Pockets of day two contained another swirl of questions, found to be mostly rooted in one ponderance:
Why am I even questioning what is and is not God’s will?
To put it plainly, it is because I am questioning His character. If I truly believed He is good, patient, kind, loving, gracious, generous, forgiving, and all of the other wonderful traits I have read and even personally experienced, I would not be questioning His character and thus I would not be questioning His will.
Recently, my daughters and I talked about Eve questioning God’s character when she was tempted by the enemy in the Garden of Eden. The serpent’s question conceived doubt in Eve’s mind about what God had said to her, and his further questioning extended doubt’s territory until it reached God’s character.
I am no different than Eve and the enemy is no different now than he was then. It is because of the enemy’s manifestation through the flesh of countless people in my life that I have allowed my view of who God is to be tainted. I know that His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. I know that if that is true about me, it is true about each of the people who have deeply wounded me. Yet, even knowing that their ways and thoughts are also not like God’s, I put Him in the same category as them. I neither trust that He has my best interests in mind, nor that He prioritizes my heart, nor that He has great plans for me because those I have allowed to hold my heart in one way or another have not cared about my interests, my heart, or, ultimately, me.
It is easier to believe that God is just like them (after all, He allowed them to treat me that way). It is easier to chalk heartache up to another instance of pain than it is to repeatedly tell myself that my God is love in an attempt to override the pain with faith. It is easier to choose the path that requires no faith, no refinement, and no adjusting of myself or how I respond.
But I’m not on that path. I didn’t and I don’t choose that path.
I, a Daughter of the King whose character I am questioning, am on the narrow path because I choose it. In choosing it, I must choose to hold tight to the heart of God. Otherwise, the enemy’s continual efforts to morph my perspective of Him will weaken my faith and birth unbelief. Eventually, the pain that the lies cultivate will override everything and I will be right where Eve was: choosing my will over His.