Let’s face it. Life is hard. Life is painful. Life is unpredictable, and, well, hard.

Our faith gets rocked and stretched, the condition of our heart is exposed, and we are eager to place blame on anyone or everyone. If we have been walking closely with God for a few months, even years, most of the time we are tempted to place our blame on God.

“How could You allow this? I have read the Bible, been praying daily, going to church every week, and even feeding the homeless. I have done everything You have asked me to do, and this is how I get repaid? I thought You had my back, God. You really let me down.”

To make matters worse, our best friends, siblings, parents, the neighbor down the street, our child’s friends’ mom’s cousin, and everyone under the sun is experiencing the provisions, promotions, and abundant life we have been expecting in our own lives.

When my husband and I were newly married, we were invited to a friend’s wedding. We were brought together by mutual friends through church, and I adored her heart. She is a genuine sister who loves Jesus and desires to pursue Him and His love in everything she does. But deep in my heart I was struggling with attending her wedding. Was it because of anything she had done to me? Absolutely not. It had everything to do with what God had chosen to give her.

God had given my dear sister the exact matrimony I had envisioned for myself for years. She met her husband while on an extended mission trip, he fell in love with her through the influence of the Holy Spirit, every one of their friends and family supported their engagement and attended their beautiful, holy wedding ceremony.

Watching her walk down the aisle brought much joy and much grief in my own heart. This beautiful woman, whom I love dearly, was given everything I had expected to receive from God in my own life. Being happy for her was suffocated by my own unpleasant wedding experiences. I had a very hard time wishing her and her new husband well in this glorious chapter of their lives.

Since then, I’ve watched friends and family members experience the blessings I had been asking for in my own family. However, I realized I was challenged the most to be joyful for others when I, myself, was suffering in some way.

Our circumstances can become deafening. They can rule our perspectives and change our thought process. We can become bitter towards people we love simply because they have received what we have been waiting for. Or, we can be tempted to take it a step farther and become bitter at God for giving another one of His children the blessings we’ve asked for ourselves.

The truth is, if we cannot trust God to write our story, we will never be healthy enough to wish others well when God writes theirs. Moments are fleeting. Seasons change. Trials come. Life is not what it seems to be short term, and we need to be willing to look beyond our circumstances and into the abundant overflow of God’s goodness for ALL His children, including us.

Our Father in Heaven does not withhold Himself from any of His children; instead, He equally loves and desires an abundant life for us all. Our stories on earth may look tremendously different from another sibling’s, but our eternal glory awaits us the same, and we need our hearts set free from anything holding us back.

For me, I have worked tirelessly on my own heart. I have faithfully showed up to my prayer meetings with the Lord to receive His unfailing antidote to my bitter illness. I have attacked my unwanted, ungodly thoughts towards others and have immediately replaced them with thoughts that honor my King. I have recognized, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the moments I feel my emotions justifying my selfishness and surrender my life over and over again to the Father.

Since then, the Lord has challenged me to take everything to the next level– asking God to do for my enemies what I want Him to do for me.

If you think being joyful for others while you’re waiting is difficult, you haven’t been challenged to pray God’s abundance to those who have offended, betrayed, belittled, hurt, or rejected you. Through gritted teeth and a cold heart, I decided to accept the challenge, because I knew the Lord would transform my heart through my obedience.

Needless to say, being a woman who wishes others well can only be possible with the help of the Lord when we choose to be obedient to Him. If we are unwilling to commit our hearts to the only Surgeon capable of dissecting, removing, and restoring our hearts, we will find ourselves wasting our lives waiting for the next blessing. And, if we cannot be joyful for others when blessings come their way, we may never experience the same blessings in our own lives.

I challenge you to self-reflect, repent, and commit your life and future to God. He wants to give you good gifts. He wants you to prosper. He wants you to experience Him in your life in greater measure. But, if you can’t be trusted with little, He won’t trust you with much. So, find those people who have received the blessings you’ve been waiting for, and instead of feeling discouraged, take a deep breath, and make the decision to wish them well.