How to See Past Your Circumstance To God

One of the greatest comforts to a Christian is that God sees me. He not only  sees me, but cares and knows about my circumstances, because he foreordained them.

We tend to think of ourselves as insignificant to God, or that our circumstances are hidden from Him. We go through trials and wonder why God allows them. Wouldn’t a good God make our life easy? Then we start to wonder why he would care about us anyway.

I know for me, it is easy to be happy when things are going my way. But when things start spinning out of control or when people mistreat or sin against me, my mind begins battling for the solid ground that I thought came so easy just days before. These are exactly the times when we are tempted to take our eyes off of God…or perhaps these are the times when we realize that our eyes were not on God in the first place.

Someone has defined circumstances as “those nasty things you see when you get your eyes off of God.”

Israel took this stance after years and years of captivity. They doubted God’s goodness by thinking “My way is hidden from the Lord and my right is disregarded by my God.” Is.40:27

This sounds like a “poor me” attitude on Israel’s part. They knew that they had not kept the covenant and that they were now being punished. But they did not know something about their God. They thought that God was unfaithful because they were unfaithful, unmerciful because they had been unmerciful. They thought that God was like them.

If you have ever read Isaiah, you know that the chapters 40 and on are chapters of consolation and hope, because God is a God who forgives and restores.

The nation of Israel was disheartened because they found themselves enslaved due to their sin. They were insensitive to God’s messengers, idolatrous, immoral and lacking mercy, and that landed them in years of captivity. BUT…

Thankfully God does not deal with us according to our iniquity.

When we find ourselves in God’s correction, we should take heart. Correction is not without purpose.

Our “circumstances” are not happenstances. They serve a purpose, just like Israel’s captivity served a purpose. Your circumstances are meant to make you look to God.

Have you ever thought about that fact that God does not necessarily care if you are happy in this life? Our ideas of happiness are shallow and self centered anyway. God wants us to be holy. He wants us to seek and know Him. And incase we forgot how big he really is, he reminds us in Isaiah 40:

“Who can you liken unto me?” 40:18 (Who can compare to me? There is nobody like me.)

And then He gives us some of the ways that he is totally awesome, like  measuring the waters in his palm, marking off the heavens, measuring the dust, weighing the mountains in a scale, picking up the coastlands like dust, stretches out the heavens like we would open the curtains in the morning, he brings people to power and makes them nothing when he is done with them.

And then he tells us something more about himself:

He wants to be seen.—>”Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these.”

He will not share his glory.—>”I am the Lord, that is my name. My glory I will give to no other.”

And that in the midst of all that greatness, he wants us to trust Him.—> “Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you, when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you.” 43:1,2

Why? Because we are so great and lovable?

No.

“Because you are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you.” 43:4

In the midst of all our trials, God is gracious.—> “Therefore the Lord wants to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice.   And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher, and your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying “This is the way, walk in it.” 30:18,20

It’s really not about us. It is about the way God is.

If you are a believer in Christ, and you have a view of God that says that God is always out to “zap” you our strike you dead, you don’t really know your God.

And it is important to know God because in our Christian walk we are supposed to be like him. And every sin that we commit is the exact opposite of who God is.

• God is gracious, therefore ungraciousness is an offense to Him
• God is love, therefore hating your neighbor is an offense to Him.
• God is gentle and patient, therefore, harshness and impatience is an offense to Him.
• God is meek and long-suffering, therefore, pride and quick tempers are an offense.
• God is kind, therefore, unkindness is an sin.

And it is hard to trust someone you don’t know.

So today, whatever circumstance you find yourself in, whether by your doing or someone else’s doing, can you look through the circumstance to the God who sees all, knows all and cares for you? Meditate on God’s truth. There you’ll find your hope.