Our circumstances are very important to us. For most of us, we ride the roller coaster of circumstances, feeling that our circumstances are a big determinant of how happy we are. We hate it when our circumstances are ‘bad,’ like lost jobs, broken marriages/relationships, death of loved ones, or health issues (in ourselves or in our loved ones), money issues, extreme embarrassment, and so forth. You can probably think of your worst past circumstances right now.
A few of us may have had a great childhood and an idyllic life for a while. But sooner or later, we realized that life has some bad things in store. Some that we may have contributed to and some that just happened to us.
Others may have had very difficult circumstances from early on. I got to know some really poor people who had terrible life circumstances from the beginning. Does that mean, they are less loved by God or I am more worthy of blessings? No. We all face different sets of circumstances from the very beginning. At any rate, in old age, almost all of us will have very difficult circumstances.
Early in life, I found what was my ideal job in a start-up ministry. It was great. But about 10 years later it took a sudden turn for the worse. I prayed a lot and thought that surely God was going to cause good to triumph. But he didn’t. I was terribly depressed. But after a while, I thought about it. Did I deserve ‘the American Dream’ while people in 3rd world countries were in circumstances way lower than my worst circumstances? Many of those people were content with very little, while a lot of rich Americans weren’t content. Why? Because of our MINDS. Our minds tell us what we think we deserve. And so we are distressed because we have a setback.
We live in a broken world. Evil is in almost everything touched by humans. We can’t expect God to be our servant and fix everything for us. He doesn’t promise all us who are ‘committed believers’ the perfect love relationship nor prevent most divorces (note, there are two broken persons in every marriage).
When we realize we don’t ‘deserve’ any particular circumstance, we will appreciate so much more of life.
I’m convinced that God isn’t usually focused on fixing all our bad circumstances, although he may ‘fix’ them if that is something that promotes spiritual growth in us. He is more focused on our relationship with him. If you really read the Bible and Jesus’ teachings, he makes it clear that God must be the total center of your life. In fact, we are supposed grow to ‘love him with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul’ (Matthew 12:30-31). I don’t know about you, but other than some occasional ‘mountain-top experiences,’ for most of my life I could not honestly say I loved God, let alone ‘with all my heart.’ But don’t we grow closer to God when we are faced with really difficult circumstances - assuming that instead of blaming him for not fixing the circumstance, we seek him more deeply?
Perhaps it helps to know, as it did for me, that really difficult circumstances are not abnormal, nor a sign of God’s disfavor. But God does not want any of the difficult circumstances in our life to go to waste. We have to grow to trust that God has a better life for us than what we think is best. We are where God wants us and he uses all the things we went through to bring us closer to him and to be better ministers to others IF we let him. He (Jesus) says that we must be part of the vine (in relationship with him), growing, and producing fruit. (John 15:1-11).
So, here is the great thing: While this kind of God-centered life will likely have a lot of internal as well as external challenges that push us out of our comfort zones, it is a more “abundant” and purposeful life.