The Insanity Zone: Looking to circumstances to see how God feels about you. If he is pleased with you, good things happen. If he is not, bad things do.

We will all face pain, trials, suffering and death. Ask questions, - God, where are you? What does this mean?

Three things I have learned over the years that helped me deal with it:

1. Pain changes you, do does love.

Luke 13:6-9
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.  So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.  If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ —https://www.bible.com/bible/114/LUK.13.6-9.NKJV

Fig trees are created to bear fruit = you were created to be productive, to contribute, to become who God created you to be. Pain, grief, suffering and trial can paralyze you. They can stop you in your tracks. They challenge your faith and you can get stuck in a season of fruitlessness.

Pain changes you, so does love.

2. I don’t have to go through the pain alone, invite Jesus in.

Isaiah 43: 1-2:
But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze. —https://www.bible.com/bible/111/ISA.43.1-2.NIV

How did God keep this promise?

The entire New Testament is the answer to that question.

He kept His promise through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

3. The proof of God’s love for me is the cross - not my circumstances.

1 John 4: 9-10
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. —https://www.bible.com/bible/111/1JN.4.9-10.NIV

Repent = change the way you think about God. God is not who you think He is: Jesus is what God is like.

1 John 4:16: 
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. —https://www.bible.com/bible/111/1JN.4.16.NIV

A toddler instinctively knows who to run to when they fall down and get hurt - they run into the loving arms of a parent.

This is who Jesus said God is.

When you are in the middle of the furnace of adversity, there is another in the fire with you….