This All Sucks!

Every once in a while you come face to face with a brokenness that overwhelms you. It seems that lately this has been the case more than not. I look around and people are not being healed, they are losing jobs, they are experiencing death.

This all sucks.

I know, I know, I’m a pastor and my Mimi would be mad that I just used the “s-word.” But, you know what, it does suck.

That’s the truth of the matter.

The brokenness of this world is overwhelming at times. I am so mad and frustrated with it. I wish God would simply do what I want him to do. When I pray for him to heal someone, I want him to do that. When I ask him to save a marriage, I want him to do that. Every once in a while, I want him to supersede the secondary causes of human sin, frailty, and brokenness to make this world how I want it.

He’s sovereign and good I remind myself. But, dang it sure does not feel that way at times. Not even a little. I don’t really doubt his goodness, but there are times when I wonder if he really does have control of this ball of dust.

Intellectually, I know he does.

Intellectually, I know that everything has purpose.

Today, as I drink my coffee, it doesn’t feel like it at all.

Emails, phone calls, texts, Facebook statuses, they all point to something else.

Even now, I am thinking about all the times God has responded. All the times when it made no sense for something to happen apart from God’s miraculous intervention. That makes me smile.

A few months ago my son said, “Dad, if I need something important to happen, I am asking the church to pray. God listens to our church and does stuff.”

It doesn’t feel that way this morning. But, I know it to be true. Me and God have history. But, I have a short memory.

“When my heart was grieved and
my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:21–26

This morning I was reading this Psalm and this section struck me. I am still in the, “I was senseless and ignorant” stage. I am working my way toward the “Whom have I in heaven but you?” stage.

Even so, God can handle me saying, “This sucks.”