What would you choose?

Okay, so I know I'm going to take some flack from some people for admitting this, but I was driving to work today and I was listening to Nancy Leigh Demoss. Go ahead and snicker, I can take it, yes I did get up on the effiminate side of the bed this morning.

Actually, Revive Our Hearts comes on for 15 minutes after Erwin Lutzer does 15 minutes, so I listen to her when I can take it. Frankly, sometimes she starts talking about being patient with your husband and how a Godly wife should act and, being divorced, it starts working at some scabs.

You know, I didn't intend to blog about this, but I'm going to bring it up anyway. Actually, it will be a good way to segue into what I originally logged on to blog about. Anyway, you know, being a Christian doesn't solve all of your problems. I mean, the easiest way to illustrate what I am talking about is to point out that a prisoner that accepts Christ as their savior is still in prison..... it's just that he's free. Get it?

So, I am divorced, but just because I lean on God and find peace and shelter in His presence doesn't mean that some days I don't still cry. God isn't some miracle oil that just takes away all of our hurts and makes us shiny happy people. Oh, sometimes He does, but make no mistake about it, storms will come again, and there will even be times when God will not seem to be there when you reach out. Those are refining and testing times, and because we can never achieve perfection, we will be refined and tested until the day that we die. The ironic thing is that it isn't because God is a big meanie, it's actually because that is how much he loves us.

And that leads me up to what I originally intended to write about today. I was driving to work and listening to Nancy Leigh Demoss and she repeated something that she had heard that stopped me in my tracks. I immediately called my voice mail and repeated it just so that I wouldn't forget what it was. She was talking about our lives and the choices that God makes for them and she said:

"God's choices for our life are exactly what we would choose if we knew what God knows."

How deep is that?

That just brought me a lot of peace this morning. I trust God, and I hope you do too, but I have to admit, some days I'm looking up at the sky asking, "Um yeah, okay God, just how exactly does this fit into that plan for a hope and a future??"

Well, I don't know what God knows, which makes it frighteningly silly and incredibly arrogant for me to be asking that question of him. Still, I'll ask it again I am sure.

The point is that we need to remember who God is when we're in the midst of a storm and try to understand that what we are suffering through may be the event that eventually leads us to turning a significant corner or taking a step we have long struggled with in our walks with Christ.

I've been through a lot, and this quote means so much to me because I can attest that the principle it suggests is true. I don't like being divorced, but I can honestly tell you that I am happy that it happened. God has never had my attention like He has had it for the last couple of yearsand it's because I had to depend on Him to get me through that.