Seeing God's Purpose in my Problems — Part 1 - Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Summary

Summary of "Seeing God's Purpose in my Problems — Part 1" from Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Podcast Information:

Title: Pastor Rick's Daily Hope
Host/Author: PastorRick.com
Description: Rick Warren is an innovative pastor, renowned author, and global influencer.
Episode: Seeing God's Purpose in my Problems — Part 1
Release Date: March 14, 2025

Introduction to the Series

In the episode titled "Seeing God's Purpose in my Problems — Part 1," Pastor Rick Warren embarks on a new series called "Seeing Through God's Eyes." This series aims to delve deep into the Bible, helping listeners uncover how God perceives their lives and guiding them to adopt His perspective on various life situations. The focus of this first part is understanding the divine purpose behind the problems we encounter.

Key Themes and Discussions

1. Understanding God's Intent with Problems

Tom begins by addressing a common misconception: many people believe that facing problems indicates that God is angry or punishing them. He clarifies, “God doesn't cause my problems, but He uses my problems for good” (00:33). Instead of viewing problems solely as obstacles, Tom emphasizes that God can turn adverse situations into opportunities for growth and blessings.

2. Five Ways God Uses Problems for Good

Tom outlines five distinct methods through which God utilizes problems to benefit believers:

Directing Us: Problems can act as roadblocks, compelling us to alter our paths in ways that align more closely with God's will. He references Proverbs 16:9, stating, “A person may plan his own journey, but the Lord directs his steps” (00:33). This highlights how human plans often change due to unforeseen challenges, guiding us toward God's intended direction.
Inspecting Us: Challenges serve as a means for God to examine our character, integrity, and motives. Citing Jeremiah 17:10, Tom notes, “The Lord searches our hearts and examines our deepest motives so He can give to each person his right reward according to his deeds” (15:12). This introspection ensures that our inner selves align with our outward actions.
Correcting Us: God disciplines His children not to punish them but to steer them towards holiness and a righteous path. Drawing from Hebrews 12:8-10, Tom explains that, “God corrects all of his children. And if He doesn't correct you, then you really don't belong to Him” (25:39). Correction is depicted as a manifestation of God's love and commitment to our spiritual growth.

3. Biblical Examples Illustrating God's Purpose

Throughout the discussion, Tom references several biblical narratives to illustrate how God uses problems:

The Prodigal Son: Demonstrates how reaching a low point can lead to self-realization and a return to God.
Elijah by the Brook Kerith: Shows how God might remove a source of comfort to redirect one's path, emphasizing that such actions are rooted in love and purpose rather than malice.
The Children of Israel in the Wilderness: Illustrates how repeated challenges refine character and faith, as seen in their 40-year journey due to persistent tests.

4. Personal Reflections and Testimonies

Tom shares personal anecdotes, such as his experience with marital counseling, to highlight the transformative power of facing uncomfortable truths. He recounts the struggles and eventual breakthroughs that led to a stronger, more authentic relationship, underscoring the idea that confronting problems directly can lead to significant personal growth and freedom.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

Tom at [00:33]:

"God doesn't cause my problems, but He uses my problems for good."
Tom at [15:12]:

"The Lord searches our hearts and examines our deepest motives so He can give to each person his right reward according to his deeds."
Tom at [25:39]:

"God never punishes his children, those who have accepted the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. He never punishes them."
Tom at [28:15]:

"C.S. Lewis once said, God whispers to us in our pleasure, but He shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God's megaphone."

Insights and Conclusions

In this episode, Tom effectively dismantles the notion that problems are merely punitive tools or random misfortunes. Instead, he presents a theology where challenges are integral to a believer's spiritual journey, serving as mechanisms for divine direction, inspection, and correction. By reframing problems as purposeful events orchestrated by God, listeners are encouraged to view their struggles through a lens of faith and trust, recognizing that each difficulty carries the potential for personal and spiritual development.

Final Thoughts

"Seeing God's Purpose in my Problems — Part 1" provides a profound exploration of how adversity is not outside of God's plan but intricately woven into it. Through biblical examples, personal stories, and theological insights, Pastor Rick's Daily Hope offers comfort and guidance, urging believers to embrace their challenges as opportunities to grow closer to God and fulfill His divine purpose in their lives.

For those seeking further inspiration, Rick Warren highlights a special resource for graduates titled "Purpose Driven Life Selected Thoughts and Scriptures for the Graduate," available at pastorrick.com or by texting the word hope to 70309.

Transcript

Rick Warren (0:02)

Hey there, everybody. Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are so glad that you've tuned in. You know, today Pastor Rick Warren is going to continue a brand new series called Seeing Through God's Eyes. Now in this series, he'll dive into the Bible to help us discover how God sees us and how we can start seeing life from his perspective. Okay, let's dive right in. Here's Rick with part one of a message called Seeing God's Purpose in My Problems.

Tom (0:33)

You know, when a lot of people have problems, they think God is mad at them. They think God is angry, God's mad, God is getting even. God is punishing me. Something must be wrong in my life. I must be out of God's will because I've got all these problems. And the truth is no. In fact, a lot of times problems are God's will for your life. He uses them. And we're going to look at how he uses them today. Now, would you write this down in your outline? God doesn't cause my problems, but he uses my problems for good. God doesn't cause my problems. I mean, I cause most of my own problems and so do you. And then other people cause problems and the devil can cause problems and the world can cause problems and nature can cause problems. There are a lot of reasons. It really doesn't matter why or who caused the problems in your life. Regardless of the source, God wants to use them for good in your life. You've heard me say many times, anybody can bring good out of good, but God knows how to bring good out of bad. And today we're gonna look at the five ways God uses problems for good in your life. And I hope this will be an encouraging message. If you felt a little down or discouraged, you picked a good week to come to church. Look at 1 Peter, chapter 4 there on your outline. The first verse says this from the Bible, friends, when life really gets difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process. Would you circle that, a spiritual refining process with glory just around the corner? The Bible says God has a long term benefit planned for those of you who, who handle problems correctly. Now, if you're a believer and you've opened your life to God's son and you know that you're going to heaven when you die, the Bible says that rewards in heaven are going to be based for one thing, on how you handled your problems. Did you learn to handle them correctly. And those rewards that you're gonna get are gonna go on and on and on and on and on and on and on, forever and ever and ever in eternity. So it makes sense that we figure out what God is doing in our problems here on earth. He doesn't cause them, but he certainly uses them in our lives. Now, God doesn't enjoy problems in your life. He's not a cosmic killjoy who sits up in heaven thinking, you know, I just love seeing people be frustrated. He's not that way at all. In fact, notice what the Bible says. The next verse on your outline, Lamentations 3 says, he takes no pleasure making life hard in throwing roadblocks in the way. So God doesn't get his joy out of giving you problems, but he does have a purpose behind every problem. The big ones, the middle ones, and even the little ones. There is a purpose behind every problem in your life. What are those purposes? Well, we're gonna look at them. Number one. God uses problems to direct us. God uses problems to direct us, to point us in a new direction, to give us a different path. Sometimes you're headed down one direction, and God says, I don't want you going that way. So he puts a roadblock there, and it forces you to go a different direction. And you're all very familiar with the roadblocks of life. Proverbs 16, verse 9 says this. Let's read this verse aloud together. A person may plan his own journey, but the Lord directs his steps. Now, notice what it says there. Humans plan. God directs. How does that work? Humans plan. God directs. Well, you know what it means to plan. You can make all kinds of plans. You can set your goals, establish your objectives, lay out your priorities, clarify your values, set some dreams. You can go do a life plan and figure out everything you want to do and accomplish in your lifetime. And you set up all your plans. But then it says, but God directs. How does God direct when you're making your plans? One word. Problems. Problems. Have you noticed that problems often change your plans? Has anybody ever noticed that? Yeah, you make all these plans, and then very few of them actually happen the way you plan them. Why? Problems come in the way and problems change your plans. So you can make your plans. The Bible says you ought to plan, but God is gonna direct your life. And one of the ways he does it is he puts up a little or allows a little roadblock here. When God has a better idea for your life, notice the next verse from the Bible, Proverbs 20. Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our ways. Would any of you like to give a testimony on this verse? We've all had this. You see, you've heard me say it many times. That we don't change when we see the light. We change when we feel the heat. And pain is a very powerful motivator in our lives. It gets us going, it gets us moving. It gets us off of our blessed assurance. By the way, you know, this week I was in South Africa, and I didn't know that the word for steak in South Africa is the word. Rump. Yeah, rump. And so a waitress came up to me in the middle of the evening, and I'm sitting there at the table, she says, sir, how would you like your rump? I said, a little smaller and firmer. Sometimes God wants us to get up off our rump and get moving. And so he lights a fire underneath us and he gets us going. And things become uneasy and things become uncomfortable, and you're not so satisfied and settled. If everything was comfortable in your life, you'd never change. Sometimes it takes a painful experience to get us to change our ways. Aristotle once said, we only learn through pain. Well, you see, some of the things in life you learned by being burned. That's how you learned them. You learned by being burned. And so God says, I'm gonna use problems to direct you. Do you remember that famous story in the Bible of the Prodigal Son where the young boy comes to his dad one day and says, dad, I want you to give me my inheritance now. And so his father gives him his inheritance then, and he goes off and he totally blows it in Vegas. Actually, it was Jerusalem. And he spends it on wine, women and song. Primarily on women. And eventually he runs out of all his money and he ends up living in a pig pen with pigs. Which is not a good thing if you're Jewish. And he's eating pig food and he's in the down in the dumps and he has hit bottom. And the Bible says. And when he came to his senses. Well, I guess so. When he came to his senses, he said, I'm gonna get up and go back home to my father. And that's so typical. We often never change until we hit bottom. Until things get really bad. We rarely think about the tough questions of life. Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? Where am I gonna go when I die? What is the purpose of my life? You would never think about those things if your life was totally comfortable. It's in the tough times, when things aren't going well, you're going, what is this all about? What is life all about? Why am I here? And what is my purpose? And am I gonna go to heaven when I die? We don't think about our direction until we're in a tough spot. This is what happened to David in the Bible. He went through a major crisis, and then he starts thinking the important things of life. Notice the next verse. David says, I have thought about my life and I have directed my feet back to your written instructions. There's that word directed. He says, I turned around and went back to where I knew I ought to be. When I began to sit down and think about what was going on in my life. You see, one of the ways the benefits of problems is they never leave you where they found you. A problem picks you up over here, but when it finishes with you, you're over here. You're never the same after you go through a problem. Do you remember the story of Jonah in the Bible? You might say he was swallowed up by a big problem, and this problem just kind of overwhelmed him. He's engrossed, he's enveloped. He's swallowed up by a big problem. But when that problem spits him out, he's not at all where he was when he started. He had been heading that way, and God said, no, I want you to go this way. And between that way and this way, there was a giant problem. It was kind of a fishy story. And when he gets over here, he sped out and he heads the right direction, doing the right thing. That's a parable of life for us, that God will use problems in your life to say you're headed the wrong direction. I want you to go this way, so I'm going to swallow you up, and then I'm going to spit you out over here, and you'll be headed in the right direction. You see, we'd rarely change if we didn't have any pain or problems in our lives. We'd postpone all the difficult decisions. We'd put off getting things right in our lives and right with other people. And all these things. We'd ignore illnesses if we didn't hurt. You see, anytime you have emotional pain in your life, depression, worry, stress, guilt, anger, loneliness, fear, resentment. Anytime you have any emotional pain in your life, it is God saying to you, hello, I want to direct you in a new way. It is a warning light to say you are not doing it the way God wanted you to do it. And so he allows these little warning lights of emotional pain in our life to say, this is not right now. We only change when our fear of change is exceeded by our pain. Isn't that true? Okay. Because none of us really want to change. We're afraid to change. We're afraid to change. And yet when the pain gets worse than the fear of change, all of a sudden we go, you know, I think I'll change. And it motivates us. And so God uses problems to direct us. And that's why Paul in the Bible is talking about some friends who had gone through major pain. And he says this. The next verse, he says, I'm glad. Not because it hurt you, but because the pain turns you to God. God uses problems to prod us and to push us and to prompt us to change. One of my very favorite stories in the Bible is the story about a guy named Elijah. He was a prophet, a great man of God in the Old Testament, and he had gone through some really tough times, and he was kind of hurting. And so God put him over by this little brook and said, you take a little R and R, Elijah. Just relax. Get rejuvenated. Refresh yourself. And there was this beautiful bubbling brook with fresh spring water which gave him all the water he needed. And there were birds. And God provided food for him supernaturally. And so everything he needed, he's just having a good time. It's like Elijah's spa. And he's just relaxed here by the brook, Cherith Spa. And he's having a really good time. But one day, it says in the Bible a little sentence, and it says, and the brook dried up. Have you ever had a brook dry up in your life? Something you were depending on, and all of a sudden it wasn't there anymore? Like a job or a relationship or a friendship or something you were depending on for emotional strength or spiritual strength or physical support, something that you had counted on. And all of a sudden, it's not there anymore. And the brook dries up. That source of income isn't there anymore. That source of support isn't there anymore. Many times in your life, the brook will dry up. Count on it. It's going to happen because things change. So what did Elijah do? He did exactly what we do. He complained. Hey, God, what's wrong? What's up? Don't you love me anymore? Don't you care about me? God? Haven't you promised to meet all my needs? I'm thirsty. God, there's no water here anymore. What's up? Don't you love me. And God says back to Elijah, you know, Elijah, of course I love you. And of course I'm going to care for you. Of course I'm going to take care of your needs. And I've promised to always provide for you. There's just one little problem. I don't want you at the brook anymore. And the only way I can get you to move is dry it up. Sometimes God wants to put you in a different job. He wants to put you in a different relationship, in a different situation, in a different circumstances. And as long as everything's hunky dory and comfortable, you're gonna stay there. God says, elijah, I never intended for you to live the rest of your life at this brook spa. No, no. I've got something else for you to do. And so I had to dry it up. Now, was God being mean? No. God was being loving. Because God uses problems to direct us. Now, here's the first question you want to ask when you go through a problem. We're going to give you five questions to ask today. Number one, where is this problem leading me? Where is this problem leading me? Pastor Tom's going to come and talk about the second way God uses problems in our lives.