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"In fact, He might find that our discomfort is better for His plan of salvation for this world than our demand for a good life."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 94.
I don't like that quote above. Even though I wrote those words, I don't like what they say. The implications of those words scare me. How could a loving God think that anything other than my comfortable life be what He could ever want for my life?
God's plan is something I don't think we will ever fully appreciate. You see, God's plan isn't to make our lives nice and comfy. God doesn't have anything against us having a good life. It just isn't His plan to make comfort be the focus of a life well lived.
This life is about something more. This life has more to do with the battle waging right now between the forces of good and the forces of evil. I just can't understand how Satan keeps His fighters so motivated to fight. The results of their efforts are so abundantly clear in God's Word. God wins! Light overcomes darkness. The forces of good prevail.
Why in the world would anyone keep fighting in spite of knowing that the outcome is assured? I believe the reason they continue to fight is based on nothing more than that terrible characteristic we sometimes live out in our lives. Evil is motivated to fight out of the simple word spite.
Satan knows that he will be defeated. He knows He will be separated from God for all eternity. All He can do is to take as many of us with him in the hopes that this will cause God some pain. Want to know something really amazing. That fact does cause God pain. The fact that even one of God's creations would choose to live without Him is a thought that, I believe drives God to do reckless and desperate things. You don't have to go any further than God offering up His own son to see what I mean by that.
Jesus' death on the cross is nothing short of reckless and desperate. This plan doesn't guarantee that all of God's Children with choose to be with Him. That's Satan's motive for continuing to fight. He knows that God's plan won't work unless we choose to accept that plan. He wants to make it hard for us to make that choice. He does so by making our life difficult at times in ways that can only be descried as hell on earth.
That's why discomfort in our lives can sometimes be viewed as God's plan. He may need us to be in some pretty dark places for His light to be seen. Living in a place where we expect God's plan to always make our life what we want it to be is a victim thinker's paradise. God is God. His plan is what will make this world be all it is suppose to be for His Children. Sometimes that plan makes it possible for our comfortable lives to be forfeited whether we like it or not.
Take a look at today's Bible reading with me now.
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 1 John 5:4 (ESV)
Victory is described in such a different way in today's reading. Our faith is the victory that overcomes the evil in this world. It isn't the defeat of evil that is our victory. It isn't the fact that our live turns back into what we want that defines victory for the victor. Faith is what John says victory looks like.
John also says that any of us that are Children of God overcomes the world. That's a powerful promise. It doesn't say that that victory will be the comfortable and pain-free life in this world. It says we will overcome. God will show us what that looks like. It might be that our overcoming will be when we pass from this life to the next. Victors have to come to grips with that being a real possibility as God's plan unfolds in their lives.
I wish I could read the Bible and see how it is God's responsibility to give me the life I want. I dream of the day when I can say that God's obligation is to make my life be all I long for it to be. I'm sad to say that just isn't the case. It isn't that God doesn't love us that He would stand for anything bad to happen in our lives. It is that evil is in this world. Badness is going to happen. Truth is that we might be the only chance for the light of God to be seen when evil has darkened the world around us so completely like it does from time to time in our lives.
The only way I know how to live in this reality is to let God be God. That strategy only works when I have the faith needed to believe I am all He says I am in spite of how hard Satan is working to get me to believe something different.
Please don't let today be about allowing your circumstances to determine your position before God. If Jesus did that, none of us would be able to claim our victor status. No, do something totally different today. Let your faith be what provides all the victory you need in your life. Have faith in who God says you are. Have faith in the fact that God's plan is something that is good, even when your life is filled with bad. Have faith that victory is assured. That's the only way I know of to make victim thinking less of a distraction in all you have planned as God's Child today.
For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 1 John 5:4 (ESV)
Victory is described in such a different way in today's reading. Our faith is the victory that overcomes the evil in this world. It isn't the defeat of evil that is our victory. It isn't the fact that our live turns back into what we want that defines victory for the victor. Faith is what John says victory looks like.
John also says that any of us that are Children of God overcomes the world. That's a powerful promise. It doesn't say that that victory will be the comfortable and pain-free life in this world. It says we will overcome. God will show us what that looks like. It might be that our overcoming will be when we pass from this life to the next. Victors have to come to grips with that being a real possibility as God's plan unfolds in their lives.
I wish I could read the Bible and see how it is God's responsibility to give me the life I want. I dream of the day when I can say that God's obligation is to make my life be all I long for it to be. I'm sad to say that just isn't the case. It isn't that God doesn't love us that He would stand for anything bad to happen in our lives. It is that evil is in this world. Badness is going to happen. Truth is that we might be the only chance for the light of God to be seen when evil has darkened the world around us so completely like it does from time to time in our lives.
The only way I know how to live in this reality is to let God be God. That strategy only works when I have the faith needed to believe I am all He says I am in spite of how hard Satan is working to get me to believe something different.
Please don't let today be about allowing your circumstances to determine your position before God. If Jesus did that, none of us would be able to claim our victor status. No, do something totally different today. Let your faith be what provides all the victory you need in your life. Have faith in who God says you are. Have faith in the fact that God's plan is something that is good, even when your life is filled with bad. Have faith that victory is assured. That's the only way I know of to make victim thinking less of a distraction in all you have planned as God's Child today.
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