Difficulties & Obstacles: Unwanted Gifts

Like most people, I like gifts. Gifts are generally good, generous and pleasant, and some are even useful. God is the great giver of gifts and there are many of them them I greatly appreciate and I probably should appreciate some of them a great deal more. But there are also from him gifts that I don’t appreciate, such as obstacles and difficulties He sends my way.  

Consider what God’s dealing with Hosea’s unfaithful wife:

Hos. 2:6,7 “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.And she will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; And she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband, For it was better for me then than now!’”

Often we think of obstacles and difficulties as bad things that are the work of our enemy, Satan. But Gomer, and by extension all Israel of who she was a type,was hedged in by difficulties from God. 

These difficulties were for her good, to retain her from evil and to bring her back to her husband and to her God. So God might will give us difficulties and obstacles as a form or discipline and restraint. When He puts up barriers to our sinful plans it is a gift to us. Let us be thankful and glad to He cares enough to keep us from evil. “FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” (Heb. 12:6)