COV LIFE BLOG

Genesis 23-24 – God’s Faithfulness and Sovereignty During Suffering

What do you do when it doesn’t work out the way you thought it would? You took the job, and it didn’t work out. You made the investment, and it didn’t work out. You entered the relationship, and it didn’t work out. You started school, and it didn’t work out. You made a big decision, and it didn’t work out. What do you do then? Our first reaction is usually to say, “Well, I must have been wrong, and it couldn’t have been the will of God.” I don’t think that’s the right answer.

Trouble is no sign that you are out of God’s will. It might mean that you doing exactly what God wants you to do. Sometimes God sends trouble not as a judgment but as a sign that we are doing right. When Jesus was crucified, was he out of God’s will? No, but his life ended in the midst of pain and suffering. No one was ever more in God’s will than Jesus, yet he was murdered by his enemies.

When you have made a choice, and the choice has brought you difficulty after difficulty after difficulty, the outcome of your decision does not retroactively affect whether it was God’s will or not. The fact that your life hasn’t worked out exactly like you planned doesn’t necessarily mean that your decisions were wrong. Sometimes there are other factors at work.

But since God is in control of the minute details of life, you can relax, knowing that he will reveal his plan for your life step by step. God’s will is more like a sunrise. At first we see his plan dimly, then the outline begins to emerge. Slowly over time, the clouds vanish, the darkness disappears, and the brightness of his presence fills our lives. Do you get anxious at sunrise because all you can see is the tiny rim of the sun? No, because you know that if you wait long enough you will see the sun in all its brilliance. The same is true of God’s plan for your life. You never see the whole thing in advance, but if you wait long enough, God reveals his will.

So relax! God is in charge and he knows exactly what he is doing in your life.

Ray Pritchard

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MEDITATION ON THE SERMON PASSAGE
Read Genesis 23-24.

What suffering are you going through right now that causes you to doubt God’s plan? Where can you see God’s faithfulness in this passage and in your life that remind you that he has not left you nor forsaken you?

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE FOR MEDITATION
Romans 8:32
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

SONG FOR THIS WEEK
He Will Hold Me Fast by Matt Merker