We walked and talked, sharing the ups and downs of our lives, and bonding over our same crazy house hunting tendencies. I told her about how I felt that God had to be using this "vacant time" (we are only in Georgia for 9 months to a year) in our lives for some positive, but that I kept coming up blank. I told her how I had applied for every job even remotely in my field and come up blank (or turned them down because God told me to shut that door). I had even volunteered to work for free doing what I got paid to do in Texas, but the city turned me down. I felt like God was slamming all those doors shut. I shared how in a way, that was an answered prayer because I had been asking God to show me what he had planned for this time. I know God is using me for something, but I couldn't see it. I was suffering with lack of direction.
My sweet friend said that God wants us to suffer (a concept I had never thought of) because it draws us closer to Him. I had never thought that God wanted me to suffer or that he was punishing me. I simply thought I suffered because God was "too busy" to focus on answering my prayers. I am now realizing how silly that thought was. But my friend explained to me that she has also been struggling and feeling that God wasn't answering her prayers, but she knows that he is using her life for his glory. Even more importantly, God using us doesn't mean he will do it in the way we expected. She told me to "praise him in the storm."
Now, I don't know about you, but I feel kinda bad calling my minuscule problems a "storm" when there are so many greater issues out there to be called storms. But God doesn't see our problems in a ranking of greatest to least. He is not too busy to answer EVERY SINGLE PRAYER. He is not allowing us to suffer because he is punishing us, or because he doesn't have time to fix it. He is allowing us to suffer because he wants us to learn something from it, draw closer to him, trust him, and give ourselves up to the process he has for our lives.
In Christian circles you often hear that God can see all things in your life, every day, from beginning to end all at once. A panorama of your life, if you will. We only see a snapshot of our lives. We see the here and now. God may be allowing us to suffer so that it will prepare us for our future, whether that is 6 minutes, 6 months, 6 years, or 60 years down the line. Everything is intentional.
After my walk with my friend I went home to do my daily devotional from a book Aaron gave me, One Year At His Feet by Chris Tiegreen. I am really enjoying it, but that is besides the point. The passage for that particular day was regarding a conversation Pilate had with Jesus before he was crucified. In my snapshot vision of my life this passage didn't seem like it was going to be overly relevant to my life, but God knew better. One specific verse stood out to me.
Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above." John 19:11 (ESV)
That verse stuck with me, but it hit home even more when I read Tiegreen's explanation in the devotional. He wrote, "When your situation is critical, remember the calm of Jesus in the midst of His greatest storm...Are you in a difficult place? It has been allowed from above. It always is. God is accomplishing His purpose through it."
My friend was right, and more importantly, God was right. This devotional gave me an overwhelming sense of clarity for this "vacant time" in my life. All it took was relinquishing control and praising God for the situation He has allowed me to be in (good, bad, or ugly) because it is through those situations that I can be used to bring glory to God.
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