Faith and What's Better

You've all seen the meme that says "Faith is not believing that God can, it's knowing that he will."

I have a problem with this saying. It's just not true. It's a big lie. It's pretty and encouraging. And I guess it makes people feel good, right up until

BAM!

God doesn't.

He doesn't heal the disease. He doesn't cause the baby to be born healthy and strong. He doesn't provide food for dinner. He doesn't keep people from being robbed or shot or raped or murdered.

Sometimes God just doesn't.

My mother-in-law was told she didn't have enough faith and that's why her son still had cerebral palsy. God didn't heal him.

My daughter has Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome, and surely many people prayed she'd be healthy, but she isn't. God didn't make her SLOS free.

Is it faithless to admit it? That sometimes God doesn't?

No. 

God defines faith as "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  That's Hebrews 11:1 in the ESV.  The Living Bible breaks it down a bit: "What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead."

Considering that everything we want doesn't happen though, as I pointed out above, what could this verse possibly mean? 

Sometimes when God doesn't give us what we ask for, he is giving us something else. But is it in line with another meme that says something like, "When God says no to what you want, he's preparing something better."  

That's equally as cliche and pretty as the first meme, but it's also inaccurate as far as what it's intimating.  It sounds like God's only going to prepare better things for us on earth, as in, "I didn't make the baseball team but that's ok, God's obviously got something better, and so he's going to let me be captain of the hockey team!" But in reality, you might never get to play sports again because you broke your leg on the way home, then you forgot to take your antibiotics, and your leg had to be amputated. Because sometimes God doesn't.

What we can be confident in is this:

God is preparing us to partake in his Glory. We will be part of bringing him glory and even if it hurts here on this earth or brings us unending sorrow, our reward in Heaven will be utter and perfect holiness. No pain, no tears.  Only joy, peace, love, and glory.

When God doesn't or when he's not preparing something we think is better with our earthly eyes, we must remember that God WILL prepare something that is BETTER according to his plan, his holy and perfect plan.

Our eyes must be on Jesus because only then will we realize that God WILL save us and use us for his glory, and that God is preparing the BEST for us, a life that can be spent serving him on earth and then worshiping him for eternity.