God has informed me about some of His plans — plans for me and my life; plans that make clear to me what He wants and how capable He is of steering my life in the way that is best for me.
I love these plans, but sometimes it seems like they are so good that they couldn’t possibly come true — not for me anyway, and not anytime soon. I don’t know why I feel the need to protect myself from what God wants to give me.
I look around at what I have and am amazed and grateful at what He has done to redeem me through struggles. Maybe my problem is that I would like God to guarantee that He will redeem my life along with me, but is this possible?
What comes with redeeming? Do think there is not pain in this? Do I think it has not been offered to me at a cost and received at a cost? Is this gift not worth sacrifice and grief? If it trumps what I could have without it; indeed, disables my pain by confronting it, can I not deal with the pressure that comes with it?
Do I think it is possible for pain to be in God’s hands — to assault Him and then touch me through Christ — without a purpose? Is it not a weak deliverance if pain disappears as though it were nothing; as though God allowed it though it would have cost Him nothing to relieve us of it?
Maybe if relief comes to us His way we will have it forever as well as be able to enjoy it now. Could I enjoy relief — enjoy Him — if the pain He took upon Himself (our pain) were not so severe, so straining, so sobering?
If what He does in us were not so strange and impossible for us to pass through alone, would we ever have a need to look at Him and discover how He first handled our sorrows and rejoice that He has reached the end of them?
At Home with God 