There was a time in my life—not all that long ago—when I suffered through a fairly serious crisis of faith. It seemed that my whole world was collapsing around me. I had enemies on every side, my hopes and dreams were turning to dust before my eyes.
I did all the things that heroic faith demanded. I claimed the promises of the Scriptures. I prayed for my enemies. I prayed to God for my deliverance. I doggedly believed that God would vindicate me and that He would restore everything that had been taken from me, that I would see my life rise up from the ashes.
But despite my faith that the situation would get better, instead it got worse. It got worse. It got so bad, in fact, that I lost my unshakable confidence that God would see things right. I began to question Him. And then I began to distrust Him. At the very lowest point I remember simply having a breakdown. Crying and screaming, I yelled out, “Why is God allowing this to happen to me?!?” I had become disillusioned with God.
Now I think that if we were all to be honest there have been times when each of us has experienced a certain sense of disillusionment with God. Are you with me? Have you experienced this yourself? It’s not a crime, it’s not an unforgivable sin, we can confess this in front of one another.
We’ve all been there. God doesn’t do what we expect. We pray and pray and pray, we serve and give faithfully, we read our Scriptures, we do all the things that God’s faithful people are supposed to do, the things that we assume will result in God hearing us and answering our prayers, and still He doesn’t do what we want Him to. He doesn’t answer our prayers the way we would like Him to. The illness we’ve been praying over doesn’t get better, it gets worse. Our prayers and fasts and offerings seem to have no effect, and it looks for all the world as though God has left the building. Trouble is, we’re still inside it, struggling and striving and hoping for release.
So how do we deal with this? There we are, standing in the pile of smoking rubble that used to be our lives, and it looks like God refuses to fix it. We are ready to go into battle, strapping on the full armor of God, and still the enemy lops our head clean off. We claim God’s promise that “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you” and then we look over in our corner and God’s . . . just . . . not . . . there. And inwardly we struggle and fight and desperately try to hold on to some kind of faith, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to hold on to. We grasp the wind.
How do we deal with this? Well, it’s a bit different for every individual, but there’s a basic outline that we each can follow. The first step is to arm yourself with knowledge. You need to know what’s really going on.
The fundamental issue of disillusionment with God stems from a desire to be in control, to be able to dictate the actions of God rather than live under His apparent whims.
In that sense we’re a little bit like Roy Pearson. You may have heard about him in the news recently. Seems ol’ Roy took his pants to the cleaners two years ago and when he came back to pick them up a few days later, they couldn’t find them. So he waited a few more days and they gave him pants that matched his check-in receipt. Trouble was, Roy doesn’t like cuffs on his pants, and these had cuffs, so of course Roy figured they couldn’t really be his. He’s been so upset over the whole matter that he finally decided to sue. For 54 million dollars. And the reason? Because the cleaners had a sign that said, “satisfaction guaranteed”.
Sometimes we come to God and figure that He has a 100% satisfaction guarantee. We figure that we have an inherent right to our satisfaction and that God should live up to our expectations. In other words, we feel that we have a right to control God.
But God will not be controlled. He will continue to work, but always—always—on His own terms.
The is what the Old Testament prophet Elijah learned in 1 Kings 19:13-18. Elijah was on the run, fearing for his life. The queen of Israel was working hard to establish Baal—and not the one true God—as the god of Israel, and she was fed up with Elijah’s continual reminder that she was on a path to destruction. She had her sights on Elijah and was seeking to put him to death. It appeared as though God no longer cared. So defeated and disillusioned, Elijah went and hid in a cave. Then God spoke to him. “What are you doing here, Elijah?" 14 He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too." 15 The LORD said to him . . . 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel-- all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.””
God continues to work, although we may not see what He is doing. But does that mean He isn’t working at all? No. God has His plan, He is working His plan, but it is a plan that is His. We can’t control what He does or when He chooses to reveal His work and His plan. But He is working, nonetheless.
That brings up the second bit of information you need to know. Sometimes we think, “I don’t like what’s going on, but if I could just understand what God is doing, then I’d be okay.”
This is kind of what Job—the all-time winner for the “Disillusionment with God” award—did. At nearly the height of his suffering, Job finally breaks down and complains that he just doesn’t understand. Job 23:1-5, “Then Job replied: 2 "Even today my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning. 3 If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! 4 I would state my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. 5 I would find out what he would answer me, and consider what he would say.”
It’s natural to want to understand why. But what’s really going on when we say that? Isn’t that just another form of control? When we say, “I want to understand,” we’re in effect saying that if we could understand, then we’d approve. The whole thought, when laid out, would be something like, “I now understand what God is doing through such-and-such, and I hereby give my consent.” In other words . . . we’re still in control.
Disillusionment with God is just that: dis-illusionment. On the original sermon topic request, the person who requested this noted that they had heard it recently said, “Disillusion is the child of illusion”, and that’s true. When we are dis-illusioned, the illusion that we can control God is becoming unraveled. It’s frightening to realize we don’t have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, that God cannot be controlled. As C.S. Lewis was fond of saying, “It’s not as though He’s a tame lion.” He is, after all, a living God.
So now you’re armed with knowledge. You know that God is a living God, that you cannot control Him. And yet you’re still faced with the reality of this bad situation. You want it to turn out better, but still God seems to have other ideas. What’s the next step? In other words, how do you learn to deal with a living God?
God cannot be controlled . . . but that does not mean He can’t be trusted. Quite the opposite, actually. If you were to meet a person who continually brought you harm, you would naturally—and rightly—assume that they couldn’t be trusted, and you would stay away from them. But in God’s case, you can trust Him even in the midst of what appears to be a very, very bad situation.
Why is that? Because God’s word is trustworthy and true. You can rely upon it. You can trust God’s Word because it is the Word of God. When He speaks, it is impossible for Him to lie.
And that trustworthy, reliable Word of God—the Scriptures—has this to say about living in brokenness and still trusting in a living God for deliverance: Romans 8:25-28, “25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Let’s break that down quickly: In this case, last things first. The final thing Paul says you must know is the most important. You must know and trust that God is using your present difficulties to conform you to the image of His Son. God is using this time of pain and suffering to make you more like Christ.
Think of all that Christ’s suffering has brought you! Through His suffering, you have been given new life, forgiveness of sins, and peace with God. You don’t need to live in fear of divine judgment. You don’t need to fear death. Through Christ’s suffering, God has given you eternal life. Can any amount of present suffering, no matter how difficult, ever take that away? As Paul says, God’s grace is truly sufficient for you.
That’s really the answer that drives all the other answers. As Christ suffered, so too you, a Christian—literally a “little Christ”—will suffer. Not a meaningless suffering, but a suffering with a glorious, heavenly purpose that will echo into eternity, because the grace of Jesus Christ that He won through His suffering can and will see you through.
And in that knowledge—the knowledge that Christ’s suffering is of benefit to you, and therefore your suffering also has benefit—in that knowledge Paul says that when you are faced with circumstances in our life that we cannot explain, those times when it seems as though God is not listening—the times of sicknesses, of death, of pain and regret, the times of our own weakness—Paul says that first you wait. Not just an idle waiting, but a hopeful, patient waiting. A waiting that puts its faith in God for Him to do what is good . . . no, to do what is best, and do it in His own time.
And while you wait, you pray. And whatever you do, remember this point, and remember it well: when you try to pray but you’re so broken and in so much pain and confusion that you can’t even make the words come out, the Holy Spirit—God Himself—helps you to pray, translating your groans and cries into a beautiful prayer that words by themselves could not express. Where is God when it hurts? He is with you, praying.
You wait in hope, you pray in the Holy Spirit, and thirdly in faith you cling to His promises. The promise in verse twenty-eight that all things—not just some things, not just the good and pleasant things—but in all things God is working to bring about good—real, true good—in your life. Your current trials and temptations, your hurts and your scars, in God’s hand they will one day turn into badges of honor and glory, because God has promised that it is so. And as one who’s been there, I promise you that it will be amazing the way God does it.
We all feel disillusioned with God at times. We don’t like pain. We don’t like fear. We don’t like being out of control. We don’t like suffering. But perhaps it’s good to be dis-illusioned, because then we must rely upon the true God, and not an illusion of a God we can control. The true God makes no promise that we will not suffer, but He does make a promise to be with us even in the midst of our suffering. Whether or not we see Him or feel His presence, He is there, praying with us, working to bring good into our lives . . . even through suffering . . . all in the name of Christ.
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