God is in Control

I want to share something that a close friend of mine shared with me last week. I pray that it will help you to view things that happen that we don't understand and often make us question God in a different light.

I have a close friend, she and her husband have three children and are devout Christians. This friend helped to lead me to homeschooling. They struggled to make ends meet like many families with one income do. Things got really bad and she had a choice, her choice was to either go to work so that they could keep their home or continue homeschooling and lose it. At the time I had the hardest time understanding her decision. She chose to continue homeschooling and that they did lose their home.

That was several years ago maybe 4 or 5. She never understood why they had to lose their home, it was such a sacrifice for them. BUT the one thing she knew was that God had called her to homeschool and she could not disobey that call. Last week she called me, she said, "Jen, the Lord finally showed me why we had to lose our home. We found out that another couple bought it and the woman became very sick (just like she and her son had while living there) they discovered that behind the walls of that home, there was thick black mold growing. Had we stayed it might have cost us our lives, and had we discovered it, which I don't think we would have, we wouldn't have had the money to fix it."

I was stunned. Even though it looked so bleak and hopeless to us, and we questioned why God would let them suffer so, I mean they were good Christians and were speaking blessing over themselves. How could this be?

Now we know. He had saved their lives. He required that they suffer a small amount to save them from disaster. He protected them and had their best interest in mind. He knew all along. I wonder how it made God feel to know that we were questioning Him?

What I learned through this was just to trust in His plan no matter what. Nothing takes Him by surprise and if we can remember this through trials and tribulations I believe that this will strengthen us and remind us to praise Him in the storm, to rejoice through trials and persecution.

James1:2-8

2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.