The Morning Will Come: Finding Hope in SufferingSample

God Is in All Things

Recently I was hurt by a friend’s insensitive comment. My first response was irritation, and then I began mentally cataloging a list of grievances — remembering all the other times I’d been hurt by her.

It might have ended there, but when I came across these words from A.W. Tozer, I started thinking differently about the situation: “If we understand that everything happening to us is to make us more Christlike, it will solve a great deal of anxiety in our lives.”

Everything that is happening to me is to make me more Christlike. Nothing is excluded. Joy and pain. Suffering and ease. People who love me and people who hurt me.

I stopped focusing on my friend’s comment and wondered why God might have brought this situation into my life. It was a simple question, but the answers revealed more about my heart than hers. My friend’s actions were an avenue for God to reveal a layer of sin in my life that I otherwise would have glossed over.As I saw the sin in my response, I was able to confess it to God and repent.

Whenever I feel annoyed or frustrated or angry, perhaps God is inviting me to examine my own heart instead of focusing my attention outward. Perhaps my irritation is an invitation from the Lord to go deeper with Him. God may be doing something far more important and more lasting in me than what is happening to me.

No experience is ever wasted. My difficult circumstances can cultivate a dependence on Christ and teach me to pray more fervently. And my successes can lead me to praise God and give him glory. And perhaps teach me humility by taking the low seat even in the limelight. Everything can be a steppingstone to holiness.

Madame Guyon had a difficult life, marked by illness, neglect, and humiliation. At age 16, her father tricked her into marrying a man who was 22 years older and afflicted with gout. Guyon became his nurse and cared for him tirelessly, living in her mother-in-law’s home, even after she spread vicious lies about her.

Guyon deeply trusted God’s character and saw that her father's deceit and mother-in-law’s lies were both blessings because they enabled her to humbly turn to God and see His great love for her. Rather than growing bitter at the pain she’d endured, she chose to see God’s loving hand in it — that God had brought all her circumstances to draw her closer to Him.

Everything that is difficult in our lives is a divine invitation to turn to God. Our annoyances can reveal our sins. People who hurt us give us opportunities to forgive. Our physical ailments teach us to depend on God.

Everything that happens to us can make us more like Christ.

PRAY: Heavenly Father, turn my eyes from what is outside of me to what is inside of me. Meet me in that place. Reveal what is in my heart and make me more like You.

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AW Tozer (author) James L Snyder (editor). The Crucified Life: How To Live Out a Deeper Christian Experience. (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2011).

Jeanne Guyon. Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2000).