I don't know either why they come when they do. I guess that's why they call them trials. I was being sorely tried yesterday and my cynicism crept out in a post to a dear brother here where I got too graphic.
Someone once told me that Satan is trying to bring my family down because the Kingdom of Darkness is scared of us, and that I must be spiritually a big threat to Old Scratch. Maybe, 8, your such a big threat that the opposition is working overtime. Evangelical Christians have a higher divorce rate than the national average.
But what about God? I don't know. Great Christians speak of the Dark Night of the Soul. This is ours. Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah - talk about a trial. I know, however, that none of this is beyond God's control or Fatherly care. Can we, in faith, say that this mess, even this marriage mess, is part of his plan to shape us into the image of his Son? Can we see this as fire purifying gold?
A pastor I know through an online relationship mailed me this yesterday, maybe it can help you...
Quote:
1. You have to take everything to Mount Moriah, joining our father Abraham in his willingness to lose what was most dear to him merely out of loyalty to our Lord. As bizarre as it seems at first, God calls us to give up not only our choice of a place to live and our career, but also our children and spouse. And from time to time he calls us to do this out loud, in effect, giving him our permission to take everything away from us -- not that he needs our permission -- this is about us, not him. In that regard, consider the thinking of New England Puritan, John Cotton that the Christian remains an ascetic in the world, as much as any hermit outside it. God calls you not only to love your wife and your children, he also calls you to a detachment from them. It is only as you "give God permission" to take them to heaven, actually speaking those very words out loud to him, that you can freely and securely enjoy them here on earth.
2. You must believe that our absolutely sovereign God is your Father and that he wants to do good for you and yours. God wants you not only to be holy; he wants you to be happy. Of course, in this life we come short of the heavenly ideal of holiness and happiness, but happiness as well as holiness is always God's goal for your life. One day we will "be fully and forever freed from all sin and misery; filled with inconceivable joys, made perfectly holy and happy both in body and soul, in the company of innumerable saints and holy angels," (Westminster Larger Catechism, 90) but we have a foretaste of this coming holiness and happiness in this life through the down payment, the Holy Spirit. The point which you need to remind yourself of regularly throughout these dark days is that to affirm that God loves you is also to affirm that he aims at your present blessing and your present happiness. Focus on the center of our true happiness, Christ himself, and that the happiest we can ever be is when we truly adore Christ. But in the place of adoring God's adorable Son, we find the release to enjoy all the good things he gives us in this world. God will supply your need, and he will likely do it in very odd ways.
