I was just having a conversation this week about how I wondered years ago how to fall in love with a life I never wanted, trusting God's goodness when your heart gets broken, when the deepest longings of your heart go unfulfilled for so many years, etc.
Then I read THIS today by Paul Tripp: "I am deeply persuaded that many of us struggle with questions of God's goodness, faithfulness, and love, not because he has been unfaithful to any promise in any way, but because we simply are not on his agenda page. Our agenda, our definition of what a good God should give us, is a life that is comfortable, pleasurable, and predictable; one in which there's lots of human affirmation and an absence of suffering. But consider God's agenda, as it's revealed in the following passages: James 1:2-4, 1 Pet. 1:6-7, Rom. 5:1-5, Phil. 3:7-9.
The message is consistent throughout all of these passages. God is not working to deliver to you your personal definition of happiness. If you're on that agenda paye, you are going to be disappointed with God and you are going to wonder if he loves you. God is after something better - your holiness, that is, the final completion of his redemptive work in you. The difficulties you face are not in the way of God's plan, they do not show the failure of God's plan, and they are not signs he has turned his back on you. No, those tough moments are a sure sign of the zeal of his redemptive love."
For further study and encouragement: 1 Peter 4:12-19
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