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It took a few more years of quadriplegia, and the encroachment of chronic pain to help me see there was more—much more—to suffering than learning its theological background and benefits.
When affliction decimates you, then you understand Elisabeth’s doctrine: The Bible’s answers are never to be separated from the God of the Bible. That rich truth then guided me through more than fifty years of paralysis, pain, and cancer.
then I heard her voice in my head say, “The cross is the gateway to joy.”
I’ve come to see that it’s through the deepest suffering that God has taught me the deepest lessons. And if we’ll trust Him for it, we can come through to the unshakable assurance that He’s in charge. He has a loving purpose. And He can transform something terrible into something wonderful. Suffering is never for nothing.
my definition of suffering. “Suffering is having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.” I think that covers everything.
The deepest things that I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering. And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things that I know about God.
She learned “Jesus loves me, this I know,” not because her daddy was killed. She didn’t know it that way. But rather, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” She learned to sing “God will take care of me,”
I’ve been forced, from the circumstances in my own life, to try to get down to the very bedrock of faith. The things that are infrangible and unshakable. God is my refuge. Was He Jim’s refuge? Was He his fortress?
There would be no intellectual satisfaction on this side of Heaven to that age-old question, why. Although I have not found intellectual satisfaction, I have found peace. The answer I say to you is not an explanation but a person, Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God.
the words that God brought to me then were from Isaiah the 43rd chapter, “When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God” (Isa. 43:2–3a kjv). And I realized then that God was not telling me that everything was going to be fine, humanly speaking, that He was going to preserve my husband physically and bring him back to me. But He was giving me one unmistakable promise: I will be with you. For I am the
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The question remains, is God paying attention? If so, why doesn’t He do something? I say He has, He did, He is doing something, and He will do something. The subject can only be approached by the cross.
It’s only in the cross that we can begin to harmonize this seeming contradiction between suffering and love. And we will never understand suffering unless we understand the love of God.
We’re talking about this visible world and an invisible Kingdom on which the facts of this world are interpreted.
I learned in that experience who God is. Who He is in a way that I could never have known otherwise. And so I can say to you that suffering is an irreplaceable medium through which I learned an indispensable truth. I Am. I am the Lord. In other words, that God is God.
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:18–19 kjv).
I look upon suffering as one of God’s ways of getting our attention. In fact, C. S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
the question “why” presupposes that there is reason, that there is a mind behind all that may appear to be mindless suffering. We would never ask the question why if we really believed that the whole of the universe was an accident and that you and I are completely at the mercy of chance. The very question why, even if it is flung at us by one who calls himself an unbeliever or an atheist is a dead give-away that there is that sneaking suspicion in the back of every human mind that there is somebody, some reason, some thinking individual behind this.
God answers Job’s mystery with the mystery of Himself.
He is revealing to Job who He is. God, through my own troubles and sufferings, has not given me explanations.
my faith had to be founded on the character of God Himself. And so, what looked like a contradiction in terms: God loves me; God lets this awful thing happen to me. What looked like a contradiction in terms, I had to leave in God’s hands and say okay, Lord. I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. But I only had two choices. He is either God or He’s not. I am either held in the Everlasting Arms or I’m at the mercy of chance and I have to trust Him or deny Him.
If your prayers don’t get answered the way you thought they were supposed to be, what happens to your faith? The world says God doesn’t love you. The Scriptures tell me something very different.
Acceptance, I believe, is the key to peace in this business of suffering.
three-personed God. He loves us. We are not adrift in chaos. To me that is the most fortifying, the most stabilizing, the most peace-giving thing that I know anything about in the universe. Every time things have seemingly fallen apart in my life, I have gone back to those things that do not change. Nothing in the universe can ever change those facts. He loves me. I am not at the mercy of chance.
We’re not adrift in chaos. We’re held in the everlasting arms. And therefore, and this makes a difference, we can be at peace and we can accept. We can say yes, Lord, I’ll take it. The faculty by which I apprehend God is the faculty of faith.
I know the One who is in charge of the universe. He’s got the whole world where? In His hands. And that’s where I am. So that to me is the key to acceptance: the fact that it is never for nothing.
Now faith, like love, is not a feeling. We need to get that absolutely clear. Faith is not a feeling. Faith is a willed obedience
He said if you want to be My disciples, there are three conditions. First, you must give up your right to yourself. Second, you must take up your cross. Third, you must follow. My understanding of giving up your right to yourself is saying no to yourself. And taking up the cross is saying yes to God. Lord, whatever it is You want to give me, I’ll take it. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Saxon legend that said, “Do the next thing.” I don’t know any simpler formula for peace, for relief from stress and anxiety than that very practical, very down-to-earth word of wisdom. Do the next thing. That has gotten me through more agonies than anything else I could recommend.
“Trust Me.” Some day, even you will see that there’s sense in this. Your suffering is never for nothing.
Chaos is the Greek word for disorder. Cosmos is the word for order. We either live in an ordered universe or we are trying to create our own reality.
case where the thorn was in a sense given by God as a messenger of Satan. And there’s another, at least one other, example in Scripture that I can think of the same apparent contradiction where Joseph says to his brothers that it was they who sent him into Egypt. But he says God sent me to Egypt. We know that Joseph’s brothers were sinning against him and yet it was God who sent him there. So, when the answer was no about the thorn in the flesh, and was the answer of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, we know that there’s nothing wrong with praying that God will solve our problems and heal our
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Whatever is in the cup that God is offering to me, whether it be pain and sorrow and suffering and grief along with the many more joys, I’m willing to take it because I trust Him.
Paul accepted the thorn even though it wasn’t to his taste and preferences. Jesus accepted the cup and said not My will but Thine be done. And that same vision and that same principle ought to characterize each of us Christians as we receive, from the hand of God, the cup of salvation with whatever it contains for our ultimate redemption and perfection. There will be nothing in that cup of salvation except what is necessary. So, having said all of that, can we then thank God? Gratitude
Paul says that in everything we ought to give thanks. It’s not the experiences of our lives that change us. It is our response to those experiences.16 And that should be a very noticeable distinction between the Christian and the non-Christian.
How to deal with suffering of any kind. Number one, I wrote, “Recognize it.” Number two, “Accept it.” Number three, “Offer it to God as a sacrifice.” And number four, “Offer yourself with it.”
“He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me; to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God!” (Ps. 50:23 rsv).
Just start thanking God in advance because no matter what is about to happen, you already know that God is in charge. You are not adrift in a sea of chaos.
So, what is there to be grateful for in the midst of suffering? Well, God is still love. Nothing has changed that. God is still God. He’s sovereign.
Psalm 56:3 where He said, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in You” (kjv).
Psalm 34:1 that says, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (kjv). Now that’s a willed, conscious, deliberate obedience, isn’t it? I will bless the Lord regardless of what’s happening around here because there is that other level, that other perspective, a different vision. The visible things are transitory. It is the invisible things that are really permanent. The doctor’s verdict was fact. I had to believe it. But God’s Word was also fact.
We need Jesus Christ, our refuge, our fortress, the stronghold of my life. It takes desolation to teach us our need of Him.
I do need to thank God that in the midst of that very situation the world was still in His hands. The One who keeps all those galaxies wheeling in space is the very hand that holds me. The hands that were wounded on the cross are the same hands that hold the seven stars. The hands that were laid on old John when he was there on the Island of Patmos, and the voice that was like the sound of many waters said to him, don’t be afraid. I AM. I have the keys.
It is in these very situations which are so painful—having what you don’t want, wanting with all your heart something that you don’t have—that thanksgiving can prepare the way for God to show us His Salvation.
Remember Elisha and his servant sitting there on the mountain and suddenly the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. They hadn’t been able to see them except with the eye of faith. Similarly, you and I have no idea of the things that are going on in the unseen world, except we do have an idea that they are for our perfection, for our fulfillment, for our ultimate blessing.
Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden on the Lord and He shall sustain you” (nkjv).
To my amazement and delight I discovered that that word burden in the Hebrew is the same word as the word for gift. This is a transforming truth to me. If I thank God for this very thing which is killing me, I can begin dimly and faintly to see it as a gift. I
Everything is a gift. Everything is meant to be offered back.
The Old Testament also speaks of the sacrifice of thanksgiving in Psalms.
hours of fear was a broken and a contrite heart, I will not despise. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, I will not despise. I’m sure some of you have a broken spirit, a broken heart. God will not despise that offering if that’s all you have to offer (Ps. 51:17 kjv, author paraphrase).
