The Furious Faithfulness of God: When Your Grid Fails
Scripture: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)
My world went dark. Not just the predictable, scheduled darkness of Eskom’s loadshedding, but a deeper, more personal blackout. The contract in Centurion—my "Cherished Creek," a steady stream of income and professional identity I had carefully canalised and controlled—dried up without warning. The financial and emotional power was cut. Despair, that desperate debtor, immediately showed up at my door, demanding I pay with my peace and dwell in the dimness of doubt.
But here is the truth I had to grasp, a truth as solid as the granite of the Magaliesberg: Divine disruption is not destruction; it is direction.
God was not merely closing a chapter; He was compelling a crucial change of course. My faithful forward motion, not mournful stagnation, is what activates His abundance. It was in the obedient packing of boxes, the daily trust-filled commute to an unknown Pretoria office, that I found not just a new job, but a purpose-shaped providence. Christ doesn't call us to comfort, but to conquest. Your provision is perpetually ahead of you, never behind.
This experience forced me to interrogate a popular, pervasive heresy in our modern faith: the gospel of uninterrupted ease. It’s the belief that God’s primary purpose is to bless our blueprints, to sanctify our schedules, and to keep our personal power grids humming. It is a theology that collapses completely when the lights go out—both in our homes and in our hearts.
Let us define our terms clearly. Faith, in this compromised conception, is a spiritual remote control, a means to command comfort. But biblical faith is a weapon of war. It is the assurance of God’s character when our circumstances are characteristically chaotic. It is the conviction that the One who led Israel by a pillar of fire is still guiding us, even when our own generators sputter and fail.
Imagine, if you will, a master electrician. You come to him, proud of the intricate, glittering network of extension cords you’ve rigged up in your home, powering a dozen appliances from a single, overloaded socket. He doesn’t applaud your ingenuity. He shakes his head, walks over to the main board, and throws the main switch. Darkness. He says, "My child, this is dangerous. I am going to rewire the entire house. I am installing a new, dedicated circuit for that powerful purpose I have for you. It will be messy and disruptive, but the end result will be safety, capacity, and a power supply you never dreamed possible."
Is that not what God does? Our puny, precarious power arrangements—our "Cherished Creeks"—are often spiritual fire hazards. His shutting down of our system is an act of furious faithfulness.
Now, a common objection arises from the pain of our present South African moment: "But the suffering is so real! The unemployment, the crime, the corruption. How can a good God permit this? How can this be direction?" This is a weighty and worthy question.
The argument can be formulated thus:
1. Premise 1: If God were both all-powerful and all-good, He would prevent gratuitous evil and suffering.
2. Premise 2: Gratuitous evil and suffering exist (pointing to the July 2021 unrest, the ongoing energy crisis, the heartbreaking headlines of gender-based violence).
3. Conclusion: Therefore, God is either not all-powerful or not all-good.
This logic seems sound, but it fails because it presumes a finite, human perspective on what constitutes "gratuitous." It assumes we have the omniscience to judge what is ultimately necessary. The Scripture declares unequivocally that God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). He does not author evil (James 1:13), but in His sovereign power, He can permit the evil actions of free-willed humans and the brokenness of a fallen creation, and then redeem them for a greater, ultimate good that we, from our limited vantage point, cannot yet perceive (Genesis 50:20).
The evidence strongly supports this from the pages of Scripture itself. Joseph’s betrayal and imprisonment were not "good," but God used them to save a nation. The Babylonian exile was not "God’s best," but it purified a people. The cross of Jesus Christ was the greatest act of evil and injustice in human history, yet God used it to accomplish the ultimate good of our salvation. Your closed contract, your failed plan, your personal loadshedding, can be your own "exile" or "crossroad"—a place of seeming defeat that God intends as a divine detour toward your destiny.
So, what is our response? We must sound the alarm against the seductive lie of a comfortable Christianity. It is a hollow echo of the true Gospel. True liberation is found only in submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, not in using Him as a celestial concierge.
Therefore, reason itself, illuminated by Scripture and confirmed in our deepest longings for a hope that can survive a blackout, compels us to acknowledge this: The faithfulness of God is not the absence of storms, but the presence of the Anchor in the storm. It is not the prevention of the wilderness, but the provision of a way through it.
Your "Cherished Creek" may have dried up. The national grid may be unstable. But the eternal current of God’s purpose never falters. He is making a way in your wilderness right now. He is carving streams in your wasteland this very moment. Do you not perceive it?
Stop trying to reconnect the old, dangerous wiring. Embrace the disruptive, rewiring work of the Master. Your conquest awaits.
Prayer: Father, in the frustrating darkness of my own plans failing, stir my spirit. When my streams cease and my grids fail, grant me the grace to go forward, trusting Your trajectory toward triumph. Give me the courage to perceive the new thing You are springing up, even through the cracked and barren soil. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, the ultimate Way-Maker. Amen.
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