Faith and Setbacks… Hello weekend readers. I have been musing on setbacks for the reason that Al and I have had some lately and we wish we could ‘wish them away’! I’m sure you have had your setbacks as well and we could all have stories of how we got through them, wrestled with them, or may still be wrestling with them!

For me, these setbacks tend to stay in my mind and instead of giving it up it’s more like that old idiom, it’s stuck in ‘my craw’ where I revisit it over and over again. I know I should be using my faith in God to deal with this but I admit that it’s easier to take the route of “I’m using my faith to avoid these setbacks.” No doubt this is not pleasing to God one bit. And to be honest, it isn’t helping me either—yikes!

Today we had two campers that hadn’t arrived last night. I contacted them this morning because they still had a few days on their reservation and I needed to know if they were able to come or not. They were delighted that I texted them and one was arriving this morning. She got caught in our huge rain-hail-snow-thunder and lightning storm last night. With no visibility, she and many others on I-25 stayed overnight in the back parking lot of a gas station, who allowed those in the storm to have a safe place to park—nice folks! She told me “I don’t drive if I can’t see my angels alongside my van.” Smart woman indeed.

The second campers had it much worse. They were on our way via US 70 when a driver in a furniture store box-truck decided to pass in a no passing lane! Campers were fine but the camper was T-boned and a total loss. They had no ability to call us until this morning. We had a wonderful conversation and they were upbeat despite this setback—and that’s what got me musing more on setbacks! They said: “Cyndy, we can get another trailer, it’s covered with insurance, but it’s hard to fix a life in an accident. My wife and I sat a minute after the crash and praised God for keeping us safe. We know where to put our faith in times like this.” Believe me, this chaplain got an uplift if not a reminder from his words!!

God doesn’t want us to be in tough situations, yet God doesn’t stop everything that happens to us. Instead, God allows these things to happen so our faith is there to coexist with the experiences—like my two campers shared with me, and as well with those annoying everyday setbacks and disappointments, grief, pain, and hurt we experience. Our faith will not avoid the setbacks—maybe this is why God allows it because God wants us to use our faith in Him so we can deal with setbacks and stop the useless avoidance!

Sadly, when we go through tough times we wonder if we have a lack of faith. Some of us even get mad at God and some do both—neither is a solution to setbacks. My writer friend, Lysa TerKuerst says “If you think every bad thing that happens is because you didn’t have enough faith, you’re going to spend a lot of time feeling ashamed and condemned. Plus, what we are suffering from or what we have lost is only part of our story. Faith in God allows us to see difficult situations in their wider context: they are just one part of a complex, long, layered, beautiful life.”

I love her wisdom about a “beautiful life!” Think of the Biblical characters described in Hebrews 11: “By faith so-and-so did such-and-such.” It’s easy to look at that list and think, ‘Wow, those men and women were incredible. They believed, and God did miracles. Their faith was proved by their lives. Yet, in verse 13 we read “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” They lived in faith and died in faith believing God’s faithfulness.

If we want to overcome, we must have the faith to “let go and let God” which is not always easy. But when we let it go, we can move forward, we grow in maturity in our faith, allowing us to let things rest in peace without losing our peace! To accept the fact that our faith in God will never mean we will have tough setbacks helps us to survive in a tough world. Yes, our pain will run deep, but remember—our faith runs deeper! AMEN.