Something better

"These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised (Hebrews 11:39)". Sometimes back, I was so desperate and had really been praying and fasting for a job. I had been without a job for over one year and I had to depend on my parents for everything that I needed. That was not easy bearing in mind that they had already paid my entire college fee and ensured that I was well. Although they hadn’t seemed very bothered/ burdened by the fact that they were still giving me up keep two years after I had completed college, I did not take it easily. Many times I had cried to God to grant me a job. I remember I would lock myself in the bedroom and cry to God for hours or cry myself to sleep and other times go without food for a few days just to pray about it. I remember God giving me the above words one of those afternoons in the house while locked in the bedroom. They were not the sweetest words that I needed to hear that time. They were so painful and they cut deep inside me, however, God gave me the grace to take them in and He encouraged me to hold on.

I know that we all go through though times sometimes and I know to some, the experience stated above is so minor and it cannot compare to what you have gone through or are going through. I know some of you have gone through situations that sometimes people describe as worse than hell. And such words in the bible can be so painful. Sometimes you even get bitter at God and decide not to tell Him about your needs. It’s like you lose hope completely and He seems like a God who doesn’t care. I have gone through other tough times -that I would not want to mention here- that have sometimes made me feel like God doesn’t care. Though He says that He is not man to lie, sometimes I have felt like I can question this word. This sometimes is because sometimes I have had to wait for so long for Him to answer my prayers, even though I know that I am not praying amiss or that am praying according to His word and holding on to His promises. It can and be so painful.

I know so many of us have waited on God and sometimes felt like He is 'asleep'. It reminds me of the story of Sarah in Genesis 18, after waiting for so long for a child and one day when the three visitors came and told her husband that she would have a child the following year, she laughed. I believe that this laughter was as a result of the frustrations she had from waiting for so long without a child. This message to her must have sounded like a joke because she had gotten tired of waiting and to her; these words seemed like those promises that never came to pass. I say this because I have gone through such kind of tough times that I no longer seem like I believe. Those times when I look at my journal and see the promises of God in my life but then I just refuse to think about them because it feels like they don’t make sense.

In those times however, God reminds me that His grace is sufficient. In 2 Corinthians 12, we see such pain in the life of Paul. The Bible says that Paul had a thorn in the flesh that would torment him and he would pray that God would take it away from Him. The bible says that three times, Paul pleaded with the Lord to take the thorn away but God told him that His grace is sufficient for him and that God’s power is made perfect in those times of his weakness. I believe that these problems that we face are those thorns that Paul describes in His life. The thorns of joblessness, loneliness, childlessness, cruel and unreasonable bosses, broken families, sicknesses, unanswered prayers and many other problems that we go through in our daily lives. However, God’s power is perfect for us in those moments.

The Bible in Hebrews 11:40, after talking about unseen promises to the promised further tell us that “God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect”. I am not telling us this to discourage us from praying and hoping that God will answer us or to make us doubt the ability of God to work it out for us. All I want us to know is that though He won’t give us what we seem to need right now, He has something better for us. Let us allow His power to become perfect in our weakness as He strengthens us and as He uses these pains and ‘thorns’ to mold us and turn us into what He wants us to be. Your ‘thorn’ will be an encouragement to someone else, just hold on, don’t give up because He has something better for you.
God bless you!