You want God’s best for you life? You might want to think twice!
In the country where I work, during the last decade, mega churches have found their way into the spot light of “The Trendy Spiritualism Show.” Anyone knows that to keep the publics’ interest you’ve got to do a good job selling your product. And that is just what they have done. What’s the product you ask? Well, nothing less than the gospel; to be truthful, a counterfeit version called the “prosperity gospel.” Why the counterfeit and not the real deal? Because truth doesn’t sell!
One of the phrases you’ll hear repeated over and over again on the radio shows, and the televangelism shows is, “God wants the best for you!” And I’m not going to be the one that says He doesn’t. However, that phrase falls on the ears of large population of below middle class citizens, who quickly interpret that to mean “prosperity” – in all its senses! Health, wealth, peace, and comfort! But is that really God’s best? Is that the kind of best He is thinking about when He tells us in his word that, “all things work together for the good of those that love him…” (Rom. 8:28). I’ve got my doubts.
I got to thinking about this and I thought it might be interesting to run through a gamete of Biblical main characters and look for “the best” that God had for them. Lets start with Noah: over one hundred years building an ark while being jeered and mocked, Abraham: to leave all he ever knew to never really have a place to call home, to sacrifice his only son
Joseph: sold in slavery by his own brothers, thrown in prison, never to return home
Moses: raised as the son of his peoples’ enemies, lead a stubborn people around and around in a dessert for 40 years,
David: let his son build the magnificent temple he so desired to build for God
Daniel: thrown into the lions den, thrown into the furnace
John the Baptist: beheaded at the request of a girl
Steven: stoned to death
And last but most certainly not least, Christ himself: death by hanging on a cross, killed by His own creation, rejection, and abandonment! And that’s just a small list of perhaps some of our favorite characters.
Unfortunately this kind of tilt on the Gospel leaves devastation, frustration, and confusion in the minds of the believers who swallow the bait hook, line, and sinker, because it simply doesn’t match up with reality. It just doesn’t fit with the human condition and does nothing to explain the “whys” of the world we live in.
The truth is God wants the best for you, but it might not always be the kind of “best” you had in mind. In fact its more than likely that it won’t be what you had in mind! The “best” and good that He has in mind is above and beyond what the world offers. It’s how we get there that often scares us away.
“But count it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)