When I meet with people I try to help them see their life through God, rather than seeing God through their life. There is a big difference between allowing God to define your life and defining God by the experiences life has brought to you. It is easy to get this confused. The ways God works in our lives are not always what WE would choose. When we pray, we are usually intent on relieving pain and getting what we believe will make us happy or comfortable. When our prayers are not answered in the way that we believe they should be, we tend to doubt that God is good, that He heard our prayers, that He is powerful, or that He even cares. Paul David Tripp brings us to reality quickly with these words: “God’s primary goal is not changing our situations and relationships so that we can be happy but changing us through our situations and relationships so that we will be holy.”
Photo credit: Julie Escobar
