Job 5:18

Job 5:18

"For He wounds, but He also binds up; He injures, but His hands also heal."

Why do we wander through the wilderness?

So that we find the Promise Land

Why do we go through famine?

So we can have a harvest.

Why are we consumed by the fire?

So life can be renewed.

Why are we wounded?

So we can be healed.

Why do we experience winter?

So we are blessed even more by the summer.

Why do we walk through darkness?

So the light is so much brighter.

Why does everything change?

So we cling to the One who doesn't.

We experience the bad so that God's good is so much better.

God allows us to be broken so that He can reveal Himself as the ultimate healer.

He allows us to wander through the wilderness so that He can prove that He never forgot His promises.

He knows that without the darkness, we would never notice His light.

He knows that without the winter, we wouldn't appreciate His summer.

He knows that the only way to be renewed is through the fire. 

He knows that the regrowth is so much more beautiful when it comes from ashes. 

And He loves revealing Himself in the end. 

We're always surprised when He shows up. But He's not. 

He does it on purpose. His heart breaks with ours, but His joy abounds with ours when He gets to put the pieces back together in front of our awestruck eyes. 

He wrote the end of the story, along with every step it takes to get there. So why are we surprised when we realize that the steps we took really did have a purpose? Why are we surprised when He works it out?

He wants to empty us  of ourselves, so He can fill us to overflowing with Him.

He wants to make us so sick and tired of the food of this world that we realize our deeper hunger for Him. 

Through the healing of our broken hearts, they learn to beat for Him. 

We're out of breath from running away, so that His breath of life can fill our lungs. 

Our broken bones make us immobile so that He can carry us.

We hunger so He can satisfy.

We fall so He can pick us up.

We search so He can be found.

And we get lost so He can find us. 

God created the cycles of this life as a direct parallel to His everlasting love for us. So often we are blinded by the circumstances, and fail to see His plan being unfolded through them.

Hallelujah.