When God’s Path Seems to Lead to Disaster

Have you ever found yourself in a situation in which you were certain was orchestrated by God, but seemingly ended in disaster?  Has God ever led you to a particular place but when you got there everything fell apart and nothing seemed to work out right?  Or, have you been led by God to a special somebody, yet instead of a experiencing a relationship of bliss your relationship ends in shambles?   These are the types of situations that often leave us asking God the question, “What’s up with that?” It doesn’t seem very God like for Him to direct us to something, someone, or someplace, and not have things come together perfectly.  It just doesn’t make sense.

The story of God’s leading in the prophet Hosea’s life can give us some clarity on this issue.  In the book of Hosea we are told that God instructs Hosea to take Gomer as his wife.  Interestingly, God describes her as a woman of whoredoms.  Yet, despite the questionable description of his bride to be, Hosea is obedient and takes her as his wife.  Now, I’m not sure what Hosea might have been thinking but I can assume that he believed Gomer was going to be a good wife despite her adulterous characteristics.  Therefore, Hosea probably envisioned that their union would work out just fine, and for a while it did.

Happiness and marital bliss defined the marriage of Hose and Gomer for some time.  They rejoiced as their bond of love resulted in the birth of three beautiful children.  Life was good and so was their marriage.  Yet, after several years of joy, Gomer began to live up to the description God had given her so many years back and for no justifiable reason she became discontent with her relationship with Hosea.  She soon found herself running into the arms of another, and another, and another.  What a tragedy.  Gomer was in fact an unfaithful adulterer.

How could this be?  Why would God lead Hosea to Gomer just to have their marriage result in failure?  Thankfully, God did not leave Hosea or any of us in the dark regarding this situation.  When you study the book of Hosea you quickly discover that God was fulfilling a great purpose by uniting Hosea and Gomer together in marriage.  It was His desire to demonstrate His unfailing love for us despite our unfaithfulness.  This is why Hosea is instructed in Hosea 3:1 to go and take Gomer back and love her despite her unfaithfulness.  The faithfulness of Hosea was to represent the faithfulness of God towards us.  So, there was indeed a method to God’s madness.

Like Hosea, I seem to have found myself in this very situation so many times before, knowing that God has led me somewhere but perplexed by the circumstances that ensued following his leading.  For example, I know without a shadow of a doubt that several years ago God led me to pursue a career in medicine.  However, I’m not physician today (long testimony I’ll expound upon in a future post).  During that time I was totally confused as to what God was doing in my life, but now as I look back I see the perfect wisdom in His plan.  God knew exactly what He was doing in my situation just as He knows what He is doing in yours.  We simply have to learn to trust His leading, despite how banana’s His leading may appear to be and when we do this we can be certain He is working out something great in our lives.

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