Difficult Divine Decrees

Disappointment with God is often caused by a misunderstanding about who God is and how His will intersects with our lives. Some of the most popular faith preachers boldly declare that it is never God’s will for His children to ever experience pain, sickness, or difficulty. These adversities, they declare, are the attacks of the Devil. By exercising the power of faith and making positive confession, they claim, such devilish adversities can be overcome. The problem is, of course, that despite how many thousands of devoted followers some of these faith-preachers have, reality bites each of them. There is of course great value in being an optimist and tending toward a positive outlook. In fact, I am about to make the case that if we adopt realism rather than optimism as our Biblically-informed outlook for life, we will be more wondrous of God than disappointed with Him. But to begin to achieve this, what I am about to say may shock you!