Sometimes, God withholds good things from us.

He doesn’t do it because he wants to rob us of joy. He doesn’t do it because he wants us to experience loss, pain, or suffering. He doesn’t do it because he hates us.

He does it because he loves us.

Sometimes, we pursue creation more than the Creator. We get caught up in the things we want, things the world says will bring us joy, peace, and content. We pursue promotions, social status, money, relationships, food, fun, and excitement, all the while pursuing God with half our hearts, hoping that he’ll grant us our desires.

We’re good at masking those pursuits too—or, we think we are. We pray for God to deliver these things to us, assuring him that it will bring him glory, we’ll experience his love, and we’ll praise him better, if only we get to experience those joys.

But God sees through all those prayers, all those desires, and he knows the real condition of our hearts. He knows what we worship, and more often than not, it’s creation. We worship false idols and false promises, rather than a God who promises us everything we need and more.

And so, God withholds those good things from us. He wants us to return to him not only because he is a jealous God and despises anything that competes for his children’s attention and praise, but because he is loving and he wants us to find our hope, our peace, our contentment, our joy, in him. God knows that anything apart from him will disappoint us or leave us unsatisfied in some way, so to protect us from the pain that comes from deeply rooted idolatry and an unhealthy desire for things of the world, he strips us down and takes those things from us, so that we may return to him.

But God doesn’t withhold things from us forever. He may take an idea, a desire, or a hope, and change it, or take it away from us completely, but it is for our good. He gives us things and people in this world to be enjoyed and to show us his love for us. But, when those people or things become the ultimate pursuit and love of our lives, he has to take them from us so that we can find him.

And this process of refinement hurts God, too. He loves us. He does not want us to experience pain, or suffering, or loss. But he disciplines us, as a loving Father, so that we may find our value and joy in him, a perfect God, a God who is the only one who can satisfy the longing in every heart. The longing to be loved, approved of, satisfied, filled with joy, perfected: He alone can satisfy that desire.

The process of losing what we worship hurts. The process of waiting for the good things we hope for is messy and hard. But the refining love of Christ which captivates your soul, convicts you and shows you your need for his saving grace, that is amazing. The continual, never ending process of placing your desires, your hopes, your heart, your life in God’s hands, is a sweet journey that assures you of your worth and value in the eyes of the Father.

So don’t weep or fret over what you do not have or over the people and things you are confident will bring you joy. Seek the Lord and find the peace that comes from knowing him.

“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights” (Proverbs 3:11-12, ESV).