Believers Need Problems

[Madre]

"A believer with problems is blessed of God. Yes, truly blessed! If he has no place left to turn, has given up on himself and others, and has found out that the problems simply cannot be resolved in any earthly way, he can quickly be led to see there is only one hope for him--the presence of God. God is actually using the problems to drive the believer into His presence. What a blessed person! He need not look for God, for God has found him and will have him.

Imagine, if you will, a gardener who in the fall puts his most valuded plants in a greenhouse, where they will be protected from the harsh winter. There they receive his constant care and continue to bear fruit, protected from a deadly environment. What if a plant could leave the green house by its own free will? Winter would quickly bring about its death. So it is with the believers. When in God's presence, we live within a spiritual greenhouse in a world that is pitted against God. Safe inside, we have God's comfort, protection, and fellowship, which allow for fruit-bearing. If we leave His presence, we will immediately experience the harsh realities of the world, of sin, of Satan, and of the flesh.

Too often we have made the mistake of trying to find an answer to the distress instead of returning to the presence of the loving Father, where no answer is needed. As Christians we should know the purpose of pain and the very reason for life, which is fellowship with God.

What a God we have! How privileged we are to have the God of all the universe focus His attention on us and pursue us to bless us! Sadly, it is true that God must engage in this pursuit, since many believers go through life avoiding Him. With their minds they want to give God His proper place, but at the same time they are drawn by their emotions to other people or plans to meet their deepest needs, thereby setting their own course for success and fulfillment apart from God. Man seems to love to meditate on this or that plan for inducing contentment, and he would devote his whole being to such scheming if not for one thing: problems. Like pain, they make man stop living for the future or dwelling on the past and take notice of the present. Problems make men choose God now."

Continued....

[Madre]

"Imagine being in a room with four walls and four doors. Three of the four doors are locked; the unlocked door is one through which you do not wish to go. you struggle, trying to open the other three until, out of frustration and often anger, you realize that you must choose the one door that is unlocked. On opening it, you discover to your surprise that this is actually the door that leads to the freedom you were so confident lay behind the other three. God uses problems to destroy our plans--which would never bring abundant life--and move us through the doorway that leads to His presence and true life. The prodigal son created his own distress, but it caused the glorious result of renewed fellowship with the father.

God is love! He wants us near so He can show us His love. Carnal man, however, is ignorantly self-sufficient. Problems make man realize that he is not an independent creature and that he needs the Creator to provide for him. Man cannot solve his own problems, let alone problems on a global scale. Problems allow us to see that we need God. If there were no problems that man could not overcome, surely man would never look beyond himself.

There should be no doubt that problems and distress are God's stronghold in the believer's life to drive him from self-sufficiency to the all-sufficient Father in heaven. 'In my distress I called upon the Lord' (2 Sam. 22:7). 'But in their distress they turned to the Lord God of Israel' (2 Chron. 15:4). 'We will . . . cry to thee in our distress' (2 Chron. 20:9). 'O Lord, they sought Thee in distress' (Isa. 26:16). 'I called out of my distress to the Lord' (Jonah 2:2). Over and over we see the distress cycle taking place in Israel's history. The Book of Judges testifies to this cycle, for when things were going well, the people would soon forget God. Then they would cry out, God would deliver, and some time after the deliverance they would again forsake God. problems are not intended to destroy us but to bring us near to God to be made complete.

There is nothing the presence of God does not remedy. Nothing! When we hear the commands of God, we can find ourselves overwhelmed and even running from Him, especially when past attempts to keep the commands yielded little or no success. We can begin to avoid God, not wanting to hear the words we fear: 'You have failed.' Herein lies a deep deception; we are not to improve our behavior before we come into God's presence, for that is impossible. Rather, it is God's presence that will improve our behavior.

Don't get cleaned up to draw near to God; draw near expecting Him to do the cleaning. When you are near the Lrod, commands become promises."


~ Michael Wells, from Problems, God's Presence & Prayer