Mary And Joseph’s Road Trip: “Why does God allow these struggles in my life?”
- Luke 2:3-6.
- The trip to Bethlehem under such difficult circumstances had to be a struggle. Did they have questions? I know I would have. “God, why are You allowing this?” “God, have You forgotten us?” “God, wouldn’t it have better to have this child – Your child – at home?”
- Do you have unanswered questions about your struggles? Do you have things you want to ask God? You’re in good company.
- Certainly this morning I want to acknowledge that every struggle we go through can be unique and so we need to be careful in applying these truths. That having been established, there are still important truths that we can apply to the struggles that we go through. Taken together, they can help us to understand why God might be allowing these things.
- As we look at four of these possibilities, I want you to think of your own struggle and see if one or more of these apply to your situation.
What God Might Be Up To:
1. He might have a divine appointment for you.
- Micah 5:2.
- What do I mean by a “divine appointment”? I mean those occasions when God orchestrates a meeting for us – usually without our knowledge. It could be a person we know that we “just happen” to run into. It could be putting us in front of someone we’ve never met but who needs something we can share. It could be a person in need that we can show the love of God to through an act of kindness. It could be someone hurting who needs a shoulder to cry on.
- To get us to our divine appointment, God sometimes has to short-circuit our plans for that day. At a practical level, that often looks like a struggle or being sent in an unwanted direction. It’s not usually pleasant; it can be frustrating.
- So, yes, it stinks that the line was really long in the drive-thru at McDonald’s, but that put you in the elevator with the lady from accounting, which led to you asking about her husband, which led to her crying, which led to a half-hour conversation just off the elevator about the diagnosis of cancer for him that happened yesterday.
- So, yes, it stinks that your evening plans got ruined to go to that movie you really wanted to see, but it opened up the door for that talk with your child where you learned about the problem they’ve been having.
- So, yes, it stinks that your work day went long and then you still had to stop at Walmart to grocery shop, but it put you in the produce department at 8:11 p.m. when the friend you hadn’t seen in two years came around the corner and you were able to invite him to church this Sunday.
- Now, again, obviously this is not true of all our struggles, but there are certainly times in the life of each obedient Christian that He does this.
- This passage actually provides an interesting and encouraging example of a divine appointment.
- Mary and Joseph were from Nazareth, so it was not a common thing for them to be in Bethlehem. The two cities are distant from each other within Israel. And yet this census required them to be in Bethlehem because it was the hometown of Joseph’s people.
- The timing of it, which seemed incredibly inconvenient to them in that moment, was deeply significant. Why? Because it was prophesied in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. This seemingly random inconvenience was being used to orchestrate the fulfillment of a centuries-old prophecy: that the Messiah would come out of Bethlehem.
- What does that mean for us? It is another piece that gives us confidence in the divine origin of Jesus’ birth. All these details coming together to lead to the improbable birth of Jesus in Bethlehem – the census, the timing of the birth.
- Yes, this was a struggle for them, but it was a divine appointment.
2. He might be leading you in the right direction.
- Isaiah 55:8-9.
- The first point had to with a specific moment – this point has to do with a larger, ongoing direction in your life. We might have certain plans and desires for our life to go in a particular direction. And then we have problems that come up that keep pushing us in a different direction. It’s possible that God is using the struggles to point us in that direction.
- What are some examples of this?
- A high school student is intent on going to one college, which seems to be their dream school. Yet as they try to bring together details to make that happen, there are ongoing struggles with every facet of the process. As they pray about it, they begin to feel a leading toward the school that was there second choice, which is where the person who will be a life-changing mentor to them, teaches.
- You want to get back into your favorite sport in a league, but there are life conflicts almost every time they are supposed to have a practice. At the same time, a door opens up for you to participate in a new local ministry that uses your talents.
- Your job has endless struggles that lead you to want to quit. You feel like you need to keep it, though, because the money is good. At a certain point, though, the headaches are sufficient that you start actively looking into other jobs because the money is no longer worth it.
- God desires to lead us in this life and sometimes He does that through the struggles we encounter.
- Now, I want to be quick to note that struggles are not always a sign that we’re going in the wrong direction. Sometimes there are struggles that we need to overcome. I absolutely acknowledge that truth. It takes discernment.
- Isaiah 55 gives us an important truth to bear in mind. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
- God is smart and loves us. He wants what’s best for us – not to be confused with what’s easiest for us.
- Sometimes He points us in a different direction because He knows there are great opportunities and we aren’t naturally inclined in that direction. Sometimes He points us away from something because He sees the bad things just over the horizon.
3. He might be deepening your relationships.
- Matthew 22:36-40.
- When do we draw closest to people? When we are going through hardship together.
- A sports team goes through a rough season but they’re there for each other.
- A relative is in the hospital and everyone pitches in to do their part to make sure someone is with her each day.
- You and your spouse rely on each other more than you ever have as you deal with a wayward child.
- This is obviously not the only way that people grow closer but it is certainly one of the most profound. We all want deep relationships. We want to have those that we feel close to. We desire to have those we know we can rely on. So often that happens through struggles.
- Yet many of us want to be surrounded by people who deeply love us and who we deeply love while simultaneously never going through struggles.
- As a pastor, I know that never is my presence more appreciated that at the hospital. Why? Because that’s a place of fear and uncertainty. As people are going through the struggle of that, they more deeply appreciate the presence of the pastor.
- Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was. His response in Matthew 22 was to love God and love others. This love is not a benign feeling but an active embrace of the other person. Often, this happens when we go through trials and struggles with that person.
4. He might be deepening your spiritual maturity.
- Romans 5:3-5.
- A shallow faith loves God for what He does for us. A deeper faith loves God for who He is, regardless of whether He is giving us what we want.
- God at times allows us to go through times of struggle to push us toward spiritual maturity. Will we trust Him anyway? Will we still stand up for what’s right when it gets more costly? Will we persevere when it’d be easier to give in and give up?
- What are some examples of this?
- You have been seeing great results from your prayer life, including many blessings in your life. Then you go through a patch of six months where no answers seem to come. You start to get discouraged and find yourself tempted to just quickly pray and not really intercede for people. Will you stay focused in your prayer life?
- You’re trying to do what’s right and ethical at work but the boss is more interested in sales. The pressure gets greater from him and from the other employees to get the numbers up, even if it means deceiving customers. Will you go along to get along?
- You’re a church leader and everything in the congregation seems dead or dying. There’s a big part of you that would just like to walk away from the whole thing and go find a church where everyone was loving and mature (wherever that church is). Do you continue to love the people who are apathetic and do you still work with the understanding that you’re working for the Lord?
- As we continue through these struggles, it can be a formative experience for us spiritually. It can allow us to grow in our faith.
- In Romans 5, Paul tells us to rejoice in our sufferings, which on the face of it just sounds ridiculous. But he’s not talking about a masochistic view of life; he has a vision for what that initial struggle can lead to. He says that our sufferings can produce perseverance, that perseverance can produce character, and that character can produce hope.
- Understanding the larger context of his words, we clearly see what he’s getting at: the struggles that we go through can bring us to a place of a more grounded, more confident, more mature faith.
