Knowing God's Ways: The Key to Navigating Perplexity and Pain When God Is Silent

Knowing God's Ways: The Key to Navigating Perplexity and Pain When God Is Silent

Most Christians struggle with various forms of anxiety and stress. From age 13 to 33 I suffered with suicidal depression, which during the last five or six years, surfaced as rage; I felt like a walking time bomb. But it was caused, not by childhood trauma, but simply because I saw life through the lens of personal inadequacy. I didn’t understand God’s heart, His long-range plan to use our very weakness and dysfunction to build His Kingdom, not mine. Because, amazingly, our weakness makes us more authentic, the vital ingredient in all relationships, beginning with our relationship with God. Psalm 103:7 says, “He [God] made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” When God reduced Moses to a wasted nobody on “the backside of the desert,” He rebuilt his identity by revealing His ways, enabling him to bear the weight of two to three million complaining Israelites in the middle of the Sinai Desert for forty years! The more we understand God’s heart, the more our insecurities and complaints will give rise to spiritual strength, vitality, and most importantly – wisdom .