Have you ever wondered why you ended up in the family you were given? Have you ever questioned God’s wisdom—or His kindness—in allowing you to go through some of the events of your past? Have you ever felt stuck, like your difficult childhood has doomed you to a difficult adulthood? Perhaps you grew up with an absent father or an angry mother. Maybe you suffered abuse or major health issues or the death of someone close to you. Or maybe life was hard and there was never enough income, and you had to do without many of the things your friends enjoyed.

I believe God custom-designs a process of discipleship for each one of His children. His intent is to form our hearts more and more into the likeness of Christ, and He does that by creating a set of circumstances and relationships that uniquely and precisely fits each individual, to help us grow toward maturity and fruitfulness. Your family history (and mine) is not a mistake. It is not a failure of God’s grace. It does not mean that God was powerless to prevent the negative things that have happened to you, nor does it mean that He was angry or vindictive toward you by allowing those things to happen. No, as contradictory as it may seem, God designed your unique family history for a specific purpose—to grow you toward maturity and fruitfulness in Christ.

I have talked with some people who are convinced that their terrible family history has locked them into a miserable life in the present…and, not surprisingly, their lives are rather miserable. They are not growing toward maturity in Christ; instead, they are constantly bemoaning the past.

I have talked with others, whose family history has been just as terrible, and while they admit that the sins committed against them (or the difficult circumstances they faced) in the past have scarred them deeply, they are learning to see how God used those painful experiences to draw their hearts to Him. And others are moving a step further and starting to look for ways that God might use them to minister to others who have faced similar trauma in their growing up years.

A friend of mine from college endured horrific sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her father when she was very young. Understandably, there has been much pain and difficulty in dealing with that past, but God has poured His abundant mercy upon her, and she is now thriving as a wife and mother, serving God on the mission field in Asia. But what is most beautiful about her story is that God has taken her traumatic family history and transformed it into an amazing ministry. She and her husband now run a home for young girls who have been rescued out of the sex trafficking industry, and because of her traumatic family history, she can minister very effectively to those whom God brings to their home. (If you’d like to read her story, look up Deep Waters, by Jasmine May, on amazon.)

God has a purpose for the history that He has brought you through. He did not abandon you in your darkest hour, but He carried you and loved you, and there is a unique and beautiful story that He is weaving through your life. May He grant you the grace to see His good design, even in the difficult—or traumatic—family history that you have experienced. 

By Kay Carey

How do you normally respond to “How are you?”?  For me, I automatically say “good” or “fine”. I believe that’s what most of us are used to hear and say without thinking too much. 

In September, I ran into a guy who works as the facility manager of the church which hosts a Community Bible Study (CBS) I attend every week. I asked him, “How are you doing this morning, Carl?” He responded with a big smile, “Better than I deserve”.  I was struck by his response and I found myself repeating the phrase in my mind over and over. 

I asked myself: Why was I so impacted that morning although I had heard him responding with this phrase before?  Let me explain.  His wife happens to be in my core group this year so that same week, I discovered that he was diagnosed with cancer and waiting to be treated.  Apparently, there was a tremendous shortage of radiation equipment to go around at the veterans’ hospital…he was number twenty-something on the waiting list.

Before and during the treatment, he continued his job around the church campus faithfully with a positive and cheerful attitude…greeting everyone with a big smile and saying “Better than I deserve”.  It’s been a hard journey for him and his wife but I am so thankful that he completed his many sessions of radiation and now the cancer is in remission.  What a wonderful example of bearing God’s grace and mercy during a time of need!    

Every time I share his story with others, it not only blesses my heart and theirs but it opens up the opportunity to explain the Good News. These four words are very powerful. We all deserve God’s fierce wrath without God’s mercy.  But God demonstrated His love and mercy through Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection.  Therefore, we are not utterly consumed but have an everlasting life and saved from what we deserve. 

Lamentations 3:22, 23 sums up this truth: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Let’s find His mercy and grace in our time of need like Carl and share His mercy and grace no matter what our circumstances in this fallen world.  So, next time when I greet you at church, are you ready to respond with “Better than I deserve”?   

Most things that have the label of “custom” are not truly customized. It usually just means that you can pick from a variety of options the one that fits best with what you need. But something truly customized means it is designed from the ground up to fit a particular need; therefore there is nothing else like it, but rather it is uniquely crafted to fulfill a singular purpose.

Because I like woodworking, I also love custom-designing a project to fit a particular place or fulfill a certain function. I’m not opposed to buying furniture, if I can find something decently constructed that fits what I need, but when I can’t find anything for a particular purpose, I thoroughly enjoy creating a design and then building a piece of furniture to fit it.

When it comes to discipleship, to the process by which God forms our hearts more and more into His likeness, I believe God customizes that process for each one of us. God does not mass-produce identical disciples. Nor does He merely pick from a handful of tried-and-true methods and say “This one should be close enough for you.” Rather, He custom-designs a process that is perfectly suited for the specific needs and struggles and strengths of each of His children.

What does that mean in real life? It means that it is no accident that you are in the family where God has placed you. It means there is a purpose for the struggles you have faced growing up. It means that the person you find most annoying keeps showing up for a reason. It means the personality and gifts and experiences you’ve been given are not random or meaningless. It means that God is intentionally using all of those things to shape you further into the image of His Son.

He knows your deepest fears. He knows your greatest weaknesses. He knows you better than you know yourself. And because He knows you, He then designs circumstances and relationships and opportunities and struggles that reveal the sin in your heart and challenge your areas of weakness. He does that, not to punish you or shame you, but to grow you and prepare you for the particular mission and purpose that He has designed you for. That is discipleship…a discipleship that is customized perfectly to your individual needs and purpose. So rather than complaining about your family or your struggles or that annoying person in your life, receive it as the precious gift that it is: God’s careful, intentional, customized plan to form your heart to be more like His.

Why did you get married? Or if you’re not married, why do you desire marriage? What’s the point of it anyway?

Most of us enter marriage with the goal of getting our needs met in some way (at least I certainly did). Hopefully, we also enter marriage with the goal of helping to meet the needs of our spouse, but oftentimes we stop there. If someone were to ask us what our
mission is as a married couple, we might give them a perplexed look and then mumble something about getting our kids through college or making it to our 50th wedding anniversary.

But is there more than that? Is there a bigger purpose than just meeting each others’ needs? Is there a greater mission than staying married and getting kids through college (as important as those things are)? 

Francis Chan (you might know his name as the author of a book called Crazy Love, or as a pastor and popular speaker from a church in Simi Valley), together with his wife Lisa, just published a book on this subject of pursuing a mission for your marriage that is bigger than just you. Their book, titled You and Me Forever, came out of a mission trip they went on together to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

My wife and I celebrated our 20th anniversary this year too—not in a poverty-stricken village in Africa (like the Chan’s), but in a comfortable condo in Maui. But we talked about our mission (in fact, we probably did more of that than sightseeing or snorkeling or shopping). We asked God what He wants to do through us together, through the uniqueness of each of our gifts and passions, that will make His name known and help others to walk with Him in His glorious Kingdom. Beginning to get a glimpse of that bigger mission is exciting! It’s a bit scary too, because most likely it won’t lead to a comfortable, affluent, easy life…but that’s OK, because the few years we have on this earth are just a dot on the long “timeline” of eternity, and we’d rather live for the line than for the dot (if you want to hear more on that, talk to Elliott Snuggs—he’s got a great lesson on that!).

So if you haven’t seen it, pick up a copy of the Chan’s book (in fact, purchase several copies and give them away, because 100% of the proceeds from the book sales are going to ministries that care for orphans and exploited women around the world). Or at least watch their short video clips at www.youandmeforever.org. 

Then…if you’re married, sit down with your spouse and start praying and talking about something God may be calling you to that is bigger than just yourselves. 

 …if you’re dating or engaged, think and plan now for how your marriage will count for eternity. 

…if you’re single, stop looking for a spouse to meet your needs and start praying for a friend to share your
vision. 

…even if marriage isn’t in the picture for you, ask God to give you an impossible mission that will make His name famous.

The only marriage that is forever is the marriage between Christ and His Church. So let’s live our lives and focus our marriages on that greater reality. And who knows, maybe you’ll find marriage (or singleness) to be a whole lot more exciting and significant when you’re focused on something bigger than just yourself. As Francis Chan says, “The way to have a great marriage is by not focusing on marriage.”

Each year when Thanksgiving comes around, we are prompted to think of those things for which we are thankful. And certainly that is a good discipline to regularly engage in. As Matt Redman says in his song, “For all Your goodness I will keep on singing, ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.” It is good for our hearts to continually search for the treasure of God’s goodness, and to give Him thanks as we discover more and more reasons to praise Him.

But how are we to give thanks when we find ourselves in less-than-ideal circumstances? What if we’re facing tragedy rather than joy, or suffering rather than delight? What if the thing for which we would be very thankful has not yet happened and may not happen at all? How are we supposed to celebrate Thanksgiving in the desert?

The Psalms are full of thanksgiving, but the Psalms are also full of complaint and heartache and sorrow. Yet if we look closely, the Psalms give us a pattern of how to express our complaints and sorrows in a way that honors God.

In Psalm 22:1, David twice exclaims “Why?!” “Why have You forsaken me?” and “Why are You so far from saving me?” He is not afraid to air his complaint—even his accusation—against God. And God does not strike him down for daring to say such a thing. God is big enough to handle our complaints and accusations. But how can those complaints honor God? Verse 3 of Psalm 22 gives us a clue: “Yet You are holy…” Throughout the psalms we see this pattern—submissive trust follows honest complaining. There is the “Why, God?!” spoken in despair and anguish, but that is followed by a calling to mind of some aspect of God’s character. It is like what Jeremiah cries: “My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is…But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases…great is Your faithfulness.” (Lam. 3:17, 21, 23)

God is not honored by angry fist-shaking that merely demands Him to do what we want. But neither is God honored by bitter hearts hiding behind smiling masks and empty platitudes. If we find ourselves in a desert this Thanksgiving season, we can honor God with our honest complaint when that complaint is then followed by an attitude of submission and trust in God’s goodness and sovereignty, even if we do not see that in the moment.

Jesus uttered the psalmist’s words as He was hanging on the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46) He did not paste a smile on His face and thank God for how all this was going to turn out for the good. No, He cried out in anguish and pain as He bore the wrath of God for your sin and mine. Yet, having publicly voiced such a complaint, He still was able to say “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46) as He entrusted Himself to the perfect will of His Father.

May our honest complaints be tempered by deep trust in our God as we learn what it means to have Thanksgiving even in the desert.