shrink God down to our size and are unable to see outside of our own walls of grief?

When bad things happen, while it's ok to hurt, feel pain and ask God "why?"... never once should we question His love for us or feel as though He's left us on our own. The very fact that we can get up and take each day at a time is proof that His grace is sufficient even when we are at our weakest. The people whose stories I find most encouraging are not the ones that have the "why me" mentality when they face hard times, but rather the ones who say "why not me?" We shouldn't measure God's love for us by what He has done for us lately, but rather what He did on the cross.