God is not just a God of love. He’s also the God who arranges for kids to be molested, adults to be raped, and prisoners to be tortured. God is overseeing, directing and choosing all of the sick and twisted activity that goes on in this world. It’s very easy to stay in denial about this until God starts coming after you personally. But when you find yourself being singled out as His next torture victim, suddenly your view of Him is massively challenged. Every time you try to get up, He kicks you back down onto the ground. Every time you try to muster up some perseverance, He slams you with a new wave of pain. You feel like He’s got you in a nasty game of cat and mouse, and it doesn’t take long before you decide that you don’t want to play any more. But here’s where things take a dark turn because God won’t let you quit. You want to emotionally disengage, but God has taken that option off the table. You are going to feel as much as He wants you to feel. You are going to care as much as He wants you to care. It’s in these periods that we get a whole new realization of just how helpless we are to defend ourselves against Someone who controls every aspect of our beings. We like to think of ourselves as independent from God—getting to freely choose how we will respond to Him. But no, we are not independent, and freedom of choice is a gift that God can revoke at any time. During certain seasons of refinement, He forces us to suffer intensely without any avenue of escape. Psychological games can work against human abusers, because they can’t get inside of you and control the way that you internally react to them. But God is inside of you and He controls every aspect of your being. Your best defensive strategies crumble against Him. If He wants you to hate Him, He will drive you to it. If He wants you to think He’s a sadistic monster, He knows how to convince you. You cannot stop an all-powerful God from completely dismantling your trust in Him, and often this feels like exactly what He has set out to do during this phase of the valley experience.

So where’s the good news in all of this? You hurt like hell, you feel like your soul’s been gutted, and STILL God won’t give it a rest. What are your options? It’s no small wonder that many souls start entertaining thoughts of suicide during this period. After all, humans are frail creatures and we can only take so much. But of course if we kill ourselves, we’re just going to end up in a totally different dimension in which God has a whole new array of torture devices at His disposal. Let’s remember this is the Guy who came up with Hell. Do we really want to rush to a place whose biggest draw is supposed to be that we’re closer to God than we are on earth? Why would we want to do anything that will bring us closer to Someone who treats us like this?

An honest scrutiny of our options during this period reveals that we don’t have any. Once God sets His mind on destroying us, there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop Him. Christians think that they understand what “God is in control” means until they end up where you are now. Then suddenly a phrase that used to bring comfort suddenly becomes a terrifying trap. God IS in control, and His control is ABSOLUTE. Sure, you have made certain choices in your life which we like to label as “free.” But is anything really free in God’s universe? Of course not. The only options you’ll ever see in front of you are the few options that God wants you to have. When He doesn’t want you to have options, He takes them all away.