"Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure." - Psalms 2:5
Have you ever had one those days where it seemed like nothing was going right? Perhaps this feeling lasted for more than one day, maybe one or more weeks, or maybe even years. When you feel like everything is coming against you, when you feel as if your world is falling apart, what do you do? Do you try to fix it? Pray about it? Change your attitude? See what you can learn from it? Blame God?
A lot of modern preaching teaches that God is a God of love and He wants nothing more than to see us live happy lives, so He gives us whatever we want or need to be happy. As a result, when things go wrong, it's easy to become confused and say that God must not love us. Further, wouldn't that lead many to ask the question, 'How could He let so many things fall apart in our lives and not fix them for us?'
Yes, God does love us. In fact, His love for us is so great, we can't even comprehend it. Jesus loved us so much that He gave His life so we wouldn't have to spend eternity in Hell. When we accept Him as our Savior, we also accept a responsibility to live in a way that honors and glorifies Him. He died to save us because He loves us. It's not just that it's a responsibility, but living for Him is something that every Christian should want to do. If we accept His gift, His love, we can't do that without loving Him in return, and that gratitude should make us want to please Him.
God has our best interests at heart. When things are going wrong and our lives seem to be at their darkest, that may be hard to believe, but it's still true.
When we accept Christ, God becomes our Heavenly Father, and He treats us like a good Father should. When we obey Him, He blesses us. When we disobey Him, he punishes us. That modern preaching I mentioned earlier? That's the part they like to leave out. People don't like to hear that God can get angry with us, so some preachers, to please the people, seem to have resolved to just leave that part out.
So, when things go wrong in life, does that mean God is angry? No, not necessarily. God has a plan for each of our lives. He exists out of time, so He knows our future, and He knows the best possible path that we could take. If we stray from that path, He might allow a few negative things to happen to us to encourage us to get back on the right path.
Sometimes we're stubborn and we get it in our heads that we know better than God. Again, we're limited to our human understanding. We can't see our future, we only know what we want to have happen. If God doesn't allow it, then we sometimes forget that it means He has a plan that is even better.
God's plan is perfect, one hundred percent fool-proof. Does that mean if we completely follow God's plan that nothing bad will ever come our way? No. God may test our loyalty at times, but the more devoted we are to God, the more Satan will try to break us away.
If we stray from God's plan, God will not bless the path we try to take because He knows it is not what is best for us (even if we think it is (again, our minds are limited; His is not)). He allows us to struggle sometimes because He knows that we learn from our mistakes.
The more we intentionally sin against God (repeatedly doing things we know are wrong or ignoring and running away from the path He laid out for us), the more severe our punishments may become. Job 1:21 says, ". . . the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."
Like a good Father does, God blesses good behavior and disciplines the negative behavior in order to keep us on the right path. He does this to help us grow and weed the sinful tendencies out of our lives.
Does that mean we can learn to live without sin and be perfect? No. We can never be perfect and sinless until we get to Heaven. We still live in a sinful world, and still have every capability of being tempted by Satan to walk away from God. God knows even our thoughts. If we consider a sin, even if we don't do it, we need to repent of it. Repent. Recognize your sin and be truly sorry, and He will not only forgive you, but He will wipe your record clean. That's the beauty of God's grace. Total forgiveness. God is quick to forgive us when we've done wrong, and all we need to do is ask.
So why do we go through struggles? Punishment? Redirection? Is Satan trying to bring us down? How do we know for certain? The only answer is to pray. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray without ceasing." Read your Bible regularly so you can learn the principles He wants You to live by. God will never leave you confused as to what is going on. He may not show you the whole picture, but He will help you from situation to situation. He loves you, He will guide you, He will carry You through your hard times. He wants you to trust Him completely. Sometimes it's hard to let go of certain things in your life (trust me, I know), but He always has the best plans for you.
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." - Jeremiah 20:11
