The speaker this morning at our church service asked this question….Where is God when things go wrong? The passage he used was found in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-18…Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. He talked about how this is to be our attitude, when things don’t go our way,. It doesn’t mean that God has turned away, it just means there are things for us to learn from what is happening. We are not to ask Why?, but to ask What? instead. How can we do this?
He went on to illustrate his talk by telling some of his own experiences of things going wrong. His brother who he had been in partnership with in his work as a builder had dropped dead suddenly, only in his fifties. That same week, news came from his wife’s side of the family to say an uncle had died. On the way home from the funeral, as they were travelling up a hill, a car coming in the opposite direction, ploughed straight into them causing serious injury to his wife. This has come back to trouble her as she now approaches older age. Later on, his son contracted cancer and passed away in his fifties as well. All these tragedies could have caused him to ask “Why me, Lord?” but he had realised that a better question to ask is “What do You want me to learn from this Lord?” In talking to others, it is far better to draw on one’s own experiences than to just quote a few verses and leave it at that. When others realise that you have had these things to face yourself, then your words carry far more weight in the light of their hardships.
It is the same as looking at a hot house plant that is so delicate and frail compared to one that has been hardened off in the sun and taken the wind’s beating….it is then able to withstand further storms without breaking beneath the weight of the weather. So our words carry more weight when tempered with experience. We don’t just know ABOUT these things, but we KNOW for ourselves how the Lord guides and uplifts one in these trying times!