How to Respond When Life Doesn’t Go Your Way

He’s easy to pass by. That forerunner of Christ tends to make brief, odd appearances.

John the Baptist wore the kind of clothes Goodwill would reject for a donation. He survived on an ancient, minimalist version of the South Beach diet. Some protein. A few carbs. Small portions. And the nasty aftertaste of those honey-covered locusts.

Yet John burned with a fiery passion for God. The sparks flew in his preaching. He described a kingdom coming that would leave everyone in shock and awe. The holiness. The wrath. The mercy.

Then one day something startling happened.

Jesus showed up.

John’s fiery preaching cools in humble acknowledgement that the Promised One is here:

“I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. His baptism—a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit—will change you from the inside out.” (Mark 1:7-8)

When Jesus approaches John to be baptized, the prophet resists. Jesus should be baptizing John, not the other way around. But Jesus is insistent.

John was arrested and thrown into prison. The grime. The filth. The disease. The darkness. All gnawed away at him until he began to second-guess.

Maybe he’s preached the wrong Gospel. Followed the wrong Messiah. Wasted his life on something that wasn’t true.

In a prison, John likely wrestled with a question that appears in most our lives sooner or later:

What do we do when life doesn’t turn out like we thought?

Those moments, much like John the Baptist, can make us feel like we’re trapped inside a penitentiary of our own making. We may be tempted to give up. Shut down. Quit altogether.

But those are the worst responses we can have when life doesn’t turn out like expected.

Instead, we are challenged by John to keep crying out to Christ.

To keep turning toward Him.

To keep seeking Jesus even when we don’t understand.