Our Good, His Glory

I believe that God is sovereign and intentionally ordains suffering for our good and His glory. The suffering of infertility has made me see the difference between saying that and living it. I recently listened to a podcast that hit me where I am at.

On a Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Paul David Tripp was talking about the story in which Jesus walked on water. He notes that Jesus put the disciples in the boat and sent them off into a storm. Then, He goes walking across the water, intending to pass by them (Mark 6:48). When He sees them panicking, He gets into the boat with them and the wind stops.

Tripp says, "God will take you where you haven't chosen to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own." Our goal shouldn't be to have easy lives. Our goal should be to know and become more like Christ. That is God's goal for us. My favorite quote from the podcast is this one: "The care is not just Jesus' presence in the storm, the care IS the storm."

Some people think that God just allows bad things to happen and scrambles around making the best out of it. I like to view God as an intentional author and story teller. Character development doesn't happen without adversity. Good guys can't rise up if there is no bad guy to rise up against. God wrote the story of my life before I came into existence. He inserted the infertility chapter on purpose. I can't see the whole book, so this chapter seems long and pointless. But it isn't. God is about His purposes, growing me, making me lean on Him, and aligning my will with His. It's not fun, but it is intentional.

I encourage you to listen to both parts of the podcast here and here. I will leave you with one more quote from Paul David Tripp: "Sometimes, you need the storm in order to see the glory."