My 7-year-old daughter, Jessica, possesses one of the most sensitive souls God ever created and put within a little girl. She can always sense when someone’s having a bad day, and, with little fanfare or desire for recognition, she does something to lift the person’s spirits. When a gift is in order, she will give her money, down to her last penny, or her most treasured possessions, in order to ensure that someone else doesn’t go without.
Because she is so sensitive, however, she is also easily wounded by people’s words or actions, or discouraged when something goes wrong. Recently, on a day that just wasn’t going right for her, I had pulled her into my lap so we could talk. It was during that conversation that she immeasurably blessed my mother-heart with these words: “When I’m sad, I usually talk to you. And you always make it better somehow.”
She is well aware that I don’t or can’t always change her circumstances. But she also knows that I always care, and that I can be counted on to offer not only love, but also support or sympathy or encouragement (or all three).
You and I are blessed with a similar relationship with God. Any love we offer our children is but a dim reflection of the perfect, all-encompassing love He pours out on us. He can always be counted on to offer not only that love, but also support, sympathy, encouragement, or anything else that He, with His complete and perfect knowledge, knows we need.
That, my friend, is what makes things better. Sometimes God does indeed change our circumstances as we beg Him to, and that, of course, helps. But it is a lesser help. The far greater help is when He gives us Himself.
If I were to ask which you would rather have, changed circumstances or more of God, how would you answer?
Often you and I both would answer that what we really want is the changed circumstances, not God’s presence.
It’s okay to want your circumstances to be different. There’s nothing wrong with wanting that, or with asking God to perform that.
The problem comes when God offers us what He knew was the greater help (Himself), and we complain because He didn’t offer us what we thought was greater, which was really the lesser (changed circumstances).
Jessica told me that somehow, I always make things better, even though I don’t always change things for her. In other words, she knows this fundamental but often unrealized truth: even when circumstances don’t change, the love, support, and encouragement of a mother always makes things better.
The same can be said for the love, support, and encouragement of a Father.
I pray we believe that He is truly the greater.
Lamentations 3:24—The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. (KJV)