The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. – Psalm 145:14 (ESV)

What do you do when you fall down? When life runs over you and leaves you in despair, how do you respond? How do you get off the mat again? These are tough questions. You may be thinking, “I know what the right answer is, but praising God in tribulation is not how I normally respond.” If you have ever been knocked down, then you are well-aware of the challenges associated with getting up again.

Some days you just don’t feel like it

In Psalm 145 God gives us a peek into the heart and life of David, a man who was significantly knocked down. We get to see David’s experience of God in his life. David is not extolling God primarily because he had learned about God through his Christian studies; though theological studies are important in learning about God. David is extolling God because he had experienced God in the crucible of life. It is in the crucible of life where our theology and our experience are meshed together, and this shapes us into the people we truly are.

Though David was a sincere believer in God, he had sinned grievously against his God. You know the story. David was one of God’s choicest servants who fell hard. David acutely lived through some of life’s harshest experiences. His life, marriage, family, and vocation were in shambles and he was the common denominator in all four of these life spheres that had gone awry.

David personally knew the highs and lows of life. And though God’s judgment was at times on him, David knew that God’s love was the backdrop of His judgment. No matter how bleak things became, David was assured that the steady hand of God would lead him through his darkness.

Psalm 145 is not your story

Even though we can be encouraged by Psalm 145 and can draw much benefit from this Psalm of praise, it is not our story. This is David’s story. In order to be changed we must experience our own story. We cannot praise God rightly, based on David’s story. We must praise God from our personal experience of God. If we have not experienced God personally then the bible stories will be ways to encourage us temporarily, but they will be powerless to eternally change us.

Like a good movie, we can live vicariously through the actors of the drama, but at the end of the film we must go home to our own lives. It is when you take God’s words (the Bible) and ask him to work His words into you, by the power of His Spirit, that you can experience him in a way that is more than theory.

The Gospel is your story

David gives us a clue as to how we can experience what he has experienced.

The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. – Psalm 145:14 (ESV)

Your worst problem in life has been resolved at the cross and the tomb. The cross demonstrates God’s unfathomable love for us. The tomb demonstrates God’s incredible power to us.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, – Ephesians 2:4-5 (ESV)

If you have been saved by God’s grace then you have experienced God when you were at your absolute worst. He picked you up from your hopeless condition. Because God has fixed your worst problem you can now inform your feeble soul that he will sustain you through any other challenge in your life.

You fell down and you can get up because the Gospel says so!

Application Questions and Reflective Thoughts

1. How does the Gospel inform you when you are brought low by life’s challenges?
2. Though you might not be able to get up at this time, does the Gospel give you that quiet confidence that things will be okay?
3. Though your feelings may not be responding to what you know, begin today to preach the Gospel to yourself. Read Psalm 145 today and ask God to give you a song of praise.

This blog post represents part of my sermon notes from the 08.22.10 sermon preached at Southside Fellowship.

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Your expectations have a lot to do with what happens to you. – Tim Keller

How we think about life at the level of our hearts will determine how we practically respond to the things in life. Life in a broken world is hard, chaotic, difficult, and challenging and if we have a skewed understanding of the doctrines of man, sin, and God, we will not be prepared to engage this life from a God-centered perspective.

A Bitter Complaint to God

But I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness. – Psalm 88:13-18 (ESV)

The writer of this Psalm, Heman, is angry, mad, and upset. And though he wants to follow God, his anger over his present circumstances is trumping his faith, to the point that he is accusing God. In one sense, he is saying that God has never been there for him. Though his ranting is hyperbolic, he is accusing and blaming the Almighty for the difficulty he is experiencing. He finishes his hopeless and morbid tirade by saying that darkness is a better friend than God.

What do you think God is saying over the ranting and raving of Heman?

God Will Not Let You Go

As I mentioned in the previous post, the fact that this prayer is here in Scripture is a clue that God understands how a man thinks and prays in his darkest moments. God chose not to censor the hard language of this Psalm. You can know that God knows the noise that is running through your head, even if that noise is not complimentary of Him. And God is not intimidated or frustrated by the evil thoughts or uncharitable accusations of man.

Though I would never recommend this kind of response to the Almighty, I can rightfully conclude from the inclusion of this Psalm in the Bible that you can be this “lost” and accusing and God will not let you go. Truly, His steadfast love does last forever, no matter how angry you become.

Do Not Discount Your Weak Faith

One of the reasons this time is so dark is because Heman’s expectation is that God will do good for him. We, like Heman, have to remember what is going on in this passage: no matter how bad things seem or appear on the surface this man is still calling God the God of his salvation. Though it appears that God is not with him, somehow he has not allowed the darkness or the confusion of his life to turn him from the only One who can help. There is a faith that is implied in this passage by the fact that he is still praying to God.

In your hardest moments you pray to God. Your circumstances may not change immediately, but you still pray to God. Your faith is the faith that God gives you and though you may not recognize it as an active faith in the crucible of suffering, you are still exercising faith, which is demonstrated by your prayers to God.

This man persevered through a very difficult and disappointing time. His “weak-faith-praying” demonstrates to us that the God he is praying to is more important than what he is praying for. The fact of his prayer speaks to the faith of the man praying. He may be swaying all over the place and he may be falling apart, but he is tenaciously holding onto God.

God was leading Heman to a specific satisfaction, but that kind of satisfaction was of a higher order than what Heman was thinking about. Our great God of grace was listening and refining his faith so that his ultimate satisfaction would be found in God alone.

From this passage we learn truth from the bitter struggle of this man. As hope died, or seemed to die, God was working inside this man. It is in these moments of our most desperate times when we find an other-worldly strength and help. In the darkest hour of his need God was meeting this frustrated man of faith.

Bringing the Gospel to Bear on the Silence of God

We know that Christ understands Heman because He experienced a similar, but greater kind of suffering. His agony in Gethsemane and the acute darkness and silence He experienced on the Cross tell us that we serve and worship a God who gets it. He experienced it. He lived it. On the cross, Jesus bore the utter darkness of our sin, the shallowness of our lives, the unkindness in our hearts, and the rebellion that our lives portray.

He suffered and died for us. He experienced the excruciating separation and silence of His Father. The worst kind of silence known to man was when God the Father pressed and burnt our sin on His only beloved Son.

And now we have His promise that he not only understands, but we have a satisfying answer to the problem of desperate and hopeless evil. Christ overcame this through the cross and the resurrection and the fact that the Spirit of God is living in us, we have a witness that all will be well with us too. Christ profoundly overcame the silence and though it may seem a long way off, the Gospel informs us that our darkness is not the last word.

Jesus is our friend, even in the darkest times of our lives.

(7.0 & 7.1 are my sermon notes from 07.11.10 at Southside Fellowship.)

Other Articles in This Series

• Connecting the Gospel to Gluttony – 1.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Physical Suffering – 2.0
• Paul Connected His Suffering to the Gospel – 3.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Music – 4.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Perfectionism – 5.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Unfairness – 6.0
• Connecting the Gospel to a God Who is Silent – 7.0
• Connecting the Gospel When All Alone – 7.1

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(My sermon notes from 07.11.10 at Southside Fellowship.)

When your companion is darkness rather than light and your circumstances are overwhelming you in a season of acute need, there is no more of an important time in life for God to reveal Himself to you.

But sometimes your answer to that kind of praying is more darkness. This is the story of the Psalmist in Psalm 88. This Psalm, unlike others, does not end with the God of victory breaking through to save the day. According to the Hebrew rendering of the text, the last word of the Psalm is the word “darkness.”

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

This Psalm helps us understand something about darkness and pain like no other Psalm. This is a messy, chaotic, and confusing Psalm that was intentionally left in the sacred writ. This is an anti-American Psalm, in that the American culture has a generally weak understanding of suffering in a fallen world. The overriding implication of this Psalm is that God may choose to leave you in darkness for a season. But that does not mean that the darkness you are experiencing is void of God’s presence or awareness. You just can’t see Him in the dark. Isn’t this what our old friend Job said:

Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. – Job 23:8-10 (ESV)

God is There

This text does not teach that God is away, distant or disinterested in the sufferer. We cannot say that He was not aware of what was going on because He did inspire the chapter to be written. The fact that God included this Psalm in His Word tells us that He knows and understands what is going on in our hearts and lives, even when we are unsure if God is real and relevant in our lives.

God is there and through this Psalm He is teaching us something about life. Yes, it is possible for a Christian to go through dark times is what our friend is describing in Psalm 88. There are times when our lives take twists and turns that are much different than what we read in Psalm 40:

I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. – Psalm 40:1-2 (ESV)

But in this Psalm, the person cries to God and He “does not” hear; He has prayed and prayed and prayed and God is not listening, so it seems. God is not only silent, but He has hidden his face from the crier. It is one thing to be rejected by man, but to feel rejected by God is the most desperate of all life’s circumstances. When my only friend is the darkness I experience, the question becomes,

Can this really be true that a believer can get to the place where there is no practical help or functional hope? It seems that if God can do all things, then most assuredly He would be able to fix this. Right?

Safety Expectations

Being in a relationship with God does not mean I will escape the problems of life. At one level I know this: becoming old is an obvious example of the potential for suffering. I also get sick. I experience abuse and injustice just like everyone else. I have lost jobs and at other times I have lost friends. Being a Christian does not mean problem-free or smooth sailing.

The tension that I can create in my soul is when I think that God works in my salvation and my sanctification identically. The God of my salvation is the conquering Victor who secured me for eternity. In order for Him to do this, He had to crush His Son. This is the Gospel.

The God of my sanctification is a different kind of conquering Friend. It is not just what God is doing for me, but it is also what He is doing in me and through me. The person He is crushing through my sanctification is me. Once He secured my salvation, through the death of His Son on the cross, He began a process of sanctification: He is progressively mortifying (making dead) me for a greater usefulness in His world.

Christ’s death led to victory. My “death” leads to victory. The more I can understand and apply this Gospel truth to my life, the more I can not only experience and love the One who died for me, but I can find a victory that is more significant than these temporary terrestrial comforts. Sadly at times I will try to smuggle into my progressive sanctification this idea of “safety expectations” as though I will go through life unscathed.

When you are in your darkness, what do you hear God whispering over the noise of your darkness?

1. Do you really believe that God is there?
2. Do you really believe that God is listening?
3. Do you really believe that God cares for you?
4. Do you really believe God?

Your expectations have a lot to do with what happens to you. – Tim Keller

I’ll finish this post tomorrow…

Other Articles in This Series

• Connecting the Gospel to Gluttony – 1.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Physical Suffering – 2.0
• Paul Connected His Suffering to the Gospel – 3.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Music – 4.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Perfectionism – 5.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Unfairness – 6.0
• Connecting the Gospel to a God Who is Silent – 7.0
• Connecting the Gospel When All Alone – 7.1

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Paul’s Counter-Intuitive Gospel

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. – I Corinthians 1:18, 23-25

Christ dying on the cross was a stumbling block for the Jewish man according to Paul. It made no sense. If Christ was God in the flesh and the Savior of the world, as the Christians taught, then why in the world would He die on a cross?

The Greeks had an even lower view of a crucified Savior. It was foolishness to the intelligent Greek man of that day. A dying Savior is no Savior at all. His death seemed to be a foolish and vain attempt to bring hope to the people. How can brokenness bring about wholeness?

God’s view of a dying Savior was completely antithetical to man’s way of thinking. God considered the cross to be wisdom and strength. Christ’s willful giving up of his life on a cruel cross was veiled brilliance and unspeakable power.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV)

Paul’s Counter-Intuitive Physical Suffering

But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9-12 (ESV)

Paul prayed like any of us would pray when afflicted by personal suffering. He was in pain and he wanted God to remove the suffering from his body. Paul persisted in his prayers for relief by asking God repeatedly to remove the “thorn” that was given to him. I understand why Paul prayed that way. I get it. I do not like personal, physical suffering either.

However, God had another plan for Paul’s life and with that plan came the empowering grace to live it out. The text does not tell us how long it took Paul to wrestle with the unchanging reality of the situation. When God presented Paul with the Gospel-impregnated statement “…my power is made perfect in weakness”, the next sentence begins with the conjunction “Therefore…”.

We see in Paul’s next statement that he not only understood the counter-intuitive nature of the Gospel as it pertained to physical suffering, but that he could now boast in his personal weakness. Paul had connected the “dots” from the Gospel to his physical suffering. At some point in time, Paul was able to “boast all the more gladly of [his] weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon [him].”

Paul not only understood the Gospel, as seen in 1 Cor. 1:18-25, but he was now able to live it out in a very personal and radical way, as noted in 2 Cor. 12:1-10. Notice the parallel thoughts regarding the Gospel and Paul’s personal suffering in the two Corinthian texts:

• the weakness of God is stronger than men. – 1 Cor. 1:25
• For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Cor. 12:12

Though the Gospel appears to be weak to men, it is much stronger than any strength that man can produce. Though physical suffering may appear to be weakness to men, God is able to do more through brokenness than man can do through optimal strength and health. Paul was a mature Christian who not only understood the irony of the Gospel, but was able to bring the Gospel irony to bear on one of the more difficult ways that a person could be called to live a Gospel-centered life: suffering.

Application Questions

1. What hope do you find in the Gospel as you think about its counter-intuitive nature and your suffering?
2. How have you found comfort in understanding and applying the Gospel to your suffering?
3. Is God’s grace sufficient for you during your time of physical suffering? Why or why not?
4. In what specific ways is God being glorified through your physical suffering?

Other Articles in This Series

• Connecting the Gospel to Gluttony – 1.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Physical Suffering – 2.0
• Paul Connected His Suffering to the Gospel – 3.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Music – 4.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Perfectionism – 5.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Unfairness – 6.0
• Connecting the Gospel to a God Who is Silent – 7.0
• Connecting the Gospel When All Alone – 7.1

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

Mailbag: My husband is disabled and in high pain daily and on morphine to keep the pain down to a 7 on the pain scale. The Scriptures I see on suffering seem to relate the Gospel to persecution when read in context. How would I relate the Gospel to his suffering since it’s not related to persecution?

This is not only a “smart” and insightful question, but it is a question from a lady who loves God and loves her husband and she wants to think rightly about what they are going through. She is also looking in the right direction (the Gospel) for help and hope.

God was very clear to Adam that if he ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil he would most assuredly die. (Genesis 2:16-17) We not only know the rest of the story, but because we were born the first time “in Adam” we are experiencing the rest of the story in real and despairing ways. After Adam ate the fruit from the forbiddened tree, there was a dramatic change in his physicality. This was only part of the curse that man has experienced because of Adam’s blunder.

The Gospel Speaks Explicitly About Physical Suffering

Adam not only began a “death march” to his future grave after he disobeyed God in the Garden, but he experienced physical challenges, upheavals, changes, and deterioration regarding his overall health.

Physical suffering makes a loud and clear statement that we need the Gospel because only the Gospel can bring about a reversal of the predetermined physical death that we are living. No one escapes personal, physical suffering. Here are some other key points to remember when we think about our physical suffering:

1. The very essence of the Gospel tells us that something is wrong. If nothing was wrong, there would be no need for the Gospel. (The Gospel is Christ: his person and his work.) Therefore, it is a logical and accurate assumption that everyone will experience physical pain and suffering.
2. The curse that we experience as fallen people does not mean that death is the only physical suffering we will endure. Part of living under the curse means we will experience personal suffering, other than death, throughout our lives.
3. We can logically deduce that everyone will experience personal suffering differently. Some will die young, while others will die after a long life. Some will smoke cigarettes and live to be one-hundred, while others will never smoke a cigarette and die at the age of thirty. There is a randomness, from our perspective, to the curse. But we can be assured that what appears to be random to us is set or predetermined in the wisdom of God.
4. Physical suffering is one of the louder testimonies that rises from the human soul, appealing to God for the Gospel. Our daily physical deterioration bespeaks of our acute need for help that can only be completely satisfied outside of ourselves. (2 Cor. 4:16)
5. And the Gospel testifies back to us that help is not only present in the here and now, but that there is help awaiting us in some future day. In that day we will be completely transformed.
6. The Gospel inspires us, not only by reminding us that God is good, but that he will finish what he began. (Phil. 1:6) It is the Gospel that gives us hope, even in the midst of the brokenness of our lives.
7. Physical suffering is just one of the ways the counter-intuitive Gospel can manifest itself in our lives. Our world is floundering and angry because they do not have an answer to life’s problems. But the Christian sufferer who understands the purposes and eternality of the Gospel is not only hope-filled, but he/she can make a bold statement to a world which needs to see and experience the hope the sufferer has in the Gospel.
8. Joni Tada is one of the more remarkable testimonies of the counter-intuitive Gospel in our day. Through her weakness, God’s strength is perfected and manifest. Joni wrestled through the “is God good question” many years ago. Since that time she has inspired more folks through her personal suffering than when she had been healthy. Though she is a quadriplegic, God’s strength (not hers) is being perfected through her. Because she is weak, He is shown to be strong.

Paul understood the Gospel very well when it came to physical suffering. Tomorrow I will be writing about how he connected his physical suffering to the Gospel. In 1 Corinthians 1:18, 23-25 he unpacks the Gospel and in 2 Corinthians 12:9-12 he makes a strong Gospel analogy regarding how his physical suffering models the “weakness and foolishness” of the Gospel to a Gospel-resistant world.

Other Articles in This Series

• Connecting the Gospel to Gluttony – 1.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Physical Suffering – 2.0
• Paul Connected His Suffering to the Gospel – 3.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Music – 4.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Perfectionism – 5.0
• Connecting the Gospel to Unfairness – 6.0
• Connecting the Gospel to a God Who is Silent – 7.0
• Connecting the Gospel When All Alone – 7.1

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

Acknowledging that God is doing something in us is more than a courtesy nod or “wave of the hand.” It is sobering. If we truly understand that God chooses to work in us, then we will not only be humbled that he would take an interest in us, but at times we will be frightened. (See Job 23:15)

Ask the “Good” Question

Many times, in our suffering, we’re focused on the wrong question. We can be more concerned about whether God is safe than whether he is good. Sometimes our craving for self-protection can trump his good work in our lives. The Cross of Christ is the most profound testimony of the safe/good dynamic. (The Jew saw the Cross as a stumbling block, while the Greek saw the Cross as foolishness. From God’s perspective, the Cross was wisdom and power. 1 Cor. 1:18ff)

There are times in our lives when what is best for us is not necessarily the safest path for us. In those moments, we must understand and believe that God is good and he is working good in us. Like the baker kneading the dough, our great God is working his desires into us to make us vessels fit for his use.

The Crucible of Suffering

While in the crucible of suffering, remember that God is working for your good. Make copious mental notes of what he is doing in you. Remember the pain. Embrace the suffering. By embracing the suffering, you are embracing the God who is working the suffering into your life. Though Christ asked for the cup to be taken away from him, ultimately he embraced the Father’s work in his life when he said, ”Not my will, but Your will be done.“

Jesus submitted to his Father, even though it meant he would die. He believed in the good purposes of the Father. When we stop resisting our Father’s work in our lives and start believing in him, then there is hope for change in us. However, to accept the crucible of suffering in your life does not mean your adversity will pass. It simply means you are going to trust the steady hand of God, who is working for your good, regardless of the consequences.

Believing God does not mean things will turn out the way you had hoped. Christ embraced the will of the Father and was later crucified on the Cross. Joseph embraced God’s will and his life involved one disappointment after another. Job said, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him.” (See Job 13:15) Paul believed God and was beheaded. Peter followed his Savior to his own crucifixion.

Believing in God, during our time of adversity, is a desire to know and follow God regardless of where the path may lead. But you can be assured of this one thing: God is good and though you may not know the outcome of God’s good work in your life, you can be assured that you will be more than satisfied by relinquishing your right to yourself.

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Their marriage was doomed from the beginning. Shari’s criticalness and insecurity fed into Kennon’s own cravings for respect and affirmation. After four years of marriage, Kennon began a flirtatious relationship with a woman at work. Within six months Kennon was involved in full-blown adultery.

Kennon’s sins are numerous and he is fully responsible for how he has chosen to sin against God and his wife. Through counseling he has admitted his numerous sins and has repented. Currently he is seeking to walk out his repentance by addressing his own sin issues that predate his relationship with Shari, as well as the numerous sins he has committed in their marriage.

His humility and repentance have been inspiring to others.

Shari, on the other hand, is not repentant at all. She is angry, accusative, and divisive. The anger toward and the hurt from Kennon blinds her to how she has been an “accomplice” in his sin. The spear she has been sharpening for years is now stabbing her in the heart.

Shari has a nagging, critical, and condemning tongue. Her own craving for approval and acceptance chokes the life out of her relationships. No one, not even Kennon, can endure a relationship with her. Unfortunately, she cannot see how her attitude has helped push her husband out the door and into the arms of another woman. Eventually, she pushes everyone away from her.

No one familiar with this story condones what Kennon has done, but it is quite obvious to all that it took two to destroy the marriage. Unfortunately the pain that Shari now feels was, in part, self-afflicted.

This is one of the hardest counseling situations to counsel: a person who has been hurt by another’s legitimate sinfulness, but yet has contributed in real, sinful ways to her current chaos. The pain which she feels blinds her to her own role in destroying the marriage.

Application Questions:

1. How would you counsel Shari?
2. How would you counsel Kennon?
3. Ask a trusted friend how you are perceived: are you generally considered an encourager or not? Ask your spouse, children, parents, and friends to “grade your tongue.”

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You can learn more about Patrick at the Patrick Henry Hughes website.

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I had the joy and privilege of supervising her through the NANC counselor certification process this past year. Sarita is one of the most remarkable testimonies of God’s grace whom I have ever had the privilege to meet. The only other person, who I have met, who’s testimony is comparable to Sarita’s is Joni Eareckson Tada. I am simultaneously convicted and edified when I am with her. I’m convicted because of the high opinion I have of my problems while I am edified because of the hope, grace and mercy I see in my friend.

Sarita refuses to quit! She refuses to believe that God is through with her; until he is ready to take her home. She will tell you that she is stubborn. That is not true. She is not stubborn. Sarita is a believer. She believes in God and by the grace of God she refuses to believe otherwise. Sarita perseveres in his grace and tenaciously holds on to God and his promises, even when the odds seem insurmountable.

Read her story. Learn more about her disease. Sign-up for her e-News blurbs from her Caring Bridge site. Join the Facebook Group, called Sarita. Please join, pray and pass the Facebook link to your friends. Above all else, enter into her story by asking the Father to continue to strengthen and sustain her, until he is ready to call her home.

Sarita gave me permission to blog her story, but was clear to make this one essential caveat:

I don’t mind at all if you blog me as I know you will be sure to make clear that any “good things” you want to say are about God’s work and His grace in my life and not about me! – Sarita

Click Sarita’ Story to read the full PDF article!

• Join “Sarita” a Facebook Group: Sarita
• Lear more about Sarita’s disease: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
• Sign-up for eNews from Sarita at Caring Bridge

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It was not intentional that I write this post on 9/11. It just happened to be next up in the queue, though this post is applicable to the significance of this day.

Without a robust theology of suffering we will set ourselves up for patterns of bitterness, anger, disappointment, frustration, criticism, blaming and more. We must be on constant vigilance, by taking our souls to task regarding how our American worldview of expectations will compete against a God-centered worldview of expectations.

This does not mean that we should not expect nice, temporal things from God. God is a generous God. However, it does mean that our expectations cannot be one-sided. The same God that gives is the same God that takes away.

And Job said, Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.  In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. – Job 1:21-22 (ESV)

A Balanced Perspective on God’s Kindness

Though Job had his problems, he got this right. He had a balanced perspective on God’s kindness. Recently I told a gentleman that it could be God’s kindness to him to bring his adultery out into the open. Initially he did not see it this way. From his perspective, as well as his wife’s perspective, his exposure was the worst kind of news. He did not want to be found out and she did not want to go through the subsequent pain.

I understand their perspective. But think about this for a moment.

They have been married for a very long time and their marriage has been full of disappointments. There was little hope that things were going to turn around. Neither one of them were purely focused on God. It was God’s mercy to them to implode their marriage and from this major bomb going off, they are now working on things that have gone unattended for many years.

God is a jealous God. He will not let his children worship at the altar of idols forever. There are times when he will insert himself into our lives to bring correction. This correction can be painful, but make no mistake about it, his correction is always for our good.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. – See Hebrews 12:6-11 (ESV)

Does Personal Suffering Always Point to Personal Sin?

Of course not. Christ, who never sinned, suffered the most. His personal suffering was for our benefit. Without his death on the cross, we would all be lost in our sins and merely moments from an eternity in hell. It is true that sometimes we suffer because of our foolishness. And sometimes, similar to Christ, we suffer because of the foolishness of others.

In one sense, it does not matter why we are suffering, but it is extremely relevant as to how we are going to respond during our suffering? The former we may never know. The latter we must work out.

My sister-in-law murdered my brother 12 years ago. I will never know all the reasons why things went down the way they did. But that is not important to me. What is important is how am I going to respond to this personal tragedy.

You can read more about my brother’s death HERE.

Application Questions

1. Do you believe God is good all the time?
2. Can you see God’s goodness through suffering?
3. What do you need to change in order to be like Christ toward those who have hurt you?
4. Will you change today?

Other articles relevant to this post are:

• My Brother Was Murdered 12 Years Ago
• I’ve Got More Hating to Do
• Cursing the Sun
• Great Expectations: 1.0
• Great Expectations: God, 2.0
• Great Expectations: Myself, 3.0
• Great Expectations: Christians, 4.0
• Great Expectations: Unbelievers, 5.0

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