I struggle with God when I think I know what He should do, but He doesn’t do it.
If I was God, I would fix everything. There would be no disappointment. There would be no sickness. No addiction. No pain.
If I was God life would be amazing!
But God doesn’t do the things I expect Him to do.
Sometimes that really hurts.
Maybe you have prayed and prayed for the person you love to be healed, after all, other people have prayed and the people they love get well, so why not try it? And yet, for whatever reason, there isn’t any improvement. They just keep getting worse.
So we struggle. We doubt.
Why doesn’t God do what we expect Him to do?
When you feel those doubts and questions, I want you to know that you are not alone.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Many people in the Bible who knew Jesus struggled with doubts. They had questions when life did not go the way they expected it to go. One person in the Bible who struggled with his circumstances was a man we know as John the Baptist.
John is a baby who was born as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. John is the second cousin of Jesus. (John’s mother, Elizabeth, was a cousin of Mary, Jesus’ mother.) John grows up and begins to preach, seeing thousands of people flock to him to be baptized. John even gets to baptize Jesus in the Jordan River.
But then life does not go the way John expected it to go.
Because John had boldly told King Herod to repent from his sins, Herod had John thrown in prison. Imprisonment is a very confusing turn of events for John. After all, John knows he is supposed to prepare the way for Jesus and the coming Kingdom of God. The Israelites had waited their entire lives for the Messiah to arrive. The Messiah was going to be a warrior who would reestablish Israel as the number one kingdom in the world. And John believed Jesus was the coming Messiah… so he can’t figure out exactly why he’s sitting in prison? John has to be thinking I need to get outside these prison walls and continue preparing the way for Jesus!
But God isn’t doing what John expects Him to do.
Then the idea hits John… (This is my speculation)… John thinks… “Hmmmm… ok, God is going to use this. My being in prison will be the catalyst for Jesus to round up the troops and bust me out of here. And this prison break is going to start a revolution and we are going to be rolling into glory soon!”
So John cheerfully puts a mark on the prison wall. Day one. It’s only a matter of time for Jesus to get the fellas together. Then another mark on the wall. Two days. No biggie, it will take some time to recruit and travel. So John puts another mark on the wall…
And then another mark…
and another mark…
and another mark…
And… nothing.
John is wasting away in prison.
God is not doing what John expects Him to do.
But then John hears reports that Jesus is traveling through the country and teaching huge crowds. This doesn’t sit well with John because he still has not heard a thing from Jesus. It finally gets to the point where John sends a message to Jesus. It’s recorded for us in Matthew 11:2-3.
2 Now when John heard in prison what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples 3 and asked him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
In other words John asks Jesus, “What are you doing, Man?!?! Have you forgotten about me? I’m your boy, JB. Are You REALLY the One we’ve been waiting for? Or should I look for someone else, because things are not going the way I thought they would be going right now.”
And if we’re being real, every single one of us have had a moment like John the Baptist.
We ask, “Where are You God? This just doesn’t make any sense.”
What’s interesting to me is Jesus doesn’t say a word at first. When Luke records this event, after John’s messengers ask Jesus this question, look at what Jesus does.
At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. (Luke 7:21)
When Jesus is asked if He’s the One, Jesus looks around and cured people. Then Jesus looks at John’s messengers and says:
4 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Matthew 11:4-6)
I mean this is what we love about God! Blind people seeing, lame people walking, dead people walking… it’s great! It’s the way we think it should be!
But focus in on verse 6… because what Jesus says here is the key to everything.
“Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
It’s at this point I want to say…
Jesus be trippin'.
Like, tripping people and causing them to stumble, type of tripping.
Life does not go the way we expect it to go. God doesn’t move the way we expect or think He should move. And Jesus recognizes this tension. So He says if you don’t get tripped up by the way I do things, then you are blessed.
Jesus’ ministry was so different from what the people were expecting the Messiah to do. But Jesus says the key is to trust that I know what I’m doing. Jesus knows you want people to be well. Jesus knows you have in mind a specific outcome. But whether you get healed or not, whether you are stuck in prison or not, Jesus wants you to trust Him.
Life always comes down to answering the question:
Who will you trust?
I want you to trust in Jesus, not because it will make your life better. Actually, it may make your life worse to trust Jesus. That’s why I will never beg or plead for you to follow Jesus without telling you the whole truth because it’s not the easy path to take. It’s the best path, but not the easiest path.
But faith is so important because Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
That’s why faith is so important. It’s the only way to please God.
When life doesn’t make sense… when God doesn’t make sense, remember that you are not alone. Others have been where you are, and they continued to trust Jesus.
You are blessed when you don’t get tripped by what Jesus is doing.
Who will you trust?
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