Walking with God through suffering

 “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” (Mark 1:35–38)
 
This past Sunday I preached a sermon from Isaiah 40 entitled “God, where are you in my suffering?” Preaching on suffering is a dangerous thing to do when your own suffering has not measured up to the suffering of so many of the men and women who are listening. I find that there is an added weight, a greater integrity, that is added when the speaker has walked through true suffering and not lost their faith in or love for God. For precisely this reason, I highly recommend to you one of the greatest talks I have ever heard, called “A Deeper Healing” by Joni Eareckson Tada (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI22o5u32z0).

For those who don’t know Joni, she became a quadriplegic as a teenager upon diving into a shallow pool of water. Nevertheless, she has been used mightily by God, most notably as a pioneer in the field of disability ministries with her organization Joni and Friends. In the aforementioned talk, which she delivered at the 2013 Strange Fire conference at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, Joni recounts her journey through a life of quadriplegia, making the case that although God still heals, His priority for our lives is deliverance from sin. Because of this focus, that will mean that God sometimes allows us to go through times of trial and testing. As Joni put it so memorably in her talk, “The same God who healed eyes and hands also said gouge out your eye if it causes you to sin. Cut off your hand if it leads you into sin.” Physical healing is important, but spiritual healing is critical, lest we end up in Hell. Your soul is a much bigger deal to God.
 
In Joni Eareckson Tada’s excellent book, “When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty,” she eloquently puts this dynamic this way:
 
Suffering fashions us into a “holy and blameless” image of Christ (Ephesians 1: 4), much like a figure sculpted out of marble. An artist in Florence, Italy once asked the great Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo what he saw when he approached a huge block of marble. “I see a beautiful form trapped inside,” he replied, “and it is simply my responsibility to take my mallet and chisel and chip away until the figure is set free.” The beautiful form, the visible expression of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” is inside Christians like a possibility, a potential. The idea is there, and God uses affliction like a hammer and chisel, chipping and cutting to reveal his image in you. God chooses as his model his Son, Jesus Christ, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8: 29).

Over and over again in the Bible, it is clear that God matures and strengthens us not primarily through painless mountaintop experiences, but through painful suffering. Images like the fiery furnace, the refiner’s fire, and the potter and the clay, remind us that beauty is forged through affliction. And like Joni Eareckson Tada put it, “the beautiful form, the visible expression of ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’” is inside of you, “and God uses affliction like a hammer and chisel, chipping and cutting to reveal his image in you.”

I do not know what your particular suffering is. But I want to remind you of the truth that God loves you. He is not the author of suffering, but if we trust in Him, then He never wastes it. Instead, he will use it for our sanctification and for the salvation and comfort of others, as our suffering humbles us and equips us to minister to others. And the ultimate hope we have is not only that our suffering is never meaningless, but that this is not the end of the story. One day, suffering will be no more, and we will experience eternal joy and peace for our grieving and weary souls forever and ever.

So take heart, and trust in the Lord, your good and loving Father. Remember Jesus Christ, suffering and dying for you, so that you could have eternal life and hope for today. Lean on the Holy Spirit, God in you, pointing you to the truth and guaranteeing the future joy that will one day be yours. And keep on walking with Emmanuel, God with you, through your trials.