Your plans may fail, but God totally succeeds every time.
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Making Sense of Suffering – Our Bibles reveal that God has his reasons for allowing suffering, not just in the larger realm, but in the lives of each of us. Learning a few of those reasons can make all the difference in the world, ultimately drawing us closer to Christ, the one who makes sense out of every heartache and hardship. Use the coupon code: RADIOGIFT for free shipping!
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SHAUNA: Have you ever noticed that sometimes God’s plans don’t make sense? Well, listen now as Joni helps us make sense of what we don’t understand.
JONI: It’s what makes trusting him such a challenge; that is, unless you are confident of Romans 8:28, right? Believing that he works all things for good. But let’s get back to those plans [and let me borrow a scenario from John Piper here]. Think about this: Your plan may be this: you intended to make a quick run to the bank between 10 AM and 11 AM to get cash so you can get back in time to pay the boy who is cutting your lawn. While you’re at the bank, your neighbor agrees to watch your 4-year-old. And you feel good because it’s a doable plan. You work it all out so that you can be back in time for the lawn boy and your neighbor to get to her other engagement. It’s a clever plan: Grass cut, bank trip made, kids watched, boy paid, and everyone is off in time for their next appointment.
But here’s God’s plan. On your way, you end up running into a traffic jam which pushes everything back an hour. You rush home with no money to pay the lawn kid, plus you face a frustrated neighbor who missed her appointment with her husband and real estate agent to purchase a new house. You feel awful. And you even feel resentment against God beginning to build. You are frustrated almost to tears. As far as you’re concerned, your plan was a big failure. But God’s plans—they succeeded. Because you see, your neighbor was scheduled to be at the real estate office at 11:30 AM so she could join her husband to close on a new house—a house which, unbeknownst to them, had a terribly flawed foundation. The lawn boy was intending to take his money from cutting your grass and pool it with some other kids to buy drugs that they shouldn’t be using.
But you didn’t know that when you hit the traffic jam and you were locked up on the freeway for an hour. And you never got to the bank. But God was totally happy with what happened. Because he wanted to hinder that boy from buying drugs, and he wanted to spare your neighbors the headache of purchasing a house that’s a lemon, and—and here’s where you come in—and he wanted to grow your faith by you learning to trust him in his sovereignty and wisdom.
Now, will you know this side of earth all those particulars about the lawn boy trying to buy drugs? Will your neighbors ever know that they almost purchased a house that would have been a huge headache? No, of course not. But you can trust God with that which is unseen; you can trust him with what you do not know. Your plans may have failed, but God’s priorities totally succeeded. The question is, will you see it as a lesson in learning to trust the Lord in his sovereignty and wisdom? That, my friend, is the point and that takes faith—faith no greater than the size of a mustard seed because God makes it plain in his word that he is sovereign, he is in control, and it’s all for our good and his glory.
To help strengthen your faith when it comes to God’s sovereignty, I want to give you a special gift today, it’s a 12-page foldout pamphlet called “Making Sense of Suffering.” And it contains scores of Bible verses and really powerful insights to help strengthen your confidence in God, especially when your plans go awry.
SHAUNA: That’s right, friend! Just go to joniradio.org and ask for your free copy of “Making Sense of Suffering.” And by the way, we’d love to pray for you! So, while you’re on our website, be sure to leave us your prayer requests, too. Remember it’s joniradio.org.
© Joni and Friends