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Sometimes life makes no sense. If that’s your reality right now, then this post is for you.

Have you ever had the experience where something in your life should be okay, but it isn’t? And you want God to fix it, but He doesn’t?

I’m guessing most of us go through seasons when life doesn’t make any sense.

I certainly have.

This post is longer than usual, but I want to share a condensed version of my story, and then share some thoughts that have helped me, and just might help you.

BTW, if you prefer the YouTube version of this post, here’s the link…

My story: After I finished school, I got a job and got married. We were happy at first, but I soon became convinced that my wife didn’t want to be married, or, if she did, she didn’t want to be married to me. We got counseling, but my job didn’t pay enough to get the kind of counseling we wanted. So I quit, we moved 500 miles away, and I went into business for myself. That business failed. My wife kept us alive cleaning houses for $4 an hour.

Meanwhile, the elders of the church we were attending called me in time after time and threatened to excommunicate me for embracing secular psychotherapy. In the years that followed, another business failed. We were hungry. We were homeless. We were forced into bankruptcy. Someone in my family struggled with an addiction. We had a child born with birth defects. We had medical bills we couldn’t pay. Someone in my family was the victim of a violent crime. One of my children nearly died. My wife ended up with cancer.

It was bewildering. I was trying hard to please God, and everything was going wrong.

Maybe you’ve been there.
Maybe you are there right now.

Something isn’t right.
Something that should be okay isn’t okay.
And it hurts.
You want God to fix it.
You’ve asked Him to fix it.
Maybe you’ve begged Him to fix it.
But He’s not fixing it, and you can’t understand why.
So you’re trying to fix it yourself
but everything you do
instead of making it better
just makes it worse.
And you’re like:
“God, I’m doing my best,
but nothing I do is ever good enough.”
And deep inside you’re wondering:
Why doesn’t God care?
Can’t He see what I’m going through?

If that’s you, then I’d like to share a few things that have helped me, and I’ll wrap up with something you can do right now that I think could be a game changer for you.

#1 I know it might feel like God doesn’t care…
But He does.
I know it may feel like you’ve been singled out for some cosmic experiment.
But you haven’t.
God is not a sadist. He is not aloof.
When you hurt, God hurts.
Your pain is not something that God ignores, that God minimizes, that God doesn’t care about.
He cares deeply.
I know it may take a long time before you know deep inside that He does care,
but I can tell you from the other side: He does.

#2 This doesn’t make you a bad person…
In fact, you’re in very good company.
In the Bible, many people
including Job and John the Baptist—
two of the best people who ever lived—
went through the same thing—
maybe not the exact same circumstances
but the same kind of pain.

#3 Here’s the bad news…
I don’t know of a quick fix.
If you’re looking for a microwave miracle, and instant solution, I don’t think you’re going to find it.
If you want this all gone by tomorrow, you’re probably going to be disappointed.

#4 Here’s the good news…
Your Christian faith offers many spiritual tools—
tools that work in the real world—
that can help you.
For a long time, I felt like Christianity had nothing to offer
because I wasn’t aware of these tools.
Most people aren’t aware of these tools.
Most people only have platitudes,
and I don’t know about you,
but I hate platitudes.
If it doesn’t work in the real world, I’m not interested.
There are tools that work in the real world,
and they are available to you,
but first, you need to understand what’s going on.

#5 Understand the process…
Several years ago I was 60 days behind on my mortgage. I was getting nasty phone calls from the bank, I had no money coming in at all, so I had no way of negotiating a deal with the bank. Visions of being out on the street with a wife and four little children flooded my mind. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know what to do. I was gripped with this paralyzing fear. It was a mess.

I knew God could provide, but for some reason, I thought He wouldn’t. I had done something wrong. I didn’t know what, but I had done something wrong, and now God was going to rub my nose in it.

I started processing all of this with God, and I ended up in a memory when I was about eight years old. My dad was away for a year, deployed by the military, and I was borrowing his tools because I wanted to pretend that I could build things like my dad. The only problem was this: My dad was persnickety about how his tools were to be put away, and I didn’t understand his system. Now he was coming home, and I was going to be in trouble. Instead of being excited to see my dad, I was terrified.

That fear I felt as a child matched up with that fear I felt as an adult behind on my mortgage. Then God spoke to me:

“Dwight, your dad did the best he could with the parenting tools that were in his parenting toolbox. But I’m a different kind of Father, and I have different parenting tools. When you mess up, I don’t leave you to figure it out on your own. I come beside you and help you figure out how to make it right.”

Wow.

That changed everything for me. I was no longer afraid. Instead, I was excited. God was going to help me. I calmed way down. I could sleep at night. I was fine.

My circumstances didn’t change for a couple of weeks, but my experience changed completely. I was at peace even though we were still behind on our mortgage. Then the money came in—I don’t remember exactly how—I got a new client or something happened—and I got caught up on my mortgage and all my other bills.

I tell this story because it illustrates a process God takes us through as His children.

Step one: We suffer. Bad things happen.
We don’t suffer because God doesn’t like us; He does.
We don’t suffer—as a rule—because God is punishing us.
We don’t suffer because God is mean.
But when you turn up the heat, the impurities rise to the surface.

Step two: Painful lies surface as we suffer.
In this case, I believed God was going to punish me even though I didn’t know what I did wrong. I viewed God the same way the eight year old me viewed my dad.

Step three: We take those lies to God.
The only way we’re going to get better is to invite God into the hurting places in our lives.
We need to show Him our tangled up thoughts and invite Him to tell us the truth.

Step four: God shows us His perspective. The painful lie is replaced with soothing truth.
In my case in this story, God showed me what kind of Father He is.
I needed to know that.

Step five: Our peace and joy are restored regardless of our circumstances.
On the surface it looked like the problem was not having enough money to pay the mortgage.
But that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that I believed a lie about God.
When the real problem got solved, then I returned to peace and joy.

Step six: God fixes our circumstances.
We want God to start here, but He usually doesn’t.
This is usually the last thing He does.
And, as we learn from Hebrews 11,
sometimes fixing our circumstances doesn’t happen until this life is over.

I used to always pray, “God, give me maximum mileage out of my misery.”
I don’t like to suffer any more than you do.
Once you understand this process,
you can suffer less
and get to your breakthrough a whole lot faster.
I’m not saying that painful things won’t happen in your life;
I’m just saying you’ll have a plan when they do.

#6 Find the tools that work in the real world…
For a while, my wife was experiencing panic attacks.
And being a loving husband,
I wanted to help her.
So I recommended she memorize and quote Bible verses on fear.
She tried to explain to me how that didn’t work,
but I didn’t get it
until God graciously allowed me
to experience a panic attack of my own.
Then I realized
my “solution” was inept, anemic, and it just didn’t work.

And that’s the problem sometimes with our Christian faith.
When life caves in all around us
we discover that our so called “solutions,”
are nothing but platitudes—
platitudes that don’t work in real life.

So I went on a quest to find the things that do work in real life.
And I’ve devoted much of the last 20 years
to creating books and courses and other resources
filled with the tools that actually work in real life.

In a minute, I’ll share one of those tools with you.
It’s a place to start, it’s your best next step.
It will be very clear, and it will be something you can do right now,
and I believe you will start to see a difference in your life in a short period of time.
It won’t take all your troubles away,
but I believe it will help you.

Before I do that, let me tell you about some of the resources I have for you.

I’ve had many people tell me how much my book The Gift of Transformation resonated with them.
It’s my story.
I was trying to fix a messed up marriage,
and I was trying to sort out a painful past,
but I didn’t have the tools to fix any of it.
Then I made a discovery that changed everything.
And that’s what The Gift of Transformation is all about.

As I mentioned above, I tried to get my wife to quote Bible verses when she was having panic attacks.
I discovered that doesn’t work,
but for a long time I didn’t understand why it didn’t work.
Then I learned the wall in your mind.
There’s a wall in your mind that governs what’s going to work
and what isn’t going to work.
And if you don’t understand that wall,
you’ll keep on trying solutions that don’t work.
This is a concept most people—most Christians don’t understand.
And because they don’t get it
the tools they use to fix things
don’t work.
My book Spiritual Self Defense picks up where The Gift of Transformation leaves off
and it explains this wall in your mind.
And it gives you many other tools.
For example, on page 64 I explain why the tactics most Christians use to fight sin
simply don’t work
because most people don’t understand what gives sin its power.
Once you get this, you’ll start to get traction against those life controlling issues
that we all wrestle with at some time or another.

The gospel is good news.
But for many years,
I had a very narrow understanding of the gospel.
I thought it was all about having my sins forgiven
and getting a free ticket to heaven.
I didn’t understand that the gospel
also fixes the damage done to us
when others sin against us.
I didn’t understand how healing and how transformational the gospel can be.
That’s why I wrote What It Means to Follow Jesus.

There’s a lot more in the book that I don’t have time to get into here, like:
What do you do when Christian leaders disappoint?
How do you get answers to life’s most difficult questions?
This book has been translated into Spanish,
and I’m told that it’s helping many Spanish-speaking people.

The resources page on DwightClough.com is filled with resources that can help you.
Some of those resources are free, most are inexpensive, a couple of them cost a little more.
Let me point out one item:
Scroll through the page, and you’ll find the Inner Wealth Archive
which gives you access dozens of videos,
a couple of courses,
books, posts, and other resources
all for under $100.

I want to help you, and I have lots of material that I think will help you.

Finally,
#7 Here’s something you can do right now…
As a first step,
I want to encourage you
to give yourself permission
to be honest with God.
Pour it all out.
If your feelings could talk, what would they say?
God already knows
but He needs you to give Him access to what’s going on inside.
So share your anger, your hurt, your fear, your shame, whatever—
all your feelings, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Let Him know what’s going on inside.
And don’t do that just once,
but do it every day,
and then, every time you do, at the end,
just pause and ask Him,
“Is there anything You want me to know?”
And give Him space to respond
if He wants to.

This really helped me, and I believe it will help you.
In the process of pouring out all my hurt and frustration to God,
I discovered something.
God likes me.
He actually likes me.
He likes hanging out with me.
I never knew that before.
I knew God loved me.
I mean, He had to.
It was part of His job description.
He didn’t have a choice.
He was stuck loving me whether He wanted to or not.
But I never knew He liked me.
I was like, Wow!
It took me a whole year just to take that in.

Okay, anyway, the best thing you can do for your world
is let yourself be loved by God.
Bring God into your hurts, and let Him bring His soothing, comforting, healing, transformational presence into your life.

God wants to be experienced by you.
Open the door and let Him in.

Dwight

PS. If this has been helpful to you, please share it with others.

Hi

Could you do me a HUGE FAVOR?

Could you visit https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/end-the-divide-dwight-clough#review and upvote my latest book? Should be one click, nothing more.

If I get enough upvotes, my book gets placed in Reedsy’s newsletter which puts it in front of hundreds, maybe thousands of potential readers. (Maybe you could ask a few friends to upvote it as well.) 🙂

Thanks so much!!

Dwight

PS. If you want to go ABOVE AND BEYOND and leave a review on Amazon or Facebook, I’ll send you a copy of the book. Details are in this video: https://youtu.be/ELfeilCHZWs

About a week ago I was driving in heavy traffic along University Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin when something caught my eye. A young man walking on the sidewalk appeared to stumble. He righted himself, took another step, and then faltered again. Traffic was pushing me forward, but as I drove by, I saw him sink to the ground.

I pulled into the next parking lot, ran back, found him sitting cross legged at the edge of a parking lot near a stone wall.

“Are you okay?”

His words came back in little chunks separated by long pauses. “I’m having trouble … breathing … I need … to call … my mom.”

I pulled out my phone. “I’m calling 911.”

The paramedics arrived; I was no longer needed, so I went on my way. But as I left, I got thinking to myself: If I hadn’t pulled over, would anybody have pulled over? A young man was sitting on the ground looking at his phone. Nothing unusual about that. He would have become part of the landscape.

I may have saved his life.

I don’t know of course. But maybe I did.

You never know when God is going to position you to save someone’s life. Not just medically, but in other ways.

I graduated from high school in 1975. Late that summer, just before I left for college, my youth pastor took me aside and said to me, “God is going to use you for something great someday.”

Wow. It only took a few seconds for him to say that, but those words came back to me many, many times throughout my life. I was homeless with a wife and a little baby. I was hungry. My business failed. I was forced into bankruptcy. So many times I felt like giving up, but I couldn’t give up.

Why?

Because God was going to use me for something great someday. I knew I had to keep going. Those words compelled me to persevere.

Likewise, you never know what lasting power your simple act of kindness may have in someone else’s life.

Dwight

PS. As an author, I depend on you to help spread the word on my books. If you like reading and if you’re open to leaving a review on Amazon or mentioning the book on Facebook or wherever, here’s a very short video introducing my latest book, End the Divide, and information about how you can get a free copy. https://youtu.be/ELfeilCHZWs

If you’re part of a small group, here’s a one-time discussion resource.

Many people are concerned about the toxic polarization in our culture—a divide that has crept into the church as well. In my opinion, the only way to fix it is to start talking about it, so I’ve created a guided discussion to help your group begin that discussion.

It’s based on this five-minute YouTube video which comes from my latest book, End the Divide.

Here are the questions (below), or here’s a PDF you can download and/or print…

Here are those questions:

1. Some people say we are more divided than ever. What are your thoughts?
2. To what extent do you think the divide is an issue for people of faith? To what extent is it an issue for our culture in general?
3. Why is there no divide in heaven? What do the people in heaven have that we don’t seem to have?
4. Have you ever lost a friend or damaged a friendship because of the divide? What was your takeaway from that experience?
5. How do you navigate the tension between taking a stand on the issues and making the divide worse?
6. Any other takeaways from this chapter?

I am praying that God will use this conversation for good in your group. If you’re able to use it, please ping me back and let me know how it goes.

Dwight

A slightly different version of this on YouTube

Why are we here?

My answer to this question has changed over the years. For a long time I thought we were here to win as many people to Jesus as possible. I wasn’t very good at living up to that purpose, but that’s what I thought.

But then I started looking at the life of Jesus, and I was surprised. He didn’t go around trying to get everybody to “pray the prayer.” He had a very different approach. If someone was blind, He gave them sight. If someone was sick, He gave them health. Where there was hate, He brought love. Where there was death, He brought life.

There’s a fancy word for that: redemption. Or, more simply, He made things better.

It seems to me that you and I were put here by God as change agents designed to bring eternal good into many lives. We are here to bring redemption. We are here to heal our world.

I’ve been focused a lot on fixing the toxic polarization in our world. But then it occurred to me that, yes, ending the divide is just part of our greater mission to heal our world. That’s who we are. That’s what we do.

What do you think? How do you answer this question?

Dwight

https://youtu.be/pqSCYjY-PIA

Here’s what’s been swimming around in my head for the last year:

We live in a polarized world.

I think most of us are uncomfortable with that, and we’d like someone to fix it.

But most of the people who are trying to fix it are trying to force the people on the opposite side of the political spectrum to abandon their beliefs and embrace the beliefs of their “enemies.”

I think we all know that’s not gonna work.

So what do we do?

Give up?

I don’t think that’s an option.

I believe it’s not okay for good people to hate each other. Maybe we can’t stop bad people from hating each other, but we can stop good people from hating each other.

We can end the divide—at least among good people. And I believe we each have a responsibility to make that happen. We can’t pass the buck because, if we do, this problem will not go away.

How do we do that?

I may not have the complete answer, but I certainly know how to help Christian believers end the divide. I know how to solve this from a Christian perspective.

Christians have the privilege—and the obligation—to love one another despite our differences. I have developed—and I want to work with a team of people to perfect—a friendship building process that allows us to build meaningful friendships across the divide.

Meaningful friendships across the divide will end the divide.

If you and I have a meaningful friendship, we feel safe with each other, we feel free to be who we are, we respect each other, we’re listening to each other and at least beginning to understand each other, and we genuinely care about each other.

We might not agree on everything, but, when we don’t, we listen carefully, look for common ground, and try to work out win-win solutions that allow everyone to go home happy.

We don’t hate each other because we see the world differently. Instead, we embrace and celebrate these differences because we know they can enrich us. We each have the humility to know that everyone holds a different piece of the wisdom puzzle, and only together can we see the whole picture.

And that’s how we end the divide.

In order to participate in this friendship building process, we need to go through some personal transformation ourselves. Another way to put that is this: There’s no peace between people until there’s peace within people. You can’t end the divide if you have an anger management problem. You can’t feel safe with someone if you don’t feel safe with anyone. We fix ourselves first, and then we fix our world.

I can explain to you how to move from anger and angst and all kinds of turbulent emotions to peace and calm. I have a process that works, but it is a decidedly Christian process that involves inviting Jesus into our pain.

If this interests you, the first step is to read my book, End the Divide, which is available at EndTheDivide.io.

If you’ve read the book and you want to be part of the team that helps me perfect this friendship building process and figures out how to scale it, then I have an early leaders membership package available at iBelong.io.

If you have any questions, let me know, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Many blessings!

Dwight

Is God a monster?

This might be the central question the human race is asking. Some atheists loudly and confidently proclaim He is and cite Bible verses to prove it. Others, including, I think, many believers quietly wonder if He is. Life sometimes doesn’t make sense. Some parts of the Bible are difficult. (As some listening to Jesus said, “This is a hard saying; who can accept it?”)

The other night, on the spur of the moment, I decided to weigh in on this question with a video. In 12-13 minutes I can’t possibly dig deep into this question, but I’m hoping what I shared might be helpful to you.

Here it is: https://youtu.be/7tq6ZQc5rZU

Dwight

Does God exist?

I have a different way of thinking through this, so I thought I would share it with you. It involves asking yourself some important questions, and giving yourself the time and space to find honest answers.

First, do you want God to exist?

If not, why not? What would you lose if God were real?

Part of growing is learning to get honest with ourselves. That isn’t easy, but if we don’t get honest with ourselves, we get stuck.

So, what are the reasons? Why would you prefer to live in a universe without God? And what do those reasons tell you about yourself and about your concept of God?

What if you’re wrong? What if God isn’t who you think He is? Can you entertain that possibility? If not, why not?

Bottom line: Can you allow God to exist if He does? If you cannot, then let me suggest that He will probably not bully His way into your world.

With all that in mind, can I prove to you that God exists?

No, but you can verify His existence quite easily on your own.

Let me first explain why I cannot prove God’s existence to you. It’s not that I don’t know most of the big arguments for God’s existence; I do. And it’s not that I don’t have answers to the most common objections to God, faith, and the Bible; I do.

But those things probably won’t convince you. Two reasons: (1) Your threshold of proof is different than mine. What might convince you probably wouldn’t convince me. What might convince me probably wouldn’t convince you. We’re different people; we respond to different reasons. (2) God reveals Himself to people. Sure, he might use me in the process, but I don’t reveal God. He reveals Himself.

While I might not be able to convince you, it’s easy for you to verify God’s existence on your own.

How do you do that?

You use a simple thought experiment:

“God, if You are real,
and if You are good,
then I’m willing to follow You,
even if I need to make changes in my life.”

Let’s break that down. If God isn’t real, then, of course, He can’t reveal Himself to you. If God isn’t good, then who would want to follow Him? If you’re not willing to follow God, then why would He reveal Himself to you? If you’re not willing to make changes, then are you really willing to follow Him?

Jesus never argued for the existence of God. Instead, He said it would cost something to follow Him.

What does it cost?

In my mind, the cost is almost nothing because—for the most part—I want what God wants, I love what God loves, I hate what God hates. The more I give my entire life to God, the more I find Him allowing me to be exactly who I am—the unique, quirky person I was created to be. I like being me. God likes me. It all works out.

But for the person who wants to live in opposition to God, it costs everything. If, for example, you want to break into people’s homes at night to rob and terrorize them, or if you want to oppose God in some other way, then following God will cost you everything because that old way of life must die for a new life to take its place.

(That doesn’t mean, by the way, that we clean up first and then come to God. No, we come to God as we are, and He cleans us up.)

Anyway, if you are willing to follow a good God if He exists, then the final step in your verification process is this:

“God, if You exist, and if You are good, then please reveal Yourself to me.”

There you have it. A simple and reliable way to verify the existence of God.

How and when will God reveal Himself to you?

I don’t know. I just know He will pick the time and the process that’s right for you. And I believe God will reveal Himself to anyone who is sincerely willing to follow Him.

Thanks!

Dwight

PS. I’m no longer on Facebook, so if this post was helpful to you, could you share it with others? Many thanks!

Hi

I’m wondering if you would read over the items below, and ask yourself this question: Have I tried any of this and has it made a difference?

If the answer is yes, then I’d love to hear from you. Would you mind hitting reply and telling me your story? It would mean a lot to me. Thanks!

Dwight

PS. Here are the items:

Step #1: I will take my hurts to God because I cannot bring healing to my world if I don’t let God bring healing to me.

Step #2: When others hurt me, I will go to God for the strength to forgive because I will not allow myself to be blinded by unresolved anger.

Step #3: When I have hurt others, I will do what I can to make amends because I cannot heal my world without taking responsibility for the damage I’ve done.

Step #4: I will work to create an “I belong, you belong” world where each person has a place at the table and a voice in the conversation. I will give others the freedom to be who they are, and I will seek to understand and respect their perspectives. This does not mean I will allow myself to be bullied or abused by others.

Step #5: I will seek to help each person in my world become the best version of themselves.

Step #6: I will make it my aim to look for hidden solutions that allow everyone to win.

Step #7: I will use my influence to inspire others to embrace these steps and bring healing into our world.

Hi

I know it’s been a while. Hope you are doing well!

I’m working on several projects I’m excited about. Heal Our World (a movement). Letters to Planet Earth (a novel). A Bible We Can Understand (guided tour and translation of the Bible).

And I just published my first e-book on Gumroad. I’ve never worked with them before, so I thought I’d give it a try.

The book is How to Forgive People Who Have Hurt You: A Christian Approach, and it explains why forgiving does not weaken you or invite abuse, but actually makes you stronger. It also shows step-by-step how to find the grace of God to do something supernatural: forgive another human being.

Buy this ebook

If that button doesn’t appear, try this link.

Thanks!

Dwight