God of Right

This doesn't feel right. This life, I mean. 

In a world in which we know that God is good, that God is gracious, that God is loving, why is it that we have to look in our mirrors every day and see someone so broken looking back at us? Why is that we have to look around our dinner tables and see so much struggle? Why is that we have to talk to the empty chair next to us when for so long, our best friend sat there? 

This isn't the old question, why do bad things happen to good people? because at the core of it, that's not the question that most of us are asking. 

Most of us are asking: why do bad things happen to me? 

When I was coming of age in the youth group, the tongue-in-cheek answer to nearly every question was, "Pray. Read the Bible. Go to church." But it doesn't take us long to figure out that that's not "working." That's not changing our circumstances. That's not changing our struggle. We might know God better, but it's still a struggle to feel Him near us. Loving us. 

That's particularly true when we get stuck in a season we didn't ask for. In times like these, we usually shift our focus and start talking about things like...thorns in the flesh. Those insolvable little nagging realities of life that we can't seem to get rid of and that God apparently isn't going to take away. Paul speaks freely of his, including how he prayed for God to remove it, so this seems like the Christian approach to trouble...doesn't it? 

Maybe. 

Or maybe it's Peter who has the right mindset for all of this. 

In the first epistle bearing his name, the disciple-turned-apostle writes: And the God of all grace...after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast (1 Peter 5:10). I like the way that the NCV says it: And after you suffer for a short time, God, who gives all grace, will make everything right. 

Doesn't that just breathe fresh air into your lungs? 

Listen, it's tempting to misread that. It's tempting to hear it in your heart as an assurance that God will make everything all right - and then we go right back to verses like the one in Romans, where God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him. 

But that's not what Peter says. Peter doesn't say God's gonna make this all okay, that He's going to make it worthwhile, that He's going to give you some new perspective on it that makes it seem less horrible or miserable than it's been. 

Peter says God's going to make it right. Put it back in its place. Restore you. Make you stronger. Hold you up. Let you stand again. And it's not just going to be the best that God can do with it; it's going to be God's best. It's going to be right - the way you've just always wanted everything to be right with the world. That's what God is doing. 

Isn't that good news?