God is Good? Part 1

This particular post might seem a little long and it is only "Part 1". My additional posts regarding this topic will be and are smaller. I feel like I am in the middle of learning something that can change my life and I really want to share it...Thanks :)

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Psalm 119:68

You are good and what you do is good; teach me your decrees. 

Earlier  in the year I posted about my greatest fears and my fear of irony. My Biggest Fears and How I Fight Them. 

Later I posted how I am learning that God hears our prayers and they are validated and all the good things promised to us aren’t just for heaven.

But what is “Good”?

It seemed to me lately that my definition of good is way different than God’s definition of good.

My definition of good is basically anything not bad. It’s good to have a job, house, food, resources, fun, friends, family, health, and all those other things that make you feel, well…Good!

I was feeling pretty positive about life and our circumstances until one particular session of the Beth Moore Breaking Free study.

It was during the video session where she explained we cannot avoid fiery trials.

I already knew this to be true, but I did not want to be reminded of it!

Here are some verses she used:

Job 4:4-5

4 Your words have supported those who stumbled;

you have strengthened faltering knees.

5 But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;

it strikes you, and you are dismayed.

Acts 14:22

22 strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.

1 Peter 4:12

12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.

Ugh!

And WHY do we have to suffer through trials?

1 Peter 1:6-9

6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

So that God is glorified.

Oh…

I don’t feel better knowing the reason why.

But I accepted it and tucked it away and continued on with my duties as a mom and wife.

Now lately, I have not been able to sleep through the night. For one reason or another I wake up, whether it is for my nightly bathroom trip, or Em cries and wakes up, or it is just so dang hot I cannot sleep.  Whatever the reason why it is that I woke up, the problem is I can’t get back to sleep.  My brain has turned on and now it won’t turn off.

I start thinking about our own personal un-answered prayers.

And those old fears resurface. The ones that I thought I had conquered.

So we all suffer fiery trials… It is inevitable. The worse is going to happen to me.

I try to pray to ease my mind and after an hour or two I finally fall asleep. But it just happens again the next night and the next.

One particular night, I was very hot (we don’t have central air) and I was trying to get comfortable and cool and I was thinking about the Breaking Free video I watched earlier in the week. 

I was praying and I told God, but in an angry fashion,

“Fine…take everything I love away from me, if that is “your will” and its for your purposes and glory than I will just accept it and be fine with it all.”

Not that I was challenging God, but more like angrily surrendering my fears.

But then another thought came to me. It might not be God’s will for me to experience my greatest fears. What if it is his will to just keep my current prayers unanswered?

Well that just ticked me off. What if God doesn’t want things to change for us? 

What if it is God’s will for us to just remain where we are, where things are not changing? 

This made me really angry! 

I was mad at God that I was so hot and that I couldn’t sleep and that he wasn’t answering my long-standing prayers and that he lets faithful people go through terrible things and times of long waiting but we are supposed to be okay with that because it is all for his glory.

I was mad at God and I told him. Then I finally fell asleep. 

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I will Post Part 2 soon. I don't stay angry very long :)