Good, Perfect, Pleasing and Acceptable

I vividly remember losing my grandpa in 2016. Everything was so gray to me at the moment having lost someone that I deeply loved that much. I recall questioning God a lot more than I even mourned. Reality had not struck yet until I no longer received his calls that were more often; no more of “jũjũ okwa” (My grandchild) and his common phrase “wѐna mantό” (You never cease to surprise). The feeling was just outrageous, you know.

No sooner was I in the healing process than demise hit us again. Okay, in less than one and a half years, I’m back to the same grave that we buried late grandpa but this time round we’re now laying grandma to rest. The whole situation was just something to date that I cannot express in words. Moreover, many unfulfilled promises were now 6ft down and more often I would ask God why He couldn’t let her be with me as I graduate, this was one thing she really looked forward to in my life, why she left without saying goodbye, why? I did not understand why it had to happen but clearly God knew best. 

I had a candid conversation with a friend of mine sometime back about why God allows people to experience devastating moments; why bad things happen to good people; why He allows a baby to survive during delivery and the mother to die or otherwise, the mother gets a miscarriage; why a student dies upon graduation instead of God allowing him/her to be an agent of change to the society… and the conversation never really ended simply because we could not understand how possible it is for life to stink and still be God’s will. God’s will, yes! You pray for a job, you get it and within no time you’re retrenched. You work tirelessly on a business proposal, upon presenting to a couple of institutions, they out rightly reject it. You save your ‘sh’-money to get yourself this ‘machine’ that you’ve always yearned for; mesmerizingly you fall ill and spend the savings on drugs or otherwise, you get the ‘machine’ and get involved in petty accidents, get arrested over breaking minor traffic rules … You’re in this whirlwind courtship and as soon as you plan on getting married than your relationship hits rock bottom and the unfortunate happens… I mean! The only thing left is to be at the “bora uhai” zone because everything is turning out erratic.

Gregg Matte says and I quote, “In the most difficult times, we can deeply trust that those are the very circumstances God will use to accomplish His eternal plan in us! He is faithful not to wound us at random; He is faithful to save us forever. Throughout our lives, we will surely experience pain and heartache, but they are not meant to thwart the mission of the Lord, but to further it!

Deut. 29:29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law”. Hey! Let’s not sit down and pretend to have an idea about God’s next move in our lives. He’s sovereign! I believe the slightest idea we have about God’s plan for us is only based on Jeremiah 29:11 where His plan is for us to prosper and not harm us and also to give us a hope and a future.

I believe the best remedy left for us is to now let go and let God. Let’s submit to His will which is good, perfect, pleasing and acceptable, basically. How then can we surrender to His control?

1. Cast all your needs to Him

Jeremiah 33:3 encourages me most times for God is showing us His faithfulness when we call to Him and tell him all our cares. He says he’ll indeed tell us of the great and unsearchable things that we know nothing about. Also he tells us the same in the book of 1 Peter 5:7 where He tells us to cast all our burdens to Him because he cares for us and that He will sustain us. So let’s not hold our cups tightly and fill them with a toxic sludge that’s fueled by our own fears whereas there’s He, our creator that can give us a shoulder to lean on to.

2. Be still

“Be still and know that I am God”, Psalm 46:10. “I am God” God the restorer, God the powerful healer, God the destiny changer, God the giver of life, God the deliverer, God the way maker, God the solution to all troubles, God the best friend, God the father to the fatherless, God the hope to the hopeless, God, God, God… Be still and know that He’ll handle your situation. Be still! Wander not but be still and know that He’s able!

3. Put your full trust in Him

I love the song “Trust and Obey”. It encourages that when we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, He sheds His glory our way. Ey! Trust Him upon the manifestation of His will upon your life. If we believe, as it says in Colossian 3:17, that God “is before all things, and in Him all things hold together,” then we can trust and know that He’s got everything under control.

Let’s all abide in His love for His will in our lives is good, perfect, pleasing and acceptable.

With Love,

Bree.