Our Vision of God

~How Quickly We Forget~

Frigid weather on the cross, a food shortage, a desperate need for shelter in a dark wilderness winter. Contrasted with the dire straits the Puritan pilgrims faces their first winter in America, religious persecution might have seemed downright appealing. At least in England they could have a hot meal while being ostracized. Their plight in the new world included death from sickness and starvation. 

Suffering sears the human spirit so fully that we begin to believe lies about the past, and, even more dangerous, the future become a dead wasteland in our clouded vision. We tend to doubt God's goodness when we follow him through difficult experiences. Trapped by physical, emotional or spiritual pain, we long for happier times;we may even wish for death over pain before we acknowledge God's presence. God cares for us beyond imagination. Although we know that, how do we feel it when our guts tighten with fear and a sense of a abandonment? 

The moment the Israelites didn't get the food they craved, they began to blame Moses and Aaron. How quickly they forgot the God who had brought them out of Egypt. You might think God would react with anger: Those ungrateful people. Grumbling after all I've done for them. I'll just let them starve. But instead God chose to "rain down bread from heaven." Though the Israelites remembered Egypt fondly and blamed their deliverer, the Almighty still chose to provide what they needed. 

Provision doesn't always arrive as tangibly as manna from heaven. Gut-wrenching starvation afflicted the Pilgrims in a very real way: many of them died that first winter. Sometimes we forget that the world groans under the weight of a curse, that God's love doesn't instantly remove all discomfort, the far-reaching effects of the fall, from our lives. But hidden in God's nature we find answers. When the world threatens to crush our hope, we must cling to the knowledge of God's goodness. Even when our feelings tell us otherwise, that we miss England or Egypt or another decade of our lives, knowing God's goodness will gradually restore our sight. Then we can see our situation clearly, as daughters of a heavenly Father who desires our good more than we possibly can imagine. 

-Women's Devotional Bible