The Character of God

The past few months have been challenging for my walk. The death of my son Levi has brought me into a season where God’s plan doesn’t make sense to me. My current feelings are not due to my comprehension of suffering. My confusion stems from thinking that I had a clear grasp of what God was doing, and it turns out that I did not (details of that story are for a future time).

Although I still do not have any idea what God is doing, I can stand on what is constant… the character of God.

I’m learning everyday about what it means to put your faith in God. This has been an ongoing education throughout my life, but it’s been at a doctorate level in the past year. I may not be an expert yet, but I can tell you what faith is not…Faith in God is not a wish-granting factory.

Yes, all things are possible with God, but not all things are planned by God.

Faith requires a complete dependence on the fact that God knows what He’s doing. It involves trusting that His plans are right even when they don’t match your plans.

I’ve always felt like I had BIG faith, but the truth is, your faith is measured in the valley. Your faith is measured when you are waiting. We know this from the story of Job. I’ve honestly always struggled with this story. The Bible says, in Job 42, that God gave Job twice as much as he had before. I always thought, “well that’s nice, but he’ll never forget what he lost. The pain will always be there.”

The truth is, I believe that the pain is there for a reason. Job was not meant to forget the times of suffering. If Job forgot the suffering, then how would the rest of us get to be encouraged by it. I like to think that when God was writing Job’s story, He was thinking about you and I. He was considering everyone who would go through a struggle. Now, we have an example to turn to when our faith is tested. (Also, I believe only a portion of Job’s abundance was found here on Earth — something to look forward to :))

Oswald Chambers described faith so well when he said,

Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.

I know that right now it feels bad. Right now, I don’t understand. Right now, I’m dealing with a million emotions a day…

BUT right now, my God is setting the stage for something miraculous. My God is good and His character has been shown countless times. My eyes can’t see what’s unfolding now, but by looking at what He’s done in the past, I’m assured that the future is in good hands.

Job surely didn’t understand his circumstances when he was facing them, but his faith came from trusting in the One who was holding everything together. BIG faith is trusting in a BIG God despite how things appear.

Hebrews 13 talks about Him being the same yesterday, today and forever. The character of God doesn’t change either. He’s still working things for your good, even in the midst of it looking really bad.

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.