Have you ever been watching a movie or TV show and there’s a part in the story that confuses you? Makes you angry? Makes you want to pause it and just process what happened?

   Have you read a book and there’s a chapter that is so difficult, you just have to put the book down for a while? But, whether it’s 5 minutes later or a week later, you eventually pick it back up. Why? Because you know there’s a lot more story left – you know that the difficult chapter isn’t the end. There is more to the story. There’s more to be written.

      Isn’t our journey through life the same way? We have difficult seasons. We have those moments – or sometimes, long seasons – where we really wonder where God is or what He’s doing. We wonder why He’d allow this thing to happen – how it could possibly be part of the story He’s writing in our lives. 

Picture this:

There’s a room with a guy crashing cymbals together – loud, seemingly random (almost painful) crashes. In another room, there’s a girl playing a flute all by herself. In a 3rd room, someone playing a tympani *boom boom BOOM*. A 4th room: a clarinet. And so on.

   Separately, it’s just a lot of random noise. But, put them together, and they can create a beautiful musical masterpiece.

But we don’t always see it that way – especially not at first. We see the hurt, the pain, the brokenness. 

In fact, for many of us, the noise (the pain) is the biggest stumbling block between ourselves and God – we make statements like, “How could a loving God allow THAT to happen!?” or, “I’m not sure I can trust a God who would let this take place.” And let me be VERY clear – yes, there are definitely hard times in our stories. I’m not making light of those hard times. I’ve had some hard times in mine as well.  But there are 3 major problems with those statements:  

1) These statements are often very self-centered. They usually exist with only ME in mind and how something makes ME feel. As if the world (and God) only exists to give me whatever I want. But let’s be real – since when do we really know what we want? Since the history of mankind began, look at where the selfish desires of our hearts have led us. Look at what our greedy ambitions have done to ourselves and to those we love. Look at how our need for approval, our desire for wealth or power or popularity or our need for control has only hurt those around us and sent us spiraling more out of control. It’s about more than just me. 

2) These statements are often very NOW-centered. And I’m guilty of this too, but it can be very hard to find perspective in the midst of a trial. Especially when we’re younger, because we simply don’t have the wisdom and life experience yet to be able to stop and look back over a few decades and see the story coming together. But Scripture refers to the refiner’s fire, which is very seldom enjoyable at the time, but leads to purification. If we can endure the now, there will be growth on the other side.   

3) And lastly, these doubting statements assume this life is all there is – that there isn’t a bigger story at play here. They forget that we’re only seeing a tiny snapshot, but that God sees and knows the WHOLE movie. We forget that there’s an eternal story that God is telling – this season is only one chapter of it. And while it may be a very difficult chapter, it’s not the end of the story. 

The Author is still writing. Keep reading…

Written by Steven Click