Do you believe in karma?🤔

Hi, friends! I have really been enjoying Misha's posts, and I hope you have too. This isn't Misha right now, btw. This is her friend, Claire. 💁‍♀️

I'm here because Misha and I are reading the Bible together every day of 2024 on an app called the YouVersion Bible app. This year we've been led to read the entire Bible chronologically! There's also a podcast (by The Daily Grace Co.) that goes along with each day's reading.

Anyways, we are in Job, which tbh I was ummmm....not looking forward to at all! On the surface, it's a pretty depressing story that can leave us with many more questions than answers. WITH THAT BEING SAID, oh my, am I so surprised how God has spoken straight to my heart through this seemingly obscure book of the Bible.

I wrote the following reflection on what I've been learning from the book of Job:

Kar·ma

noun

1. (in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences “A buddha is believed to have completely purified his karma."

2. INFORMAL destiny or fate, following as effect from cause “There’s something highly satisfying when karma strikes."

News alert, people, karma is not real!!

I was thinking about the readings and podcast this morning and it hit me that there’s actually two ways I can see people believing in karma.

One, people believe that if we go to church, read our Bibles, do good deeds, and have ‘enough faith’ we should get good things from God, even that we are owed them. People sometimes seem to declare their prayers to God as if they have earned these things from Him as a result of their great faith.

Do we see where the problem with that lies? When we pray like that, we are putting our confidence in our level of faith, on ourselves, and not on God, Who we should be trusting.

Jesus Himself, in the garden of Gethsemane, prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)

There’s also some who believe that if people are bad, and then misfortune hits, they obviously had it coming because of their sins. This seems to be a defense we make up in our minds in order to protect ourselves from the very uncomfortable thought that we, too, might someday be struck by similar hardship. If bad things only happen to those who do bad things, we (subconsciously) think we can stay protected by being ‘good enough’ or by clinging to our rituals, such as prayer and acts of service.

This reminds me of a video I saw the other day that said when tragedy strikes our true faith is revealed (I will post the link below.)

Hard times really do show where we have really been putting our trust: Do we believe in a God who is going to bless and/or punish us based on what we do, or do we believe in the One True God who’s goodness actually transcends things being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in a temporal sense, in our own understanding?

One of my favorite verses, Romans 8:28, says, “And we know in everything God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.“

His purpose, not ours.

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that being a believer who is seeking to follow Him doesn’t actually mean our kids aren’t going to die prematurely, that we’re immune to getting cancer, or that no one else will ever hurt or attempt to destroy us again.

Martyrs are evidence that, when it comes down to it, God might not even choose to spare our lives. We must pray for eyes to see more of God’s eternal prospective if we ever hope to see how something like getting murdered can actually be a good thing!

BUT here’s the flip side of all of that- to be a Christ follower, for someone who loves Him, it's an absolute guarantee that whatever happens to us, God is faithful to be our Redeemer. He will work everything for the good of those who love Him, according to His purpose. It’s not going to be in our timeline, and maybe not even in our lifetime, but we must trust that He will redeem. 🙏🏻

Honestly, I really do have trouble reconciling God’s (perceived) lack of intervention in my own personal trauma. It’s extremely difficult to come to terms with the fact that He could have saved me, but even in the most excruciating of times, He did not. He, for whatever reason, waited about 30 years to give me the freedom I prayed for when I was little.

It’s been a whole thing to work through that pain, complicated by the additional realization that, on this side of Heaven, some people actually never get freedom from their abusive situations. How can a good God possibly let atrocities occur, looking on without stopping it!?

This is where God wants to meet us. He really does want us to get honest with Him and to ask extremely difficult, raw, and baffling questions. I know this because I have been doing that lately, and He has been growing my faith through the process of questioning.

I don’t get many answers, but He is teaching me how to surrender.

And we are given a choice. We are permitted to run from God, to live for ourselves, to try to sooth our pains with addictions, distractions, or by aiming towards the world’s definition of success, but just as much we are invited to surrender to our Redeemer, even when we are still in the midst of our struggles. We are invited to pray for Him to do what comes naturally to Him…redeem it.

The podcast has been saying that the Bible itself tells one overarching story of redemption.

So, what is God’s definition of redemption?

Well, first of all, Jesus has redeemed all Christians in the sense that we are free from the power of Hell, which is the most important gift of all! On top of that, He is continuously redeeming us, our lives, our situations as we hand things over to Him.

We will continue to learn more about redemption as we look at the lives of Abraham, Rahab, Ruth, King David, Jesus' disciples, and in other instances and situations ahead as we continue reading God’s Word daily. Throughout the entire Book we are going to see how Jesus is our Ultimate Redeemer and that it’s by His power that things are redeemed, including whatever we personally choose to hand over to Him.

This is making me realize how God didn’t actually ignore the prayers of that little girl I was. He just didn’t do it according to what I thought would be good.

Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, and I am wondering now if fruits are also retroactive, meaning that in addition to trusting Him with the future I’m also invited to surrender to the fact that what He has allowed, in the past, was actually better than what I would have chosen.

(To be clear, He didn't make the bad things happen. Instead He came us to save us from all that junk! As in the story of Joseph (Genesis 50:20,) He takes what the enemy means for evil and turns it for good. I'm paraphrasing here, but do recommend reading the whole story!)

The important thing to know is that He is in the process of redeeming what happened to me and He is more than willing to redeem your hurts as well.

I’m not quite there on fully surrendering my pain, and I very well may never be, but I’m just going to keep praying for His redemption. In the meantime, God continues to fill in for our every lack.

🥰

Here's the video I referenced above:

https://www.tiktok.com/@streams.studio/video/7317421067784572192?_t=8iqjSHT6Jac&_r=1

And another I thought was also very good:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy47_yyO1V7/?igsh=MXduZmJuMWU5bW4wbQ==

Keep checking back as I'm sure Misha will have much more to share as we continue to journey through God's Word. If you're not reading the Bible daily, you need to be!

God is literally amazing. ✨