In a flurry of Thanksgiving preparations, I’m juggling an overflowing bowl of bread crumbs in one hand and sautéing onions and celery on the stove with the other. And sitting in front of me is a rather tearful mother, choking back bits of frustration between sobs.
As I look up at her I realize it’s not the onions that are bringing the tears to her eyes. It’s the fact that I’m the one getting to do the Thanksgiving preparations, the one who gets to serve and help our family, and that it’s been far too many years since she’s had the physical ability to do so. It just doesn’t seem quite fair.
“I know it’s frustrating…” I tell her, “But there are so many other things to be thankful for instead.”
And that is an entirely true statement. Even when our world showers us with reminders of its brokenness, there are always still glimmers of God’s grace. And I think we tend to cling to those small hopes in light of our sufferings. But as I’m mulling on this idea, I’m wondering if perhaps we should be thankful for even the suffering itself?
Our world is incredibly and utterly broken. One doesn’t have to look very far to realize this.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks helping a dear friend try to understand why an unwarranted shooting in her hometown left 4 young men from her small Hmong community dead in their back yard, just miles from her own home. There is no reason to this story. Only heartache. And confusion. It is the very definition of suffering.
And yet, I ask, what if God is at work even there in the midst of this suffering? What if He has a plan to use this dreadful deed to bring about good?? What if he can take the death of these young men, or the sorrows of my own mother’s illness, to bring about His glory and goodness?
The well-known minister Tim Keller writes:
“So suffering is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It is not only the way Christ became like and redeemed us, but it is one of the main ways we become like him and experience his redemption. And that means that our suffering, despite its painfulness, is also filled with purpose and usefulness.”
― Timothy Keller, “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering”
What an astounding idea! Not only that God can use our present sufferings to bring about His ultimate good, but that our sufferings draw us to Him.
But how? How does He use our sufferings? How does suffering draw us to Him?
1 Peter 3:18 says: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.”
Christ himself suffered. I think we’ve stated this fact so many times within the church that we forget just how true of a statement it is. He took on ALL the weight of EVERY evil thing that we have done and that has been done to us. This is simply unfathomable! And yet HE DID IT! And when we begin to experience the sufferings of this life, we suddenly realize that we can’t do this on our own. No matter how hard you work, or how strong you are, or how brilliant you will become, you will never be able to stand strong against all the brokenness of this world…and yet there is one who did. Jesus Christ!
Our sufferings, our brokenness, point to the ONLY ONE who could take suffering and use it for good. He took all our sin and the brokenness of this world on his shoulders and redeemed it all. Every last drop!
George Macdonald (often quoted by C.S. Lewis) writes: “The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” Our present sufferings point us towards the greater gift that our loving Lord gave us through His own sufferings!
As Pastor Tim Keller says: “When pain and suffering come upon us, we finally see not only that we are not in control of our lives but that we never were.” But how good it is, that there is someone even greater and more loving who is and always has been in control!
Scripture tells us of a man named Job, who is stricken with horrendous disasters. His wealth is stripped from him, all of his children die, and then he is overcome with illness. He is suffering! Suffering immensely! And he longs to die to be relieved of his pain. And yet in that season, he cries out: “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” – Job 19:25-27
It was in Job’s suffering that he was drawn most to the Lord. It was in the hardest moments that his heart longed for his loving Lord. It was in that season that he remembered that his REDEEMER LIVES!
It’s been decades since my dear mother could take care of her family in the way that God designed her to do. She has experienced years, upon years, of heartache and pain in longing to do just simple, good things–but her body will not allow her too. This is suffering. And yet God has used her suffering to bring about such tremendous good in the lives of so many others, myself included. If it were not for Mom’s present sufferings, I would not be the young woman I am today, and I most certainly would not cling to the cross so tightly as I have needed to.
God does not give us suffering. That is the result of this very sinful and broken world we live in. But He loves us so unfathomably, that he uses even the most wretched of miseries to draw us in to his redeeming grace. And so this Thanksgiving, let us be thankful, not for the suffering that we experience, but for the way in which God redeems even the greatest losses! Let us stand in the hope of God’s Hesed love (His steadfast loving, merciful kindness), that He will use even these difficult times for the good of those who love Him. We may not totally understand when or how or why. But our Redeemer lives! Thanks be to God!!
Romans 8:18 – “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
God is Good! All the time He is Good!
11/27/19
Proverbs 19:21 