Why Bad Things Happen

[Ramez5]

18 I have heard Ephraim crying:
‘Lord, you punished me, and I learned my lesson.
I was like a calf that was never trained.
Please stop punishing me,
and I will come back to you.
You really are the Lord my God.
19 I wandered away from you.
But I finally realized how wrong I was.
So I changed my heart and life.
I am ashamed and embarrassed
about the foolish things I did when I was young.’”
20 The Lord says,
“You know that Ephraim is my dear son.
I love that child.
Yes, I often criticized Ephraim,
but I still think about him.
I love him very much,
and I really do want to comfort him.
Jeremiah 31:18-20 (ERV)

This passage is such a beautiful picture of God’s love for us.. and his desire and willingness to bring us back to him, when we have wandered in any degree. I’ve been reading “The Problem of Pain” by CS Lewis this week and have also been praying a lot for two dear friends who have wandered from their first love as I had done. Lewis says the whole point of pain in our lives is to get our attention.. and draw us back into a right relationship with the Lord--one where God is central.. and our activities are peripheral. (You can download the book here.)

If there is no pain in our lives, we never will see our great need for the Lord's help. We won't cry out to him or desire him unless this present world is less desirable in our eyes.

Pain is often times the only way God can get our attention.

Lewis so rightly describes how wayward our hearts are..in that we want to call the day ‘our own’ and only offer back a small part to God.. as if our day and our time was ‘ours’ and not the creators. When we go through the day.. making our own plans.. our own decisions..giving only a certain ‘mental ascent’ to God but unwilling to ‘leave our nets’ to seek him, CS Lewis calls it idolatry. Before I read his book, I had already been convinced this was the case.

Idolatry truly is putting anything including ourselves before God. We are just as guilty of idolatry as the children of Israel.. when we fail to acknowledge God, worship him, seek him, or realize that our best efforts to live the Christian life without seeking him daily and seeking him first is in some ways a waste.

When we do that, we spend whole days living life in our own strength.. and all our families get, all our friends get, our best efforts..but not God’s spirit..and we find ourselves giving them the best of ‘our flesh’ instead of the best of His Spirit.. Praying we will not take even one step of our day.. without first taking time to seek his face.

He loves us.. and never will stop trying to woo us to him. If that means pain in our lives, then that is what he will allow..for our good. What a loving gracious God he is.

Dear Lord, Please open our eyes to our great need to rely on you each day for your grace. Send pain if pain is what is needed. Pain is a good thing when it brings healing or the awareness of a need for healing. Convict us for seeing our day as 'ours' or our life.. 'our' priorities. Bring us back to you when you see us wandering away..or trying to run our own lives. Return us to our first love for you. Amen