Looking For God In Unforeseen Circumstances
God does everything for our good and His glory. Does the word “good” mean that life will be easy for Christians?
At age 35 my husband, Doug, and I were shocked when he was diagnosed with a blood cancer. Our children were 3 years old and 8-months-old at the time. I never imagined this, but there we were sitting in a waiting room dreading his first chemotherapy treatment.
We had our life planned out, and it felt like we were at a peak. Doug’s career was beginning to take off, and I had recently quit work to stay home with our children. After years of trying to get pregnant, we finally had our two healthy children and our family of four could not have been happier. But the cancer news hit us like an exploding bomb.
We all have dreams and plans of how we would like to see our lives play out. When life doesn’t go the way we think it should, we question why not. We ask ourselves if we did something to cause the devastation, or perhaps, we wonder why God can’t be compassionate enough to change our circumstances.
Doug and I sat restlessly in the waiting room to receive his first chemotherapy treatment when I opened my email and read a daily devotional. God blessed me with a verse that revealed a promise He made to the prophet Habakkuk that would continue to ring in my ears throughout our family’s cancer journey.
The Lord God is my strength (my source of courage, my invincible army);
He has made my feet (steady and sure) like the feet of a deer
And makes me walk (forward with spiritual confidence) on my
High places (of challenge and responsibility).
Habakkuk 3:19 AMP
Habakkuk wanted answers. He lived through a time of wickedness and despair. Babylon was becoming the dominant world power, and the people of Judah were feeling the strains of living in such wickedness. He needed to know why God was allowing the evil Babylonians to take over His people. Like me, Habakkuk must have felt abandoned, left searching for explanations. Both of us had perhaps forgotten that sometimes God reveals His plans to us, while other times we are left simply to rely on faith.
Stop Doubting, Face Reality
As Doug and I sat in the waiting room, fear consumed me. I was afraid of the chemotherapy that was about to go into Doug’s veins, but I also knew this was the only way for him to survive. I had read all the side effects and knew it was the cure but also poison. The unknown scared me.
Fear of the unknown made a stumbling block that kept me from seeing God working in my circumstance. Fear can sometimes make us want to run away from adversity, the way I wanted to. In the midst of fear, it can seem like God is indifferent in the face of evil and struggle.
Habakkuk did not know what life would look like for his people and felt the world spinning out of control. He looked upon the world and only saw evil in it; yet he went to God because He knew He was in control even when He couldn’t see it. God, if I would allow Him, would give me the same courage to step into the unknown and endure the reality I was facing, the way He did for Habakkuk.
Trust That God’s Ways Are Higher Than Our Own
When Doug and I stepped into that chemo room, I was full of questions. I needed to know what to expect after each treatment. I felt like that kept me in control. If I was prepared for what was to come then our lives would somehow be easier.
Likewise, Habakkuk had many questions for God. He too wanted a plan and answers in circumstances he did not understand. God answered Habakkuk by telling him that He had him in the palm of His hand and that He had a plan that was far greater than anything Habakkuk could imagine. God told him that He would enable him to get through the hard times. God also promised to make Habakkuk’s feet like the feet of a deer. Deer are made with special feet that make them surefooted and confident as they run across rough terrain. The tips of their toes are covered with keratin which makes them stronger than bones and gives the ability to make rapid turns and push off while jumping. They enable the deer to walk quietly and avoid making too many sounds all while providing a defense mechanism by kicking their enemies and fighting predators.
I was not placing my trust in God. I was trying to walk through our cancer journey on my own, in full control. God told Habakkuk He would give him the ability to endure whatever came his way and God was providing the same for me. I needed to realize I could not do it on my own, I needed to be confident and trust that God was enabling me.
Look For God in The Small Details
After Doug received his 5-hour chemo treatment, I dropped him off at our house and went to the pharmacy for a long list of prescriptions. I was exhausted from the anxiety that penetrated my thoughts. The pharmacy parking lot was packed with cars. I drove around looking for a place to park and dreaded doing another thing that day. When a spot opened on the front row, I went in to pick up his prescriptions and realized I left our insurance card at home. The pharmacist saw the shape I was in and graciously told me to bring my card the next time I came. I suspect she knew she would be seeing a lot of me, but looking back, I can’t help wondering if she was the first sign of a helping hand, an unrecognized answer to my prayers.
If we allow ourselves to get sucked into only seeing the world around us, we miss all the small details that show how God is working even when we can’t see it.
The details that God told Habakkuk and the peace that enveloped him gave Habakkuk the strength to walk forward in his unknown circumstances. Because God empowered him with strength and enabled him to continue, Habakkuk put one foot in front of the other and moved forward in faith.
Surrender To the Point of “Even If”
I know now that I didn’t want to surrender Doug’s care to God. I loved him with all my heart. We had been married 10 years and I wanted to see a lifetime with him. I tried only to talk positively and confidently about the chemo because I feared that if I didn’t, my own fear of him dying might become a reality. I was forgetting God’s strength and His mysterious ways while overvaluing my own power.
Habakkuk claims the Lord as His strength and acknowledges the “even if” when he says, Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. (Habakkuk 3:17-18) “Even if” his people cannot see the other side of their disparity, Habakkuk will still rejoice in the Lord. He senses that joy was from God alone, not from the world around him.
For many years I had looked solely to Doug for my joy instead of finding it in God. Jesus says in John 15 that our joy comes from Him, and it will be complete in Him. Turns out that only amidst survival mode I found the meaning of surrender. I had to surrender Doug’s life and my own to God so I could experience freedom from fear and a need to control. I had to learn that God’s unknown and unforeseen plan was far superior to my own.
We learn in these trying circumstances just how limited our own ways can be as we search for God’s goodness. But since the beginning of time, God has proved He works all things for good. God’s good is according to His will, His Word, and His glory for our good. We also learn that faith in Jesus does not guarantee an escape from trouble, it means we have a place to find our true peace and comfort. Our grief will not be replaced with joy, it will turn into joy as we experience the goodness of Jesus. Doug and I were blessed with his full recovery, but those long years of treatment and adjustment were arduous and frightening until God made the unforeseen bearable.
Will you choose to see God in your hard circumstance?