We all suffer at times. Some suffer a lot. Believers have the Lord to lean on, but, face it, we all still suffer. So, what do we do when it hurts? What help is there when we're in pain? We want to trust. We want to be strong. How can we navigate this "trust God" and "Wow! It really hurts" situation? There are those who would urge you to bear up and just take it. There are those who would tell you to knuckle under and fully experience the pain. Does God's Word offer any insights?
Let's look at three examples. First ... Job. Job faced some tough times (Job 1-2). First, he lost everything he had -- his possessions and his children. Job said, "Meh! No big deal." No. Job wallowed in his pain. No. Job "tore his robe and shaved his head" ... and then "fell to the ground and worshiped" (Job 1:20). Interesting. When the second round hit, Job lost his health. "This is too much!" Nope. "Forget the pain; God is good." Nope. He sat in ashes and scraped his boils (Job 2:8) ... and then told his wife, "Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" (Job 2:10). Interesting. Both/and. He faced his pain, and he counted on God. Or take Jeremiah. His entire nation was wiped out. Did he sing God's praises or did he weep? Yes ... yes he did. Both. His first response was not to exonerate God, but to (rightly) blame Him (Lam 3:1-19). It's a long list. And it's all ascribed ... to God. He ends, "So I say, 'My strength has perished, and so has my hope from YHWH" (Lam 3:18). No hope. Then ... "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope" (Lam 3:21). What? What was the thing he remembered that countered his hopelessness ... from God? "The steadfast love of YHWH never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness" (Lam 3:22-23). In the end, Jeremiah remembered both that God is Sovereign (even in the pain) and He loves us. Trust Him. The best example, though, is Jesus. He lived a perfect life ... did everything His Father told Him to do. For His troubles, He was physically shattered (crucifixion), emotionally abused (deserted by His friends), and spiritually forsaken. On that cross He cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Mat 27:46). No mitigation. No, "It's okay." No, "Well, God would never do this." But, He ended with, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!" (Luk 23:46).
It is foolish to deny pain. We all suffer. It's part of the curse. It's part of human existence. Denying it is not sane. But, it's also not the last word. In all these cases and more, they embraced the pain ... and counted on God. They endured the pain and looked to the Father. It's what Scripture says. Jesus endured the cross "for the joy that was set before Him" because He knew the final outcome was found in God's faithful love. (Heb 12:1-2). A pattern we all might benefit from.
2 comments:
The biblical fathers seemed to have such outsized faith. I can only dream of that level of righteousness.
I appreciate this good reminder today that God is with me through all the ups and downs of life and will provide His grace and strength to me “when it hurts.” While I might be fully mindful of all the glorious aspects of “God’s faithful love”--on which I will depend in my times of trial--I also know that life’s unhappy events do produce very real and painful accompanying human emotions that have the ability to “drown out” the promises of God and incapacitate even the strongest of believers. Like your three examples, in my trials, may I focus on God’s presence and neither deny nor succumb to the emotions produced during hard times.
P.S. Before I even finished reading your opening paragraph, I asked myself, “whose example in the Bible can I follow regarding suffering?” I instantly thought of Jesus, Job, and Jeremiah (“the weeping prophet”), and then I see that you used the same examples. Those three are “classic,” I would say.
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