06/23/2023
We suffer in our lives, but no suffering is experienced without God using it for His good purposes. The question becomes this... do we see Him working in our most dire circumstances? If we are attuned to the will of God in our lives we should acknowledge His plan for us, even in our misery... unless, of course, we are blinded to Him by our disbelief.
Jesus suffered in ways that make us gasp, and He knew very well that the suffering and pain was coming... long before He experienced it. If His disciples understood who He was, then they should have seen it coming as He did; after all, Isaiah prophesied of it many years before He was born:
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Isaiah 53:3 ESV
God used the suffering of Christ to redeem us, and Isaiah alluded to this in prophesy as well. He told of the physical beating and torture that Jesus would endure, and the degree of His disfiguring, but he also told us that despite this immense trauma He would be lifted up.
“Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind— so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.”
Isaiah 52:13-15 ESV
Whether our own suffering is spiritual, physical, mental, or emotional, God touches us in our moments of sorrow and changes us in mighty ways. Several years ago I was on a flight home from my mother's 92nd birthday celebration when I met an incredibly wonderful man of God. We sat next to each other and spoke of our faiths. In the course of our conversation we testified about the wonderful and powerful moments in our spiritual lives. I recounted a time of immense grief and pain in my life, and how, a saint had prayed and laid hands on me, and how I felt hands all over my back... but that when the prayer was complete and I opened my eyes... there was no one there. My new pastor friend smiled in recognition and told me that he too had been touched in his life, and that each time it had occurred it changed him. I thought back to that moment in my life, and others as well, and realized that this was truth... each time I have been touched I have also been changed, and my faith elevated as if by a mighty rush of wind that blows a leaf suddenly into the sky.
God uses our times of grief and pain in part because they capture our attention; they become the focus of our lives and we seek Him in our desperation. We seek Him in ways that are unrivaled by joy. In suffering we turn to God in prayers that have no equal, and He meets us in our despair to reassure us, teach us, and change us in powerful ways. God uses every event and moment in our lives, but when things are easy and life is drifting along like a feather on a calm pond, we are less likely to seek Him with the same intensity as we do in our most wretched moments.
I have heard many speak of those moments when the curtain between heaven and earth grows thin. I envision pressing my face against the nearly transparent thinness of the veil in such instances and breathing the sweet aroma of heaven's incense as if I were already there. Suffering brings us to that place like no other event in our lives; it presses us against the sheerness of the division in ways that only desperation can elicit. It brings us to a place where we struggle mightily to grasp the feet of The Divine and seek His mercy as we grope and grasp against the smooth barrier between God and man. These are the times when God has our undivided attention. Here we find Him in our grief and suffering. Such is the moment of our salvation... just as in the sacrificial climax of Jesus.
So… we should never let our grief, our desperation, or our suffering, discourage us; it is in these moments of suffering that we will most certainly hear Our Father, and He will come to us. In such times He will touch us, lift us up, and change our lives.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for all of the joy and peace in my life, but I also thank you for those times of suffering in which you come to me in Revelation. I thank you Father for drawing me near and for the fervent nature of my prayers and faith in such times. Holy Father I thank you for the passion of Christ and the change that His suffering brought to the world. I thank you for the sheerness of the veil during my moments of pain and the cool wind that blows it over me in soothing embrace. You are my God, and in all things I seek your presence. You are with me always, and I long for your slightest touch. Most Merciful Father, never let my eyes lose sight of your glory... even in the heart of my earthly misery and pain. Your Son is the balm that heals my sin, and the release from all my suffering. In Him I find the strength to cast myself at your feet in praise and subjugation. If I must suffer, then touch me in my suffering, hold me in my misery, hear me weeping in my prayers, and let me come to you expectantly in my desperation, because rising from the depth of my pain comes the fullness of your salvation and joy to become my reward.
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:3-5 ESV
Rich Forbes