It is not a contradiction for God to want our best and for that best to sometimes involve intense suffering in this life. If the path to our eternal reward and temporal significance lies through pain, the benefit will always outweigh the cost.

It’s an annual rite of disappointment: Time releases its list of the one hundred “most influential people” and I’m not on it. It happened again today. Their roster includes “artists,” “icons,” “leaders,” and “titans,” none of which apparently describes me.

Not only did I not make the list, I haven’t even heard of many of the people who did, and I don’t know any of them personally.

But here’s the good news: Our grandkids are coming to our home for Easter weekend. If I believed in reincarnation, I would want to come back as my wife’s grandchild. Janet is already planning for the event—everything from Easter eggs to games and meals is in preparation. She wants our kids and grandkids not just to be fed and busy but to have the best weekend they can have.

This is how parenting is intended to work: We want our children and grandchildren not just to survive but to thrive, not just to get through life but to experience the best of life. If we published a list of the “most influential people” in our lives, they would be at the top. Their flourishing is our great aspiration and joy.

Why, then, do I struggle to believe that God wants the same for me? Why do I so easily question whether I can expect his best in my life?

My doubts have much less to do with him than with me. The good news is that Holy Week points the way to our Father’s greatest blessings every week of every year.

Two Reasons for My Doubts

One factor behind my doubts is that I know that God knows me too well for me to have any claim to his blessings on my merits.

I can understand that the God who “is” love (1 John 4:8) must love me on the basis of his character, not mine. Such love must want me to have the essentials of life. But to ask for or expect more seems like asking or expecting more than I should realistically aspire to seek from a holy God.

Another factor is that I am viscerally averse to the health-and-wealth “gospel” that has become so popular in my lifetime.

Whenever a preacher assures us that if we have enough faith we will always be healthy and prosperous, I think of Jesus on the cross and the apostles martyred for their faithfulness to him. I think of the fact that more Christians died for their faith in the twentieth century than in the previous nineteen combined. I think of dear friends in Cuba who suffer greatly for their commitment to Christ and of believers in Communist and Muslim lands who face horrible adversity because they follow our Lord.

In light of their persecutions, what right do I have to expect different, much less to expect to flourish in this fallen world?

“I Pray That All May Go Well with You”

And yet we read in Scripture again and again that our God wants to “bless” us.

For example, Paul could testify: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). John similarly wrote, “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul” (3 John 2).

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