But what about when the story does not have a happy ending? Is God sovereign then also? This is the crucial question. It's easy to trust God when a process of events turns out as we would desire, though even here our faith often falters during the process until we know the outcome.

A disposition to trust in ourselves is part of our sinful nature. It sometimes takes a major crisis, or at least a moderate one, to turn us toward the Lord. A mark of Christian maturity is to continually trust the Lord in the minutiae of daily life. If we learn to trust God in the minor adversities, we will be better prepared to trust Him in the major ones.

our suffering has meaning and purpose in God's eternal plan, and He brings or allows to come into our lives only that which is for His glory and our good.

We must believe this and cling to this in the face of adversity and tragedy, if we are to glorify God by trusting Him.

Even more so, the wisdom of God is displayed when He brings good to us and glory to Himself out of confusion and calamity rather than out of pleasant times.

The universal testimony of those who have suffered for the sake of Christ and His church is that they have experienced a deep fellowship, an intimate communion with Him in the midst of their sufferings.

If you stop and think about it, you will realize that most godly character traits can only be developed through adversity.

When I say we should never ask why, I am not talking about the reactive and spontaneous cry of anguish when calamity first befalls us or one we love. Rather, I am speaking of the persistent and demanding why that has an accusatory tone toward God in it.

Our first priority in times of adversity is to honor and glorify God by trusting Him.

But even here we must be careful that we are not seeking to satisfy our souls by finding some spiritual "good" in the adversity. Rather we must trust God that He is working in the experience for our good, even when we see no beneficial results. We must learn to trust God when He doesn't tell us why, when we don't understand what He is doing.

We are to look beyond our adversity to what God is doing in our lives and rejoice in the certainty that He is at work in us to cause us to grow.

Most of us are tempted, from time to time, to question God's love for us.