God doesn’t want you to be miserable. He doesn’t want you to suffer. He doesn’t want you to hurt or cry. But there’s one thing that God doesn’t want even more than all of these things, and that’s to watch you run towards Hell.

What God wants, what He truly wants more than anything else, is for us to know Him. The end goal is for all the earth to know that He is the LORD (Ex. 5:2, 7:5).

Unfortunately, we are not an easy people to teach. We are quite stubborn in our ways. We insist on doing things how we want them to be done (because that always works out so well….). We are blind, and thus we are “prone to wander” and “leave the God we love”.

Thankfully, God is a lot smarter than we are. When we think we know what’s best, we’ll usually end up walking straight off of a cliff. God, however, does know what’s best. God knows what the end goal is, and He knows that it is good. He also knows what it takes to get us there.
God will go as far as it takes to get you. He is not content to sit back and watch His children sell their souls to the devil. After all, the Lord our God is a jealous God (Ex. 34:14). Perhaps you’ve been going through a hard time. Maybe it feels like the Lord has abandoned you. But take heart, dear Christian, for “all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

You may not be able to see it now. The pain is real, and sorrow is blinding. But the Lord has not let go of You. In fact, He is clinging to you ever so closely. But you must remember: God is not after your happiness, He is after your heart. And He will do whatever it takes for You to know Him – to truly know Him.

If it takes bankruptcy for you to trust God with your security, He will bring it to pass. If it takes hunger for you to realize the sweetness of His Word (Ps. 119:103), He will let you starve. If it takes loneliness or depression for you to cling to Christ as your only hope, He will allow it. If it takes blindness or leprosy or an amputation to know that God is your strength (Ps. 28:7), then your body will give out today. Even if it takes the loss of a loved one for you to draw near to Him, He will not hesitate to do it.

Why? Is it because He finds pleasure in our suffering? No! A thousand times no! It is because He loves us. It is because He knows how the power of sin clings so closely to us (Heb. 12:1). He knows the Devil is prowling about like a roaring lion (1 Pet. 5:8). He knows that we are sheep who have gone astray (Isa. 53:6). He knows the horrors of Hell that await all evildoers (Mk. 9:43), and the joys of heaven that await the righteous (Rev. 21:4-7). He knows what it takes to get such a stubborn, weak, and simple-minded people to follow Him. He knows what it takes, and He’s willing to do it. Nothing will stand in His way. That is the love God has for us – a love that is willing even to wound us so that we might experience the greatest joy He has to offer: Himself.

Joe Gardner