When Something Wicked This Way Comes
/I am certain I don’t understand the workings of God. I try…but my limited human brain just can’t comprehend why in the world He does the things He does. I suppose that’s why He’s God and I am not. I’m just one little woman, trying to make my way in the world, and I feel like I’m blind as a bat most of the time.
I have been guilty of using the quote “life happens.” Well, Life DOES happen, but that doesn’t make the things Life throws at us any easier to swallow. In fact, I sometimes think it makes things more difficult, because we oftentimes know it’s coming. We just don’t always know WHEN. And it’s in the When that our characters are made or our spirits are broken. I am reminded of a line from Shakespeare’s MacBeth—“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” My thumbs may not be “pricking” (and I’m not certain what that means, exactly, and it’s certainly nothing good), but Shakespeare surely was writing about Life in general when he penned those memorable words.
In Life, something wicked often comes, and we are not prepared to deal with it. We think we are, we may even have a warning of said wickedness, but at the moment it hits us, we are still surprised and bewildered. Life sneaks up on us. We are blindsided. I don’t much like being blindsided. I like to mentally prepare for the worse, then, when it doesn’t happen, I feel good about it. I recognize this isn’t an effective way to handle adversity. Of course we need to plan, but we don’t need to live our lives as if Life is just waiting to smack us around at every little whim. This is not living by faith, and it is not pleasing God one little bit.
What’s more, if we continue to live our lives in such a fashion, it leaves little room for God to work. It leaves us with feeling we can depend on ourselves for our answers rather than on God. I am certain this isn’t how God intended it to be. God wants us to have faith. Hebrews 11:6 states, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” This is a difficult verse, mostly because of the word “impossible.” I don’t want to be in a position of impossibility, because God is a God of infinite POSSIBILITIES. So, in order to please Him, we must give our faith a good, solid shake, dust it off and use it, and use it abundantly. This is what pleases God—not our skewed, human view of Life, but our willingness to bow our knees and simply say, “Show me how to have faith.”
May God bless each of you today with the gift of faith. May faith arise in your hearts and chase away any doubt. And when Life comes knocking, open the door with a new resolve—a resolve of faith, not matter the circumstances.
