Do we limit God to just expressing His love and mercy to only the “good things in life?” Do we require God to work under our terms and conditions and if He doesn’t we are disappointed?
If so, we are really missing out on a huge amount of what He does every day. I lived my life (nearly 40 years of it angry at God because I had never seen the good He was doing in my horrors of life. I could not see anything positive because I was focused on the negative constantly. Not realizing that God uses all things for good for those who love Him, not just the things we approve of or what makes us comfortable. He even uses our defeats and losses to aid in His love and mercy.
God works through both the good and the bad in life to bless us. He uses the painful things and the things we see as hindrances to train us. He even uses what seems like the most difficult things to express His love and His mercy. When I thought God was ignoring me as a child, He was making me strong, He had a plan all along one I couldn’t see. H
e says no to what we want out of love. A loving Father steps in when He sees His children headed for a fall. When we are headed down a deadly path we have laid out for ourselves and God drops a big roadblock in our way. He does it to save us from where we are leading ourselves.
Have you ever reasoned yourself into a ridiculous situation? I know I have. I’ve been in abusive relationships, where I have just dealt with the abuse because I didn’t want to be alone. Thinking I could change Him. Not realizing that He was not going to change that was who He was, you cannot change someone who doesn’t want to change.
A funny thing happened when God stepped in and showed me mercy despite my best efforts to stay involved with an abuser. Which I had no business being there in the first place. Satan seemed victorious in my life for many years, but God had a plan.
When our plans are destroyed, but down the road we realize it is God’s love that won the day.
We are only human, there are going to be times when our plans are not God’s plans and our ways are not God’s ways. If we trust that His ways are always better than ours (and we should). Even though it may seem our lives are falling apart at that time, trusting God’s plans will always lead to sweetness and help us to avoid regret.
From Pity to Praise 