THE GIFT OF SUFFERING

PART TWO

MIKE CUNNINGHAM

NOVEMBER 9, 2008

When I ended last week’s message, I hope I didn’t leave anyone with the impression that the only reason our loving Father puts His Children in the “furnace of affliction,” and some of them for long periods of time, is because it’s only through the suffering they endure in it that He can use in order to prepare and make them capable of receiving what the Apostle Paul described as being “an eternal weight of glory” when they enter into His heaven, because nothing could be further from the truth. And to think that back in eternity past God planned and ordained everything that He would either cause or allow to take place in the course of human history, and then through the act of speaking His world into existence, some of His most precious children were thereby  predestined to suffer in His dreaded furnace only because He intended to use their suffering as a means to bless them in a very special way when He finally brought them home to Himself, simply isn’t true.

I don’t know about you, but when the rug is suddenly pulled out from under my feet and my world seems to be falling apart; I don’t feel like putting on a smiley face and try to cheer myself up because I know that when I finally die and go to heaven I’m going to be supremely happy. No; I try to make sense out of what I’m experiencing. All Christians do. For example, one of the most natural questions racing through our minds is, “what did I do to deserve this?” In other words, we want to know what we may have done or not done which displeased God so much that He put us in that painful furnace once again. To think that He’s done it regardless of the fact the Christian has truly been struggling real hard to love Him with all of his or her  mind and heart and soul and strength and to glorify Him with their every thought, word or deed, is often very difficult to understand.

In an attempt to shed some light on this kind of dilemma, I’ve created a fictional woman named Heather who is a sixty-one year old widow that lost her husband of thirty nine years and their only child through a slow lingering illness nine years ago. She’s still working through her grief and stays close to God.  Of course Heather knows she isn’t perfect, and is quick to acknowledge the fact. However she also knows God has brought her to a level of spiritual maturity by which she can honestly believe that the Lord would be able to say about her something similar to what, concerning Job, He asked Satan, “ have you observed my servant Heather, there is none like her on earth, a blameless and upright person, who fears God and turns from evil? (Job 1:8). Such a God fearing afflicted woman can’t help wondering why God put her back in that horrible furnace again. So much so, that Heather cries out to God as Job did:

Job 10:2 (ESV) ² I will say to God, Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me.

Job 13:23 (ESV) ²³ How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin.

And all she gets from God in response is silence. Heather’s prayers may sound something like this: “Please don’t beat around the bush Lord. I’m tired and almost at the point of exhaustion. I want to be right with you. You know that; but we also know I can’t fix something if I don’t know it’s broken. Show me Lord; show me where I’ve gone wrong this time. Do you remember the time You told Your followers why they needed to change big time?

Matthew 18:3 (ESV) ^{3 “}… Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

That’s what I concerned about, Lord. And how about the Words you inspired that guy to write in his letter to the Hebrew Christians? You and I know I’ve really tried to follow that one. Here it is:

Hebrews 12:14 (ESV) ¹⁴ Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

And you and I both know I’ve been struggling really, really hard to become as much like You as I can. And we also know I fail miserably sometimes. But whenever I do I always ask You to forgive me, don’t I? I plead with you and even beg you at times to strengthen and help me to overcome every temptation to sin against you in the future. What makes the whole thing even worse is my knowing what Job knew Lord. For instance, I also know it was you and you alone who gave him many blessings and it was you alone who had taken them away. By your grace, the poor guy was able to say:

Job 1:21 (ESV) ²¹ “… 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.”

Heather continues: “There’s not a doubt in my mind about the truthfulness of Job’s statement applying to me as well. And you know that, too, don’t you Lord?” However, in spite of pleading with the Lord like this, Heather is still unable to come up with any particular sin or sins she hasn’t asked God to forgive her for. She again pleads with Him to use whatever means He chooses to help her to stop sinning. Then suddenly, another thought pops into Heather’s mind: “be still and know that I am God,” (Psalm 46:10). Sooner or later she will also have her memory jogged and will remember a verse such as:

Psalms 119:105 (ESV) ¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

And then the Spirit living within the weary woman may cause verses such as the following to also pop into her mind.

Romans 15:4 (ESV) ⁴ … “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

But Heather remains clueless as to why God put her in His furnace. She still can’t figure it out. It doesn’t make any sense. All she does know is that she wants out. Fast! She goes back to the Lord in prayer, “Lord, I’m tired of reminding you that it was you who put me in this miserable thing we both know I can’t stand. If you don’t have me in it because of some sin I’m really not trying hard enough to get rid of, or so that I will be able to enjoy that eternal weight of glory Paul wrote about, then what good can possibly come from me going through such an ordeal? It’s this kind of stuff that doesn’t make any sense, and not just to me but also those unbelievers you brought into my life. They feel sorry for me because they think I deluded myself into believing all of what they call “pie in the sky” nonsense. And for the life of me, I can’t come up with an answer to refute them. But we both know why I can’t, don’t we? You haven’t told me!

“Oh, before I forget, I want to tell you something else you already know about me. Just as you have in the past, I know you are using this horrid affliction to draw me into a closer relationship with you and to wean me from becoming overly attached to this world. And as I said a moment ago, you already know all this; it’s just that saying it makes me feel a little better. Lord, I’m at my wits end. I don’t know how much more of this stuff I can take, but you do. It’s getting so I can hardly concentrate anymore. Does this mean you’re getting ready to take my bookkeeping job away from me soon? Please Father, please! Tell me what good can possibly come from you putting me into your furnace again for no apparent reason.” And then, with her open Bible lying on her lap, Heather wipes the tears that seemed to have been gushing out of her bloodshot eyes like water from an open fire hydrant. She blows her nose, rests her hands on her Bible, and another one of our Father’s physically and emotionally exhausted children drifts off into a sound sleep.

Although she had been asleep for a good hour, to Heather it seemed as thought it was only minutes. And even though none of her windows were open, a gust of wind suddenly brushed against her face just enough to awaken her. The startled woman quickly raised her drooping head and gazed down at her hands on top of her open Bible and started to move them slowly. And then for some unknown reason, she stopped and saw that her index finger was pointing to a couple of Bible verses, and she knew God had finally given her the answer she had so diligently been searching for. Next the following verses flowed into her mind in rapid succession.

Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV) ⁷ “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

1 Samuel 2:30 (NIV) ³⁰ “…. Those who honor me I will honor,”

1 Peter 5:6-7 (NIV) ⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Psalms 37:4 (AMP) ⁴ Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.

After the verses stopped coming Heather put those two particular ones her finger was pointing at in context and read:

2 Corinthians 1:1-6 (NIV) ¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia: ² Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵ For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

Now Heather knew our heavenly Father planned for some of His most precious children to suffer greatly, sometimes for a long period of time, to train and equip them to be a source of comfort and encouragement to other brothers and sisters in Christ who are severely afflicted. God often places some of His children in that dreadful furnace because He intends to bless many other people through their painful ordeal, such as the time He sent a young man named Joseph into it for eleven long years (Genesis 45:5-8).

You folks may not realize it but I’m constantly thinking and praying about my next week’s sermon on and off every day throughout the week. Sometimes I make myself a little anxious and tend to get a down a bit. It’s times such as these that I pray all the harder. One such occasion occurred last week. I went to Him in prayer just before going on the internet, where, among other things, I read the following advice to care-givers. It was entitled “Dealing with Loss.” Allow me to share.

“A couple of years ago while sitting in the examination room with my wife, the Dr. said something that really stuck with me.  My wife had totally lost it in the office, sobbing uncontrollably, wishing she was dead.  At this point the Dr. looked at me and said “there is a lot of loss here, you will need to deal with the loss.” This struck me, certainly I understood that my wife was no longer able to do many of the things she used to do, even her mind was not able to reason as it once did, but I had never looked at it from the perspective of “loss.”

“So what to do? Attitude adjustment!  See things from God’s perspective.  Our spouses are a gift from God; we are bound together by God as one flesh.  Caring for our hurting loved one is a privilege, not a burden.  Find joy in doing what is right in the sight of God.  Oh yes, find time to unwind with a long hike or bike ride on our own.  But better yet, delight in honoring God as we attend to the needs of our suffering loved one, putting the needs of others ahead of our own. I know many of you are saying in your mind, yea right! But it is true; there is a great contentment and satisfaction when we put the needs of others before our own.  I have experienced this peace and contentment by God’s Grace. To Him be all Praise and Glory and Thanks Giving. Husband Guy, blessed by God to care for Wife Carol”

I was so surprised and inspired by Guy’s heartfelt words that I choked up and had to restrain myself from crying tears of joy because I didn’t want to frighten my two young grandson’s who were visiting. But I wanted to shout praises of thanksgiving for Him having comforted and encouraging me in such a wonderful unexpected manner. My anxious thoughts concerning today’s sermon quickly faded away, and although I still had a way to go before I finished this morning’s message, I knew God would once again help me put it together. Guy prefaced his email to me by writing: “Brother Mike, Thank you for your latest Sermon, “The Gift of Suffering.”  To many this title sounds like a contradiction in terms. How can suffering possibly be a gift? I can tell you from firsthand experience that indeed suffering can be and is a gift from the hand of God. Thank you for the many quoted “comfort” scriptures in your message, for it is in the promises of God found in His Word that we find the strength to persevere.”

In last week’s sermon I quoted a dad whose daughter and caretaker son-in-law were trapped in the dreaded furnace of affliction for over twenty-two years with no end in sight. The dad wrote: “…we live in a purposeful world with a linear movement to a grand climax. Thousands of sub-plots unfold enroute to the grand finale. Behind your life is an unseen and unfathomed blueprint where every experience is purposeful.” You and I know from our experiences which are confirmed by the Scriptures that God works in mysterious ways. I can’t help wondering about all the rest of the many blessings our Lord has planned to bestow on my friend Guy and his wife Carroll. One thing I do know however is that I won’t be at all surprised when God finally gives Guy one of the main desires of his heart, an opportunity to be used by the Lord to share His love for some of His followers through Guy as an ordained Minister of the Gospel and pastor of a Bible believing Church. That wonderful thought brings to mind a fact William Cowper, the great hymn writer penned in the nineteenth century and which each of us who are struggling in that painful furnace can take comfort in knowing that, “behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.” Lord willing, next week…