-Coping With Unexpected Outcomes
We have been educated to think that we can work everything out and that every situation is explainable.
LIVING BY FAITH
Coping With Unexpected Outcomes
What do we do when things don’t turn out the way we anticipated? This is a question we all face from time to time.
Disappointment
Over the past four years I’ve been involved with some Christian investors in the acquisition and operation of a radio station in Melbourne, Australia. Radio can get into places that Church workers can’t reach. Our ministry was aimed at connecting with non-Christians and drawing them to God. We saw a number of miracles that enabled this to happen. Many people have come to faith in Christ through a talk-back program which goes to 40 radio stations across Australia. God is clearly using it to reach the unchurched.
But it hasn’t been an easy road, and throughout we have struggled with limited financial resources. In order to retain the station last year we entered into a joint venture, but the other parties had financial difficulties they hadn’t anticipated and backed out. Rather than trade insolvently, we were forced to sell the station below market value. This was not the outcome we had in mind, nor did we understand why God had given us the radio station in the first place. With a sound financial base it could have led to ministry all across Australia.
When we agreed reluctantly to finalize the deal, the buyer celebrated, but we didn’t feel like joining him. As I went to my car, the sun was setting and it struck me that it was the end of the journey. But at that moment it was like God said, “Hang on, I’m going to be raising the sun in the morning. It’s not the end. One chapter has concluded, but a new chapter starts tomorrow. Are you going to despair and think that everything is lost? Or are you going to be with Me to write a new chapter tomorrow?”
Whose Ministry?
I’ve been wrestling with God about that since. He said, “Is it your vision of what you thought the radio ministry may have looked like? Is that what you gave yourself for? Well, it doesn’t work that way. It’s My ministry and My calling, and I’ll do it My way. Were you trusting in a particular vision you had, or in a Sovereign God, the Lord of heaven and earth?”
On the day the deal was settled someone faxed me these verses: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16-18 NIV).
Habakkuk was another man who went through some tough times. Everything he put his effort into failed. But despite all this he wrote, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Hab. 3:17-18).
The Mind And The World
The Bible tells believers to live by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). But two challenges often hinder us – our minds and the world around us.
When things don’t happen the way we think they should, we expect to be able to work them out. We look for reasons, for immediate justification. “God must know what He is doing, so let me see if I can work out why He’s done it this way.” We tend to try to logically work it out. This is a result of the Greek mindset most of us have. We have been educated to think that we can work everything out and that every situation is explainable.
That is not the Hebrew mindset, not the path in which God encouraged His people when He said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10). He wants us to acknowledge an overarching God who may or may not choose to show us the reasons that He does things, or may ask us to trust and have faith and hang on. He does not have to show us. We do not have to understand. Will I believe that God is still sovereign and that His purposes are still the center of life whether it might appear at the moment to be that way or otherwise? Or will I get upset because things have not worked out how I thought they should? Our minds often do not work for us in those situations – we expect to understand the why and the wherefore.
The second hindrance to living by faith is that we are human beings so attached to this human life. The “five senses” are what we tend to rely on to measure reality. Conversely, Paul exhorts us to “fix our eyes on what is unseen” (2 Cor. 4:17). Can you explain how we do that? How do we fix our eyes on something unseen? It sounds impossible.
Focus On The Unseen
Tozer wrote, “We habitually think of the visible world as real and doubt the reality of any other. We do not deny the existence of the spiritual world, but we doubt that it is real in the accepted meaning of the word ‘real.’ We must shift our interest from seen to unseen for the great unseen reality is God.” Yes, we may acknowledge there is an unseen world, a spiritual world, another dimension to life. But the question is, how conscious of our God’s unseen world are we? That is why Paul exhorts us to fix our eyes on what is unseen rather than what is seen.
Let’s take a test to see how conscious we are of the unseen world. How much time did you spend this morning in getting your exterior world in order? Having breakfast, deciding what clothes to wear, taking a shower, shaving and so on. It is interesting to consider the amount of time we put into preparing for our outside world. In comparison, how much time did you spend this morning preparing for the spiritual world? Our behavior may say something about the unseen world and how much we really live there – not in our heads, where we acknowledge the spiritual, but within our priorities as reflected in our behavior.
Of course, all of God’s people through time have been called to live by faith and to follow after a God whom they cannot see. The disciples wanted miracles, they wanted external evidence of God’s existence. But that isn’t how God does it in our day. He calls us to follow Him in faith, and sacrifice our lives for that which is unseen compared to that which is constantly within our sight and grasp.
It is written about the Old Testament worthies that, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (Heb. 11:13-16).
Theirs is not an easy attitude to maintain in our materialistic age. They were longing for a better country; what we see isn’t the ultimate reality.
Follow The King
I love the thought of God’s kingdom: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What beautiful words! That’s our calling – to be inwardly seeking for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is not the spirit of the day. People are more occupied with what they see and can grasp; that’s what they are giving their souls for. But God gives us a challenge: Will we seek that His will be done on earth today as it is in heaven. God wants us to become colonies of heaven on earth – places where God reigns in a rebellious planet.
Faith comes from God and it enables us to trust in Him – whether or not things make sense to us, or whether or not we can see hope at the moment. May our hope be in a loving God, the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, who holds the world in His hand. May we bring this perspective to every aspect of life so that we might better know Him and learn to walk with Him in every circumstance – and bring His new life to others.
By Michael Cleary
With permission to publish by: Sam Hadley, Grace & Truth, 210 Chestnut St., Danville, IL., USA.
Website: www.gtpress.org
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