We know what Jesus said about our eternal destination: “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (or, in its older rendering, “in my Father’s house are many mansions”). We know that God has prepared a place for us to live with him forever—a place of safety, peace, and rest.
But before we get to that place of rest, we must first pass through this place of activity, this place of duty, this place that so often involves sorrows and trials. This is our place of learning, our place of growing, our place of preparation. The means God uses to prepare us are as varied as we are—as varied as our lives, backgrounds, contexts, and personalities. Though we wish that our journey through this life were only ever smooth, the reality is that we face many trials and temptations. We sometimes face divine chastening meant to steer us back to obedience. We sometimes face failure meant to bring us to the end of ourselves and deepen our reliance on God.
We often wonder why the Lord has ordained that we must face and endure a specific challenge. Why should I suffer loss when another person seems to experience only gladness? Why should I endure poverty when she enjoys riches? Why should my strength be taken when he remains strong?
On the one hand, we cannot definitively know why God leads us all differently and why some of his people seem to suffer so much more than others. But we can know the character of the God who leads us. We can know his love for us and his promises to us. We can know that his will for us is only ever good. We can know that the God who gave his own Son for us will forever be for us rather than against us.
Jesus promises that in the Father’s house there are many rooms—a place for each of us to dwell. But we soon learn as well that in the Father’s school there are many classrooms—many different contexts in which we come to know him better, rely on him more deeply, and become more closely conformed to his image.
We can always have confidence that he has chosen for us what we would choose for ourselves if only we could know what he knows and see what he sees.
We may not know why God has chosen to enroll us in a particular classroom—a classroom in which we experience want, loss, sorrow, or a hundred different troubles—but we can always know that he has put us in exactly the circumstances through which we can best grow in holiness, best increase in delight, and best bring glory to his name. We can always have confidence that he has chosen for us what we would choose for ourselves if only we could know what he knows and see what he sees. We can always be certain the day will come when we will praise and thank him for his every choice, his every decision, his every expression of his sovereignty over our lives.
And thus it falls to us to accept—to continue to trust his character, his purposes, and his promises. And it falls to us to submit—to know that it is in these circumstances and not others that we have been called to stay true and trusting. We may not know why God has chosen this specific classroom for us, but we can trust that God knows, and that is worth everything to one of his children.
Inspired by the writings of Maltbie Davenport Babcock
