Does God Really Want the Best for Us?

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:6-8).

Why would a God who paid such a high price for us not want anything but the best for us?

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around how much God truly loves us humans. In the busyness of our everyday lives, it’s easy to forget that He created us to love us, because God IS love (1 John 4:8).

The above verse in Romans shows us just how much God adores His creation. He knew we were weak and sinful, and yet He still allowed Jesus to die a painful, lowly death on a cross so that we could live forever with Him.

He redeemed us to show us His love and kindness, knowing that we had no way to repay Him for what He had done for us. This is true love, the kind of love that earthly parents show toward their own children. 

Just like human parents, God’s love burns fiercely for us—so much so that He will do everything within the bounds of His will to allow us to be with Him and commune with Him for eternity.

With all that being said, how could we possibly doubt that our loving heavenly Father would not want the best for us? 

Good and loving parents want their children to thrive and succeed, even to the point of doing better than they themselves. 

God is no different from the human parents He populated the earth with. He loves His creation and wants us to do well, to succeed, and to be happy and prosper.

Before we go any further, it’s important to understand that this doesn’t mean everything is going to go our way all the time. As long as we’re in these earthly bodies, we’re going to have difficult times and tough challenges in our lives.

We’re not always going to be on top of the world with no worries or concerns.

And it definitely doesn’t mean that just because you’re a Christian, you should automatically be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. 

For some of us, it may certainly mean that. But for the average Christ-follower, God’s provision probably won’t look like a huge mansion accompanied by a garage full of expensive cars. 

However, Matthew 7:11 tells us:

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

God wants to take care of us and lavish us with worthwhile gifts. After all, we’re His children and He loves us. But I’ve heard it said many times (and you probably have, too) that God is much more interested in our character than our comfort.

Our Father’s desire is to build us up on the inside, not just satisfy all our external needs. He can and will do that as well, but His ultimate concern is to see us grow in Christ and become more like our Savior.

In desperate times of struggle, it’s difficult to see how any good can come out of our trials. But we can rest assured that everything we go through in life is working together for our good (Rom. 8:28). 

Our challenges probably won’t be pleasant at the time, but we can be confident that God is looking out for us and has everything under control. There’s nothing that surprises Him or falls outside His realm of knowledge.

If we love God and strive to honor and obey Him, we know that He’s working behind the scenes to bless us and turn things for the better, no matter what we’re facing. 

God sent His innocent Son to suffer an excruciating death on our behalf. We only need to look at the evidence and we can conclude that God truly wants only the best for His children.

These are words that I need to take to heart every day. Too often I forget that my Father cherishes me and wants me to get fulfillment out of my life in Christ. 

Dare I say that He even wants me to enjoy life? Yes, I believe that He does. And He wants the exact same thing for you, too.

The Safety We Long For

For this post, I went here to get a random word (which turned out to be “safety,” then made it the focus of the post.

I’d say that safety, or at least the feeling of safety, is something that nearly everyone craves at one time or another. 

As a little kid, if you have reasonably good parents, then you can feel confident in the fact that they’re going to take care of you and help you feel safe. You know that you can always find a loving arm and security just by running to one of your parents. That’s the idea anyway. Far too many children don’t have that kind of security in their lives, that’s for sure. I think that’s something as adults we certainly miss. 

I know I do. I long to have a parental figure that I can lean on and seek refuge in. It’s lonely being an adult and having to face any number of problems every day. Knowing that you’re the last line of defense against all the bills, laundry, dirty dishes, car repairs, skinned knees, emotional trauma, and everything else can be overwhelming. Where is my safety net?, I’ve regularly asked myself over the years. 

Once you become an adult and have to take care of yourself, your parents don’t play nearly as big a role as they once did. How often I’ve longed to be a kid again. Ironically, when I was a kid, I longed to be an adult so I could make my own decisions, come and go as I pleased, and do what I wanted to. 

How nice it would be to be 13 or so again – old enough to take care of yourself in many respects, yet young enough to still fit under your parents’ wings when hard times come knocking. Alas, life doesn’t work that way unfortunately. It would be nice if it did (or at least it seems like it would be nice).

I can console myself with the fact that God designed the human existence the way He did for a reason. I don’t know why things are the way they are. I don’t know why I can’t snap my fingers and be a teenager again. It seems like a good idea to me. 

However, I guess God thinks otherwise, since we can’t do that. I have to keep telling myself that He knows best so I don’t go crazy trying to figure out all the questions about life I have that really don’t have any answers. If He wanted me or anyone else to know these answers, we’d have them. All we can do is just keep forging ahead through life, trusting Him and trying to do our best each day. 

If we think too hard about some of these things, we’ll just end up frustrated and angry, a state I’ve found myself in all too many times. It’s not a good place to be, and it’s not how we should feel toward our Heavenly Father who only wants the best for us. His plan is the best, even though we may not always understand it, and our job is simply to go along with it. 

Still, though, that often doesn’t make things any easier when we’re in the thick of a personal crisis. We long for the safety and security that our 5-year-old selves had so many years ago. We want those big strong arms wrapped around us, comforting us and telling us everything will be OK. 

I haven’t figured out how to make that happen as an adult. All I can do is keep trusting in my Father, and remember that He is ultimately in control of everything.