Blogging on suffering — Faith — Stylin' Granny Mama

I have been working through a series on the work of suffering. I was inspired by Oswald Chamber’s devotional My Utmost for His Highest and you can see the original post here. Part 2 looked at the necessity of leaning into the truth of God’s word, our foundation, during difficult times. This week I want to look at three areas where the work of suffering becomes essential.

Belief.

Suffering has a way of honing our belief systems. I have looked at the word belief before on this blog, but let’s review. (You can see that original post here. ) The word belief is defined by Webster’s Online Dictionary as a NOUN: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing; something believed or held as true; conviction of the truth of some statement or reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence. The VERB state of belief would be believe which is define as: Transitive - to consider as true or honest; to accept the word or evidence of; to hold as an opinion; Intransitive - to accept something as true, genuine or real; to have a firm or wholehearted religious conviction or persuasion; to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of someone or something.

We know the Bible talks a lot about belief. It is essential in our faith that we believe in a God we do not see based on what we know from His Holy word, and on the revelation of the Spirit, the third person of the trinity. We also have the words of Jesus, His son, in the four Gospels.

For instance, reading through another of Oswald Chamber’s devotionals recently he used the following two verses, two days in a row.

“...for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,”
6 so that we confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.
What will man do to me?””

— Hebrews 13:5b-6 (NASB 1995)

When I am going through difficulty and I approach Scripture, I need to ask myself, “Do I believe what God is saying in these verses? We will talk about trust in a moment, but for now, just think about this idea of belief. Do I believe…what? Do I believe God is real? Do I believe He created the universe? Do I believe the Bible is His holy words written down by men moved by His Spirit? Do I believe what those words say? Do I believe in the person and work of Jesus? Do I believe He was born to a virgin, walked as a man on this earth, gathered a group of disciples who became the foundation of the church, died on a cross and rose again? Do I believe that when I accept Jesus as my Lord and savior that I receive the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and through Him I am able to learn, and grow and find all that I need for life and godliness?

“ 1 Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord;
3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. ”

— 2 Peter 1:1-3 (NASB 1995)

Trust.

It may seem that the words trust and believe are the same thing, but this is where we get into the nuances of words. To me, the word belief is a stance. I am placing my feet on the solid foundation of God’s word and its truth. The word trust belies something more relational. Websters Online Dictionary defines trust as: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. If I trust someone I am choosing to rely on them. This is where I believe many Christians struggle. We can be standing on the edge of the Promised land, but never step into it. I can believe God’s word, plan and purpose for this world and for me. I can know scripture, attend numerous services at my church, and spend my weekends serving those less fortunate, but if I don’t trust God, all of it becomes merely works that I am hoping to stack in my favor. Trust moves us from merely standing on the foundation, to opening the door to God’s movement and work in our lives and the lives of others around us.

“38 Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home.
39 She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.
40 But Martha was distracted with [q]all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”
41 But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things;
42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.””

— Luke 10:38-42 (NASB 1995)

If you have been a Christian for a while, and have been in a Bible study, or heard a sermon preached on the above passage, you probably know this piece of scripture is not without controversy. I do not mean controversy pertaining to whether it is true or not, but as to whether Martha was really out of line for questioning the Lord and wanting Jesus to reprimand her sister for not helping her with the meal. However, what does Jesus say?

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chose the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

The point I want to make is Mary had trusted Jesus. She wasn’t worried about the meal, or the work, she was leaning in to the relationship with her Lord and teacher, and eventually savior, Jesus. This is such an important point, and I am sorry this is so long, but I feel it is important to understand; without the movement from belief to trust we will never become the sons and daughters we are meant to be.

Read this article form the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (UK), The Tree Stump Prayer: When Billy Graham Overcame Doubt. I learned of this prayer years ago when I was attending Moody Bible Institute and the story still impresses me. Billy Graham, the greatest evangelist of the 20th century had doubts? Wow! He did, until he took the step from belief to trust.

Peace.

The last area I want to look at having to do with the work of suffering has to do with peace. Suffering easily leads to anxiety and fear. It is completely understandable. It doesn’t matter what sort of suffering you are going through: chronic illness, newly diagnosed cancer, impending divorce or job loss, losing a loved one, a home, or being in the throes of trying to maneuver government websites to sign up for Social Security and Medicare; all of these can produce stress, anxiety and fear. If we do not believe and entrust ourselves to God and his truth we will not have peace.

I talked about peace back in February in my Peace in the Chaos series. You can see those pieces here: Part 1, Part 2a, Part 2b, and Part 2c. Being able to have peace during difficult and chaotic times is essential in the growth and stability of our faith. The only true way to attain this peace is to abide, abide, abide in Christ.

“1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.””

— John 15:1-11 (NASB 1995)

This passage really lays it all out. If we abide in Christ we will be standing firm on the beliefs that are foundational to our faith; we will be entrusting ourselves to the vine dresser, which is God the Father; we will have His peace, and the most amazing thing is that even in the difficulty of pruning and cutting us back we will bear fruit. I would like to do a further study on this passage at a later time, but we can certainly see the benefit to our lives during suffering when we abide in Him.

Sorry, this series has taken so long, and I hope that it has benefited you. My spouse and I have been going through some struggles, but I am thankful that I have a loving Father who keeps turning me back to Him.

Have a great week.

This is a long post, so grab your coffee and sit a while as I share our own story and what I have learned about the necessity of leaning in to God’s truth when we are suffering.

Back in March, my spouse and I decided to take a short get away, hoping that it would give us a chance to rest and relax from the difficulties that had us reeling: the death of my mom, illness, and the loss of my husband’s job. We prayed that God would give us a break from the troubles and give us time to recoup before anything else went wrong.

Our plan was to leave in the morning and drive about three hours, stopping half way to get lunch and maybe spend time at a coffee shop or bookstore. The morning we were to leave my spouse started having terrible diarrhea. I adjusted course and packed a lunch that I hoped would be more suitable to his digestive tract. We did not get to stop at a coffee shop since it was getting later, and we just wanted to get to our VRBO before supper. We got to our VRBO where I made our supper instead of eating out, to help my spouse’s irritated system.

The next day we went into the nearby town to go to our favorite coffee shop, where we hoped to spend some quality time relaxing, eating lunch and doing stuff on our computers. When we got there a sign on the door said they were closing early. We were disappointed but able to get lunch. Unfortunately, when my husband tried to get on his computer it was completely dead. No amount of sitting on the charger was bringing it back to life.

We tried to course correct and run to a couple of thrift shops nearby. While we were in the Goodwill, the wind that had been growing steadily worse was beginning to cause lights to flicker and go on and off. Upon returning to our VRBO we had no electricity and couldn’t even flush the toilet since the water pump was electric. We honestly began to feel as though we were being thrown to the wolves. What started as a desire for relaxation and rest turned into the weekend from hell with more physical problems, a leaking tire on the car, a crazy windstorm that took out a good portion of that county’s electricity and other issues.

Obviously we made it home. Probably the weirdest thing that happened was as soon as we got home, my spouse’s computer came back to life. Really??? The above photo could have been my husband when we got home and his computer started working again. Ha, ha.

I had a crisis of faith on that weekend. I have never struggled with my faith, and with my belief that God is good like I did that weekend. I was sad, and angry. Why couldn’t an all powerful God just make a few things go our way and give us the rest and relaxation we so desperately wanted and felt we needed?

On our way home we stopped at a park and had a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day, but as I sat at that picnic table I found myself unraveling, because I never wanted to question God’s goodness or His trustworthiness, but I was. I began to feel that it must be me. I must be sinning. I must be guilty of burying bad attitudes and thoughts that made me no longer worthy of His attention and love. I cried because I had always had this close, personal relationship with Him, and now there I was questioning everything because we were suffering.

“It’s so difficult, isn’t it? To see what’s going on when you’re in the absolute middle of something? It’s only with hindsight we can see things for what they are.”

— S.J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep

It was there in that crisis of faith that God, once again opened my heart and mind to His deeper layers. At that picnic table I made a choice. I decided in my heart that what I needed to do was go back to His word and remind myself of His truth, because that alone is the unshakable foundation on which we base our faith. When we start to question and doubt His word, we begin to question and doubt His character. My friends, God is not fickle. He does not change.

“17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.”

— James 1:17-18 (NASB 1995)

When going through difficult times it is good to pause and evaluate how we are handling it, and to ask ourselves a couple of questions:

1 - Am I suffering due to my choices? In a society where the blame game has become common place it is easy to fall into the mindset that life is unfair and it has nothing to do with my choices. However, choices do matter, and individual responsibility is a reality.

“13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

— Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (ESV)

This Old Testament verse is clear. Our duty as God’s creation is to fear our Maker and keep His commandments. Whether we do or don’t all of our deeds good or bad, out in the open or done in secret will be brought before God and will be judged.

“3 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

— Romans 6:23 (NASB 1995)

The choice to accept or reject Christ does lead to the suffering of eternal death, so no matter how easy life is on this planet suffering will come.

In addition our choices can bring suffering into other people’s lives. Take for instance someone who is driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Many times they go from one place to another without anything happening, but there are many accidents and even deaths caused by people who drove while they were drunk or high. If they injure or kill a person through an accident their choice is causing another whole community to suffer: parents, siblings, coworkers, friends…

2. What truths about God is this suffering causing me to question? Asking questions during difficulty is completely normal and okay. God is big enough to handle all of our doubts, worries and fears. If we go back to the Psalms of David we see, quite often, the once shepherd now King of Israel, questioning God. Psalm 13 is probably one of the most popular of David’s questioning psalms.

“1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.”

— Psalm 13 (NASB 1995)

What I love about this psalm is that it is raw and honest, but David does not stay in that mindset. By the end of the psalm he is determined that he will once again sing to the Lord, because He dealt bountifully with him. This could have been my own psalm during our weekend getaway that turned sour. “Lord, how long will we endure these difficulties? How long will it seem that You have left us never to return? How long do I have to keep pulling myself up by my own bootstraps, and be overwhelmed by sadness?”

Image by Manfred Antranias Zimmer from Pixabay

In my own experience, again similar to David’s, I was being prompted by the Spirit to return to what I know about God and how He has always provided in the past. During the weeks that followed our getaway the Lord led me to this small, but familiar portion of scripture in the Old Testament.

“21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.”

— Lamentations 3:21-23 (NIV)

This is God’s truth. Jeremiah, the writer of Lamentations, knew that he had to go back to what he knew was true about God. It is by doing that, by remembering God’s faithfulness, lovingkindness and justice, that we are able to endure suffering without being consumed. Remember what Job went through, yet he was not consumed. God’s compassions do not fail, even thought they might seem far removed. When we look at it with hindsight we can see how God was in it, from the first bad thing to the last. Every day He gives us what we need for that day; nothing more and nothing less.

Next time we will look at practical ways to endure the long term suffering without giving up.

The Work of Suffering - Part 3: Three Areas to Explore

The Work of Suffering - Part 2: Leaning in to His Truth