Why is the road not smooth? By Hillary-Beth Koenig

Why is the road not smooth?

By Hillary-Beth Koenig

Why are we never satisfied? At church this past Sunday, my pastor conveyed this truth: The reality we live in tempts us to stop pursuing God and live for the here and now. The funny thing is, when we live for the here and now, we end up being very worried about how things will work out, and we cannot enjoy our lives; we can get caught up in striving for more, and trying to make things work out on our own instead of depending on God.
See, nobody’s promised a smooth ride! People have problems, some have even bigger problems than others, but God shines through us when we don’t ride on our circumstances. We can let our circumstances drive everything we do and think, if we are not careful! “If things were only this way, if I only had this, if only this would happen…”
God is bigger. And He teaches us to trust Him – Matthew 6 says not to worry about where our provisions will come from, that the God who provides for the wild animals and plants certainly provides for us. Sometimes we have to work harder than other times to get stuff done; the Earth was cursed at the time of the Fall according to Genesis, and we have to work hard for our harvests. Although, sometimes God does bless us abundantly, when we don’t even expect it. (The glory goes to God.) Sometimes we just have to adjust our attitudes, be thankful for what we have, refuse to be victims of our circumstances, and be wise with our resources.
Another thing my pastor brought to our attention: God’s plans are bigger than our present experience; God is preparing us for our whole eternal experience, right now in the present.
We cannot understand all of what seems fair or unfair here, because we don’t know the mind of God, and we don’t see the big picture. Besides, who are we to demand God to prove Himself by doing things our way and on our timeframe? And we can’t base our faith on feeling like God is or is not doing what we think He should do. That is like saying “I know more than God” if we base what we believe on what we think is right and what we think should happen in our lives and the lives around us.
I have so many painful memories of trying to understand… but I chose each time to trust God. It is hard but it is good. We think we see the problem and the solution, but often our problems are way more than our circumstances – God works all things together for our good to make us more like Christ, and if we doubt God’s goodness, faithfulness, and promises, then maybe trials are the good thing for our faith. Our faith is way more important than even our basic needs of food, water… Jesus showed that when He was tempted (Luke 4).
Don’t lose heart  - “We walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7