Stop, Drop and WorshipSample

It Wasn’t Supposed to be This Way

Coming from an engineering background, I learned a simple yet powerful thought that 2+2=4. All kidding aside, math makes sense to me and 2+2 really does equal 4. Just as easily illustrated, it is reasonable to think that when you go to a coke machine and put in your dollar and push the button…a coke would come out. These are two completely rational thoughts. So how do we reconcile when the math of our lives doesn’t make sense so-to-speak? When 2+2 does NOT equal 4? When you put your money in the coke machine, but a coke DOES NOT come out? Is that ever a real possibility? What happened when life doesn’t turn out the way you thought it should? I love Lysa Terkeurst’s recent book titled It’s Not Supposed To Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered. I feel shattered when 2+2 does NOT equal 4 in life. I feel shattered when I go to the “coke machine of life” and put in my dollar but I do NOT get a coke.

So, who said that life was ever supposed to be fair? Life is not fair. It never was and it never will be. How come we didn’t learn this when we were young? Praise God for all the goodness and beauty He has created. But our sin condition has compromised life which can often be discouraging. Praise God that he sent Jesus to save and sanctify us in all our messes. I have learned that He truly can bring ministry out of misery, purpose out of pain, beauty from ashes and He can restore what the “locusts have eaten” in our pasts. Even though “it wasn’t supposed to be this way” and 2+2 was supposed to equal 4, I have learned a new thing. He is always doing new things and making a way where there seems to be no way. There is always hope on the horizon. These things shall pass. We will become stronger and wiser. We will become better or we will become bitter. Tomorrow is a new day filled with His grace and tender mercies. His math doesn’t make sense! And it certainly wasn’t “fair” that He would die for my sins. His math doesn’t make sense when He takes those 2 fish and the 5 loaves to feed the multitudes. How could there really be 12 baskets of left-overs? No, this math doesn’t make sense! And how could my simple 2+2=4 thought end up being 2 plus “I have no idea what in the heck is going on” and it end up equaling “more that I could have hoped or imagined?” This math doesn’t make sense, but I trust the Knitter and the Knower of my soul to redeem and restore. My best choice is to lean not on my own understanding, but to acknowledge Him and His sovereignty and then to surrender and trust.