“Are you satisfied with your care?” This is one of those movie lines that’s made its way into our family’s vocabulary. It’s from the animated film, Big Hero 6, where Baymax is a healthcare provider robot who won’t leave his human patient, Hiro, until Hiro says he’s satisfied with his care. In our house, it tends to crop up in our conversations when something disappointing has happened. We’ve done our best to address the disappointment, but we know there’s a good chance it still lingers.
Beloved, are you dissatisfied with God’s care for you?
Oh we’ve had ample reasons to be disappointed. Things have certainly not gone as expected. Disappointment is a normal and natural response when things don’t go as we’d like. But we have to be careful or disappointment will lead to dissatisfaction, and distrust of God will be the fruit of our dissatisfaction. We will believe the lie that God doesn’t love us, that He doesn’t care for us, that He isn’t interested in our best.
As a parent, I want to do the best I can to alleviate my children’s disappointments. To shield them from unpleasantness and sorrow. I want to give them shiny happy insta-moments. But I don’t think those moments will prepare them for real life. I’m afraid giving them everything they want will spoil them. What can you do with something that’s spoiled other than toss it out?
I don’t want my kids to find that their faith is worthless. Faith that’s only strong enough for pleasant circumstances is no faith at all. Faith grows in the soil of unpleasant circumstances, of challenges, of not having. Because faith is certainty that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, God is who He says He is and will do what He has promised. He will ensure that you have everything that you need.
The problem for us is that we mistake our wants for our needs. But God never has that problem. He knows what lies ahead for us, and He knows precisely what we need both now and in the future. He knows the prescription that will best deal with what really troubles us. His treatment is sure to bring about holiness when it has done His work in us.
This is what James is getting at when he writes, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2-4). Isn’t that the definition of satisfaction? Today, take heart knowing you can rest in God’s care for you.