It seems that whenever trouble comes, God is the first to be blamed… Why? Why is it that the very One to be there for us gets accused if something goes wrong? “Well, He shouldn’t let it happen.” Poor excuse. It’s angering that people find satan so intriguing, and then turn around and make God the scapegoat-blaming Him for what is actually satan’s doing. I think a lot of people visualize God differently than what He really is…me for one. For so long, I’ve seen Him as an angry, hating God just looking for an excuse to condemn me. He was always glaring at me, but loving everyone else. Over the past year or so, He has been showing me the real Him, and He is WAY different from what I pictured. I’ve dared to call Him Father, and that has become the dearest name in the world to me. “Father” is an extremely endearing name and yet calls for respect. He is my Father. When I see Him in my mind’s eye, He is looking at me with eyes full of tender love and compassion – a picture I hardly dared to imagine before. You see, God doesn’t want us to get hurt. But when we do, He can use it to our advantage by teaching us by it. There can be a lot of tough questions about why God allows bad things to happen. Here’s a neat analogy I once heard a dad say in answer to such questions:
” If my daughter falls and scrapes her knee that doesn’t mean I wanted it to happen. But I can be right there to pick her up and hold her when it does.”
And God is always there for us, to hold and help us when there is trouble. So often it may seem like He isn’t really there. Another analogy: do you ever notice that when there is fog it always seems to be just across the street, never right around you? And yet across the street you would see it around your own house. Sometimes it’s hard to see God in the middle of something tough. But when you look back, He’ll be so much a part of the picture that you’ll wonder how you never noticed. I have a wonderful loving Father who is and always will be there to comfort and guide me. He wants to be that for each individual person alive. Will you let Him be that for you?
Seasons of Grace 