01/21/2019
When times are hard in your life do you think that God has walked away from you, and abandoned the gifts He gave you through Jesus Christ? Do you think that the promise of salvation, His protection, and provision has been reneged on? Well that couldn’t be further from the truth. You see, God’s promises and callings last forever, and remain forever with you as well. When the easy times turn hard, and you suffer, continue to look all the more to God.
“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
Romans 11:29 ESV
The suffering, hardships, and mourning in life are not unnatural, but sometimes they are a mystery. These things are a part of life, and when they come, and they will come, we have a choice to make... will we take comfort in God and His Son Jesus, or will we turn away from Him, calling Him the author of our suffering; judging Him, and deeming Him unjust?
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 ESV
I have read about the holocaust during World War Two, about the torment in the early concentration camps. I have read stories of the suffering of Jews, Catholic Priests, Jehovahs Witnesses and others. In these descriptions we find unbelievable hardship, pain, and murder, but there are amazing stories of faith as well. Stories of the faithful coming together to comfort one another, and worship God. Over and over again the statement surfaces that “without faith one is doomed to die.”
I read one account given by a Jewish survivor of the camps to the question that many Rabbi’s had deemed forbidden... “where was God there?” and the answer came to Otto Dov Kulka in a dream. He was a survivor who later, in Israel, had this dream:
"At first I felt Him (only) as a kind of mysterious radiation of pain, flowing at me from the dark void in the unlit part of the cremation ovens. A radiation of insupportably intense pain, sharp and dull alike. Afterwards He began to take the shape of a kind of huge embryo, shrunk with pain … He was alive, shrunken, hunched forward with searing pain … a figure on the scale of His creatures, in the form of a human being who came and was there … as a response to 'the question they were forbidden to ask there, but was asked and floated in that dark air."
To me as a Christian I see this embryo in Kulka’s dream as Jesus Christ, and the suffering and pain to be what Jesus endured. But, however we see this dream the fact remains... Kulka never abandoned his faith, but did ask the forbidden question... just as we do today when we suffer. The ultimate question for us as believers is whether we will we turn away from our faith in the midst of our suffering, and will we feel that God has abandoned the promises He made to us from the beginning; promises like this one made to Abraham?
“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."”
Genesis 12:2-3 ESV
So we know that suffering and hardship is part of life, and in the midst of it we remain in the presence and promise of God. In this belief, our faith remains firm and strong, and our eyes fixed on the sky for the return of the Lord, our Redeemer. No matter the trauma of life, we see Jesus Christ in it, and the glow of God’s glory which highlights His return. God’s promises remain true, and His will is for us is to be with Him in eternity.
“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”
James 1:12 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your love and the promises you have made regarding your care for us. Keep us, and comfort us Holy Father amidst the many trials and sufferings of life. Let your hand rest upon us as we face our natural death, and the other hardships that come upon us in this earthly life. Keep our eyes upon you Lord, and our hearts filled with your Word. Strengthen our faith as it is tested by constant exercise, and prepare us for that day of judgement when we will stand before you as Jesus gives His account of our character. To this end Merciful Father, I praise you in the midst of my suffering, and give you glory for your presence with me as I face it. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who comforts me amidst my travail, and places nothing on me that I can not withstand. Great are you who shields me from evil, and delivers me from temptation. You are my strength, my endurance, and my song of praise in the midst of life’s darkness. Praised be your name now, and forevermore.
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5 ESV
Rich Forbes