The Thin Places

Our lives embraced. Sometimes life hands you a raw deal. Circumstances don't always work out like you would think. You are passed over for a promotion, your mom gets cancer, you lose your job or house or both, OR I love this one....your dog dies. Sometimes this happens all in one day. All in the same 24 hours. The whole world is against you, or so it seems. Some days life stinks. If you focus on the things of this world, it can seem like life is taking a wrong turn. Everything is falling apart. It's just not fair!

Why does the bad happen to the good? Well if I knew the answer to that my friend I would writing a best selling series' of novels that would fill ten 8-foot tables stacked with multi-colored attractive graphics appropriately placed on glossy covers. Sadly, I don't have all the answers to the unanswered questions in our lives. BUT I love discovering the answers.

My answers....for now. The answer is not what you would expect. My answer is really in the journey of discovering who God is in these life moments. All the "stinky-ness" that has come across my life has been for a purpose, for my good. Through this painful process, the badness and the goodness, I have discovered more dimensions of God. I have found love, trust, comfort, strength, peace, joy, happiness. And I have also realized that my worst day was nothing like His.

Punishment beyond belief. He was innocent. He was accused, rejected, mocked, ridiculed, plotted against, stalked, blasphemed, beaten, whipped, stabbed, and given the death sentence. Our worst day, on this earth, could never compare to what Jesus endured for us on the cross. Jesus paid our sin debt on the cross. What happened to Him wasn't fair either. And that was God's plan too. Also part of the plan was that Jesus handed himself over for this purpose. That's why he came to earth to take all of that, punishment beyond belief. For me, for you, for us.

God hands over his human heart. C. S. Lewis writes "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." When God hands us a plate full of sorrow, it really gets our attention. He uses these difficult and tough situations to transform us, to purify us as He strips away our imperfections and reveals more of Himself, even through our pain. The key is to remain in Him.

Through every crisis of belief, every wrong painful turn, all the thin places, God knows what we are going through, how we feel and understands our devastation. There is nothing so devastating that He can't redeem. He redeemed Jesus' worst day on earth and He redeems your bad days too. He knows....He knows.

What thin place has God helped you through?