It’s only natural to question why when faced with one challenging season after another. But often understanding comes later and today we must simply live by faith.
All suffering is hard. And it seems much harder when it doesn’t make sense. On the other hand, adversities are much easier to endure when we can see a purpose.
For instance, we willingly endure school because of the promise benefit of learning on the other side. Likewise, we submit to various job trainings because it allows us to get to where we want to go professionally.
When it comes to the other challenges in life we tend to expect a similar level of clarity as well. We want to know exactly how God is working our suffering out for good.
But, like Job, we don’t always get the behind-the-scenes scoop on our story and why we’re faced with our particular ordeals.
This doesn’t make our suffering any less meaningful. God is still at work and our days serve a purpose in his larger story.
Our lack of clarity is just that, our lack of clarity. And these moments call for much faith and hope.
Even when we don’t understand we trust God is still up to something good in our story. This allows us to walk intimately with him even as we cry out with many laments for things to be different.
When we demand immediate understanding this often makes our trust conditional. We’ll trust as long as we can understand what God is up to.
But faith is trusting in his goodness even when we don’t understand his ways.
More often than not, it’s only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that we can see a bit clearer how God has weaved together the suffering in our story for a larger good.
Seek understanding whenever you can. But remember understanding often comes later.
Living by faith today allows us to live anchored in hope as we face the many challenges of life.
Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash
