I remember about a month before I was set to graduate from Teen Challenge. Things began to happen for me. I was talking with my x-wife again, and it was looking like I was given an opportunity to get it all back. The wife, my kids, the family. It was everything that I had been praying for since everything had fallen apart several years before.

I recall thinking “This is it! God is awesome, and I love Him for doing this for me.” It was like my eyes had been opened to the grand tapestry that is God’s will. I felt so safe that God really was going to come through for me just like I had been learning about. Then I graduated and come out ready to start the life I had always envisioned, that I had always wanted…..

Needless to say, I was heartbroken when I got out and my dream was over before it had even begun. I remember having to leave the house to pray about that one. The reason for that, is when I am really upset and opening up to God the obscenities start to fly. I began to pray….and rant. I won’t get into the details but pretty much it all came down to one question. “WHY!?”

I wanted closure, I wanted love…. but most importantly I wanted an answer to that question that plagues so many of us. Why?

It’s not until recently that I received my answer. I was looking back over these last few years, not for any real reason. My mind was just wandering, as it tends to do, and I saw it.

It’s what is known as revealed knowledge, when the Holy Spirit makes something click. Something that you knew in your head but it simply couldn’t find it’s way into your heart. I looked around our house, I looked at my new wife, I looked at my kids running around the house playing with my new step daughter…. At that moment I heard God whispering in my ear “Do you see? Can you see it now? This is why.”

Unfortunately so many get stuck on the mindset of, “When I see it, then I will believe it”. But what those people need to realize is that it is the other way around. “When you believe, then you will see”. I urge you to look back and see how God has been working in your life. It really is a trip, several years ago, when my wife left me, I was homeless, jobless, friendless, lifeless. I never in a million years would have realized that all that pain and hurt was God loving me. That it really was the only way to break me, so He could save me. Only when I look back over my life can I see that He was always right there,  guiding me to exactly where I needed to be.

Isaiah 55:8
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”

Proverbs 16:9- “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps”

Written by: Justin Ludwig

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