Gotta Go THROUGH It!

Some PK kids I knew had their fair share of hilarious horror stories growing up (for those who don't know, PK stands for "preacher's kids"). You have to admit, though, it's kinda hard not to have "things" happen when you have a passel of kids.

Anyway, one night when they were home alone, one of the kids broke the lid to the toilet tank. Money was tight in those days, so this seemed catastrophic to the kids. One sibling had the great idea of putting an arrangement of flowers on it to try to hide the crack from their parents—and then they hedged their bets by praying all night for a miracle. Surely the God of miracles, the God who provided water to the Israelites from a rock, the God who decimated the mighty army of Pharoah to deliver His people, the God who made the blind to see and the lame to walk, the God who raised Christ from the dead, surely He could make a measly crack in a toilet tank lid disappear.

Only ... guess what. He didn't. Not that He couldn't, He just didn't. And the kids had to face the music. Why? In His great wisdom, there are simply times when our All-Powerful God will let us suffer the consequences of our actions—or, what is even harder to comprehend, the actions of others.

That, my friends, is what life is like in a nutshell. There are some hardships that God in His infinite mercy erases or mitigates. Then there are the others, the ones that, like the early childhood rhyme says, we "Can't go over it, can't go around it, gotta go through it!"

Compared to the adversities faced as adults, a broken toilet top seems like a rather minor problem. Our adult reactions to the major problems in life, though, seem to mirror childlike reactions. Often, they run the gamut of a series of, "Why???" Why do the good have to suffer? Why do the righteous die young? Why does our prayer go unanswered?

The truth is, we might not ever know in this life. But there is one thing we can hang our hat on. God is good, and He is faithful. What He says He will do, He will do.

Sometimes we find ourselves at loggerheads with God when we don't "get it." Then, like David who encouraged himself in the Lord, we have to remind ourselves of what exactly constitutes God's truth. We see things from a limited human perspective; God sees from the eternal. We need to remember that the denouement of His plans, plans that are ALWAYS for our good, might very well outreach our life span. Naboth died at the hands of the wicked queen who stole his family vineyard. At that point in time, it looked like the bad guys were winning. But that was not the end of the story. God DID demand Naboth's blood from the evil queen's hands, only Naboth was not there to see it (1 Kings 21:1-16; 2 Kings 9:30-37).

God DOES care about your prayers. They are so special to Him that each and every one is captured and stored in a bowl. And not just any bowl—a golden bowl, a bowl made of precious metal to signify their special worth to Him (Revelation 5:8).

He WILL answer our prayers, He WILL do what He says—but the caveat is: He never promised to do it on OUR timetable or in OUR way. God told Moses he would lead His people out of slavery—but Moses had to wade through a mess of gut-wrenching plagues to get there.

God promised Joseph exaltation, but he had to suffer thirteen years of rejection, slavery, false accusations, and imprisonment before getting to that place of honor.

God promised His people a Messiah—but it was roughly 4,000 years from the first prophesy (Genesis 3:15) to the birth of Jesus.

There was a long time between those promises and their fulfillment. A long time of seeing and experiencing many hurtful things that were NOT the fulfillment of His promise. Certainly some scoffed and doubted that the promise would ever come to pass. But one glorious thing stands out—when it came, it was so good that the pain of the in-between time was virtually obliterated.

God's people marched out of Egypt laden with riches and clothed with glorious liberty. Joseph went from the depths of an Egyptian prison to the second highest rank in the land. Proving the worth of every bit of the wait, Jesus ushered in a glorious new pathway to forgiveness and to the very presence of God.

God's timetable and methods aren't always ours. But make no mistake. What He has promised WILL come to pass.

Hang in there. Don't get discouraged by a broken toilet lid—the best is yet to come.

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9).

"When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them" (Psalm 126:1-2).

"God is faithful" (1 Corinthians 1:9).