Have circumstances discouraged you, causing you to wonder where God is or why He allows what He does?

We can tend to think we have God figured out and then He seems to act out of character by allowing something that we don’t understand.

But, my friend, God is always consistent with Who He is – loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, and faithful to the ends of the earth. So, if it seems like God is disappointing you, failing you, or abandoning you, you must not have the whole picture yet.  And spoiler alert: you might not see the whole picture this side of heaven.

When I was 19 years old,  as I was reeling from my parents’ divorce and the hurtful circumstances associated with it, I found myself wondering why God was allowing what He did in my family of origin. I grew up in the church. My parents were leaders in the church. This type of thing was not supposed to happen, I remember thinking, as I poured my heart out to God.

I happened to be sitting atop a rock at Hume Lake Christian Camps at the time, where I was a high school camp counselor that week.  I had been  sent out, with the rest of the counselors, to have some early morning quiet time with God at the start of the week. But that nagging question “Why, God?”  was still plaguing my heart and overshadowing everything I thought about. Did He fail me? Was He not faithful as I thought He was?

It was then that I turned to the assigned devotional reading for the counselors that morning. And there, in Isaiah 55:8-11,  were the most encouraging, comforting, and life-changing words I had ever read:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways

And My thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

And do not return there without watering the earth

And making it bear and sprout,

And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;

It will not return to Me empty,

Without accomplishing what I desire,

And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it” (NASB).

Whoa, there it was—an assurance to my heart that even though I didn’t understand God’s thoughts, He was still God, and He was still good, and He could still bring something good out of what He was allowing.

It took a few more years of blind trust before I began to see the fruit of what God accomplished through my trust in Him despite my circumstances.  God did not do a bad thing to bring good to my life. He worked within the bad that had happened to produce in me a stronger faith and trust in Him. He pulled me and my siblings closer to Himself during that season of our lives.  And He gave my father a ministry of helping to pull others out of the pit from which God had pulled him. God proved to me, through that painful season of my life,  and in many other seasons since then, that He can absolutely be trusted.

Even when you and I can’t see the whole story yet.

Trust Him, my friend, regardless of what is happening  in your circumstances right now. His Word promises in Psalm 18:30 that “His way is blameless; The Word of the Lord is tried: He is a shield  to all who take refuge in Him” (NASB).

The ESV renders that same verse: “This God—His way is perfect…” (ESV).

Will you trust this God whose ways are blameless and perfect? Will you trust Him to be your shield of refuge as you wait for Him to bring the fruit out of your suffering? He knows exactly what He’s allowing to draw you closer to Himself and strengthen your faith for whatever is to come.

For more on trusting God with your whole heart, see my newest book, The New Loneliness Devotional: 50 Days to a Closer Connection with God.