Life with God is messy. This isn’t something you hear a lot from evangelists, because it doesn’t really make you want to accept God and draw near to Him. If my life is already messy, why do I need God to mess it up more?

We all want to hear that God will make our life perfect, God will give us that job we really love, God will make us financially stable, God will give us more wishes if we ask for more wishes. But God isn’t a genie or Santa, waiting to bend His will to our whims. He’s God, who created us, and it’s us who need to bend to His will.

In our bible study, we’re spending time in the Psalms. Twice in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says to use the Psalms to teach and encourage each other. It’s interesting that Paul doesn’t say to teach Deuteronomy or even his own letters. In the Hebrew tradition, the Psalms were sung at festivals and celebrations, and around the dinner table, to deepen understanding and communion with God.

But if you read Psalms, you quickly realize that the writers aren’t saying that God gave them a new hut, or increased their drachmas, or multiplied their camels. The writers are struggling to reconcile the pain and suffering they experience with the God of promise they know. When was the last time an evangelist used Psalm 22 to share Jesus with someone?

“I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.”

Doesn’t sound very appealing.

So if God doesn’t make everything magically better, why believe? This seems to be a lot of people’s argument against God. But is it better in suffering to not believe? Whether or not the situation gets better isn’t God’s promise. God offers perspective and hope. The perspective we gain is that this suffering transforms us, and is but a breath compared to the eternity of Heaven. I would rather suffer a lifetime and spend eternity with God than have a cozy life and an eternity of darkness. The hope we have is creation was not meant to be like this, so God does offer the chance for a miracle. Whether or not the miracle comes, should we praise God any less? I don’t think so.

The Psalms shows us that we need a major overhaul of our expectations. God probably won’t cancel the debt on your credit card, or He might not cure your cancer, but should He be any less glorified? He gave us life to begin with, each breath a blessing from above. Let’s realize how majestic God really is, and how infinitely separated we are from Him, and be thankful He would even consider us to be worthy of redemption. Maybe that will put life in perspective.