Tailored for Difficulties

A familiar tale has been told; “My son and I are going to eat this last meal and die!” (See 1 Kings 17). No hope! No future! Evidently this is the end. How many times have you thought that this was it? Like Mommy often says; “I have reached the end of the rope.” No eyes can see, ears hear nor understanding comprehend a way of escape. This is it! I mean, how else can it be? There is no way out. How many times have you been engulfed by a pitch-black situation? Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Some may say, impossible! I will not make it through this one. Doctors have given you over, specialists have deemed it impossible, faith is at nil and prayer is just a distant thing. But we have read it times and times again, IT CAME TO PASS! Storms never last. Seasons do change. If God be for us who or what can be against us? Listen to me, you were tailor made for this! Yes! Rest assured, God has you and your this.

I have a friend, she is more to me like a sister. She has always told me that I was a spoil child. Yeap. My friends are like that, they tell me as is. I always defended myself. That was not the case, I would argue in my defense but one day I saw what she saw. I remember going through another challenging semester; balancing assignments, group work, presentations and working a 9-5 job while living on my own and paying bills. There was nothing easy about that yet that was always the easier part. I was faced that day with the reality of not being able to sit my final exams due to unpaid fees. I was absolutely not having it and completely out of it. I was praying, fasting and trusting God all throughout the semester for provision. I was being a good Christian, literally the best I know how. That day during lunch I went outside to talk with someone after ending the call I realized then how dim the chances of sitting my exams were and I started blaming God. I cannot think of another time in history being so upset with my Maker. I turned to God in my hurt and frustration and told Him I was no longer going to serve Him. This was the end of this journey with Christ. I could not understand why am I serving, sacrificing and striving to please a God who can and choose not to provide my school fee. It made no sense to me. I walked away from God that day, or so I thought.

I was really disappointed with God, with life, with everything. I left work that day and while walking on the road a tractor trailer was passing and I remember wishing the driver would just run over me. My life felt hopeless. I did not want to continue. I wished that my parents had used contraceptives. I was just so bitter. To make matters worst the devil started whispering in my ears; “no one loves you, it does not make sense to continue, why not end it all here,” he went on and on. I sat and listened and cried my heart out as seemingly what he said was true. On the flip side of the coin, though I had ended my relationship with the Lord (mentally I decided that it was over), I found myself still blessing my food and acknowledging God in things I did, this I did not understood. As I pondered it all, the Lord met with me: “Liz, you are in the palm of my hand. You were holding on to my thumb and you thought you were keeping yourself but you were not. When you let go off my thumb I held you closer in the palm of my hand. I got you!” The oceans had nothing over me that day for my fountain of tears sprang and flowed. I lamented, repented and will be forever changed.

The day that followed I walked in the realms of the miraculous. I experienced nothing short of a miracle. God worked a miracle for unworthy me. Yea, He still does those things. He still defies human logic. I sat my exams. It was after the exam while I was exiting the room in retrospect of all that happened in the last 24 hours of my life where I realize how spoil I was. Don’t blame me, blame how I was socialized. I viewed God through impaired lenses. At home I got what I wanted when I behaved myself, I expected the same of God. After performing my reasonable service I considered myself worthy of all the blessings. But, God works after the counsel of His own will. Can I say that one more time? I think I need to.
“….of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:” (Ephesians 1:11, KJV). When that verse hit home, it hit hard. God counsels with Himself and God does what God pleases! It doesn’t matter what I do or did not do. My my my. What a wake up call I got that day. I had to take some time to unlearn my spoil behaviour and learn a more appropriate way of dealing with challenges, after all, I was tailored for difficulties.

It was during another challenging season of life where illumination and revelation came to me from the Word of the Lord. I was hurting over a lot of things and I did not understand why I had to endure so much pain, it was there the Lord introduced me to Isaiah 53:10: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” Let me hasten to say that I did not understand at first. When I saw this verse, that is, really took note of it, I imagined a sadist; (a person with an evil laugh, hot pointed forks piercing people and getting pleasure from inflicting wounds on them). The challenge for me was to fit the God I have been taught about to that description. You cannot imagine my level of discombobulation at the time.

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When I tell you that foolishness was bound up in my heart, best believe me. When Solomon said, get understanding, obey him. When God said that His ways and thoughts are higher, trust Him, it is. When Jesus said, learn of me, He was not playing around, one has to learn Christ. It was when I sought after understanding that the Lord revealed to me that pain and suffering (our light affliction) is not seen to Him as we are seeing it. We see a man on the cross battered and bruised but He sees salvation for the human race. We see hardships and struggles, death, defeats, losses, loneliness and failures but He sees His image being formed in us. Illumination for me came when I understood that God saw beyond the moment of challenge, that He was making me into something more beautiful, that He was ridding me of the foolishness that was in my heart through pain. I understood then that Christ was teaching me who He is and I simply needed to sit as a good student and learn Him. I began praying for the Lord to take pleasure in my pain: “If my pain pleases You, be pleased Lord.”

In retrospect of my life, today I can truly appreciate every challenge that I have encountered. My whole life has be rearranged for better. I am not as foolish as I once was. Challenges do not knock me off as they once would, I am learning to trust my process and the One who sees beyond my moments. I keep assuring myself that if God is who we say He is then I don’t need to be perturbed by circumstances. I have to constantly coach myself to have faith and remind myself that God is sovereign. I have to make deliberate choices to worship God in moments when seemingly there is nothing to worship Him for. I have to keep releasing things into the hands of God knowing He is more capable of handling things than I will ever be.

It behooves us to know Christ. A knowledge, understanding and appreciation for who God is will radically transform our perspective on challenges. One of my favourite attribute of God’s character, if there is, is His faithfulness. Consolation in difficulties is hearing words such as; “…But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able…” (1 Corinthians 10:13, KJV). For me, this ability to suffer is beyond my human abilities. I strongly believe it is an endowment of God’s grace in the life of the believer that enables them to endure suffering. Why then would God tell the Apostle Paul that His grace is sufficient? He did not tell Paul that he was self sufficient to endure, however, He said He will supply the sufficient grace for him to endure the thorn in his flesh. Similarly, God provides adequate grace for us to endure our turbulence.

Our life is not and will not be absented from challenges. At some point or another we will encounter a loss of a loved one, church hurts, we will be disappointed by family and friends, abandoned, lack important resources, fail an important task or simply challenged. That is how the Lord intended it to be. However, The Lord also desires us to count it as joy in the midst of difficulties. It took me a while to understand how possible this impossible statement is. After praying for eyes to see beyond the moments, reliance on His sufficient grace and understanding that I have been adequately equipped and intentionally selected, joy becomes almost automatic. God knows what He is doing. I have confidence in that truth.

You are tailored for difficulties. I read something earlier this week that posed a question of challenge; “how is it we can trust a company to pack all the pieces of a puzzle in a box but cannot trust God to put all our pieces together?” Beloved, you are in the hands of the all powerful God who has an hedge around you, only what He allows or sends you experience. He knows you, He was the one who made you. You were built to last. This is not the end of your story! Your storm will not last, this too shall pass!

Here is a beautiful song for meditation, “It’s not over now.” A personal old time favourite by Glacia Robinson, a woman with a very powerful testimony of God’s faithfulness; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNn9E7uboJc. Do enjoy!