When I was young and couldn’t fall asleep I would try to imagine that I was in God’s throne room curled up and tucked in at the bottom of his robe. No worries. No heartache. No tears. No death. That was my quiet, safe place.
The past couple of weeks have been hard on our little community and last night as I lay in bed, wishing for sleep to come but knowing it wouldn’t, I thought about that throne room again.
Lately, I’ve heard good people offer comfort by saying that this or that is part of God’s plan. I don’t agree. God’s plan was for us to live in harmony and peace, walking and talking with him in a beautiful garden (Genesis 2). However, that was thwarted when sin entered the picture. So Plan B involved a sacrifice we could never imagine. A beautiful tactic put into place long before the world was ever created proving how much our Heavenly Father wanted to give us back that relationship.
We live in honor of that great sacrifice by allowing Jesus to determine our actions and reactions. To spread his message of love, grace and compassion. To make a difference in other’s lives because he made one in ours. But following Jesus doesn’t mean there won’t be hard times. It doesn’t mean our faith will never be tested. It doesn’t mean that we’ll never doubt or question. But it does mean that regardless of what this life offers, we have hope. It means death is not the end and there is so much more to our story. Christians, we’ve got to start preaching that sermon to our friends, family and neighbors.
The Devil will go to great lengths to keep us from accepting the truth. He’ll have us blame God when disaster comes. He’ll beckon us to turn away from the only hope we have. He’ll trick us into believing that this life is all there is. He’ll whisper that tragedy is God’s fault. He’ll tell us that God doesn’t care enough about us to protect us from pain. He’ll say that we don’t matter. We’re unworthy and unloved. And if we listen to him enough, we might even start to believe it.
Calamities will come and they may shake our faith and drive us to places of despair, pain and hopelessness. That is not or ever will be God’s plan for us. God’s plan is for us to have life by giving our lives to Jesus and when it’s time, to come home to that eternal throne room full of those who have gone on before us and the One who gave his life for us. God’s plan for our life is real life. One that consists of love, joy, hope and peace and it will only be found in the one named Jesus. Now, go tell somebody.
Paula Harrington is the mother of five children and resides in Calvert City. She is compiler and editor of the books, Once Upon a Bible Class, A Common Bond and A Sunday Afternoon with the Preachers’ Wives. Her work has appeared in Christian Woman magazine, the Christian Chronicle newspaper and numerous other sites and websites. When she’s not teaching at one of Marshall County’s finest schools, she’s helping her family at the Calvert Drive-in Theater (and by helping, she means eating the cheeseburgers). She can be contacted at harringtonseven@yahoo.com