Category: Suffering

Divine Restraint

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After Jesus had been performing miracles and feeding thousands of hungry people, a crowd was about to push an issue in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, and at the wrong time. “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:15, ESV).

The restraint displayed here by Jesus amazes me, because at that moment, HE KNOWS HE IS KING! He had every right to come the first time to earth and take over the universe He had created and set up His perfect kingdom. But He didn’t. He waited. He restrained His glory and His rights. He chose a crown of thorns rather than a crown of jewels. He determined to be mocked rather than to take over. Why?

Jesus chose the road of suffering back then for YOU. If He had come the first time to set up His righteous kingdom, we could have never been a part of it. But since He came the first time to suffer for sin in our place, we can join Him when He comes to reign and be truly known as the King of the universe.

Have you trusted in His suffering for your sin? Have you reacted to the love He displayed for you in His divine self-denial? Have you believed in the King who wore a crown of thorns so that you could one day be beside Him when “on His head are many diadems”? (Revelation 19:12, ESV)

“Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15, ESV)

The Reason for Every Regular Day Jesus Lived

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– The God who designed a woman’s womb was birthed from one with much travail.

– The One whose joy is everlasting had to burst into tears as He took His first breath.

– Jesus who spins the planets around the sun now stands beneath the moon and stars.

– Christ who powers that bright orb now grows weary under its heat at the peak of day.

– The God of perfect, triune love feels the sting of hatred and desertion.

– The One who supplies all creatures with daily food experiences hunger pangs.

– Jesus who created the universe in six days without exertion now grows tired at each day’s end.

– Christ who is eternal now knows the gloom of impending death all His earthly days.

– The God who formed each person’s body with intricacy and wonder now walks about in flesh that feels pain.

– The One who is Lord of the universe becomes just one Person among many, unknown and unpopular.

– Jesus who owns the whole world now faces the sting of poverty.

– Christ who never sinned becomes the sacrifice for all sin.

– God who sustains the life of all creation must raise Himself from the reality of death.

– The Christ of Heaven must ascend back to Heaven.

– The God of all glory who willingly chose to do all this will come again to restore us to the glory He originally intended.

We celebrate at Christmastime the day of the birth of Jesus Christ. While this is important, we cannot forget the days after His birth and the totality of the life He lived preceding His death and resurrection. For these days, we are most thankful. These days enabled Him to be made “perfect through suffering” on our behalf. (Hebrews 2:10, ESV).

Jesus suffered long before His crucifixion. The highest of all beings descended to the lowest of human experiences. Isaiah 53:2-3 (ESV) assures us that Jesus was not a glamorous or popular person and that, in fact, He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

When we hear in Hebrews 2:10 that Jesus was made “perfect through suffering,” God does not mean to say that Jesus had ever been imperfect or sinful. The word rendered “perfect” here means “to be brought to completion” or “to have the end goal accomplished.” How amazing that God chose to complete the job of participating in our suffering by enduring the regular, human struggle – including Monday mornings! – from the day of His birth to the day of His death.

Hebrews 2:10 heartens us, because we realize that the founder of our salvation knows exactly how we feel in the human experience. Jesus began the journey of identifying with us from the moment He descended to the womb of Mary. And every minute after that added to the process of Christ fully identifying with our frustration, pain, loneliness, and heartache.

The culmination of all His days was the moment He cried out on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30, ESV). The work was then complete. All our sin had been paid for, as Jesus had walked all His days as we walk in order to be the perfect substitute for us.

Thank you, Jesus, for your humble birth in to the world – and for EVERY DAY thereafter.

“Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:17, NLT)

Torture or Trust

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Read this paragraph carefully:

    As she lay there suddenly unconscious, he hovered over her body with his glistening knife. His accomplices nervously awaited his every move as beads of sweat dripped from his forehead despite the well-thought-out plan. He lifted his arm slightly … and then … it happened. His gloved hand began its descent toward her chest. The intense breathing could be heard from behind his mask. Then, swiftly, the glistening knife pierced her skin and went deeper, deeper.

This scenario sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it? However, before you make a judgment call, read the end to the story:

    Within minutes the doctor had removed the deadly bullet which had been lodged perilously close to her heart. She would recover.

Do the last two sentences change your whole outlook of the account? What at first appeared to be a horrendous act of cold-blooded murder … was actually an act of life-saving mercy. The masked man is a surgeon, his accomplices comprise the medical team, and his goal is to save life – not end it.

When we lack proper knowledge, what is good can be mistaken for bad. For example, try telling a two-year-old boy whose own mother is holding him down as a doctor jabs an IV into his arm that the adults are actually trying to help him and not torture him. Explaining this to a child is a difficult – if not impossible – task. The qualitative and quantitative gap in understanding between a baby and an adult is a large one. But, in a few decades, the gap will disappear. A twenty-year-old young lady can comprehend the need for IV hydration. She would not accuse her parents or the doctor of some cruelty. She can accept that while the method for healing is painful, it is necessary.

It is easy to see why a baby being injected for an immunization might be very confused by his mother’s participation in such a painful and mysterious event. A baby needs a few decades to grow in order to have the understanding of an adult, which would give him proper perspective on this protective action.

So, picture if you would, that you are a little child on the lap of God. And He is allowing some mysterious “injection” of pain and struggle to come to you. He is holding you, but it hurts. You have no idea what good this trial could possibly be accomplishing. It makes no sense to you from your limited perspective. All you feel is the agony, and God is holding you there. Should you assume that He is just torturing you? Of course not.

If a finite gap in understanding between children and adults causes a child to confuse necessary healing procedures for seeming torture, how much more could the infinite gap in understanding between humans and God cause us to confuse His ways of healing for what appears to be only misery?

I never expect a baby to comprehend the need for an injection of medicine via a sharp needle. That expectation is unrealistic. I can only hold the baby and hope that he will continue to associate my regular pattern of love and comfort with my current actions, even though he can’t possibly figure them out. One day, after the child has grown, my actions will make sense. He will look back and know that I had his best interest in mind all along.

If we can’t expect a child to grasp the healing work of adults just because fifteen years of growth stands in the way, why do we demand to grasp the method of all of God’s work in our lives when an infinite gap of wisdom stands between us and Him? By doing so, we are placing an unfair demand on our supreme, supernatural, and loving God.

When I get to Heaven, I expect to begin growing in understanding in a way that I simply couldn’t while in this world and bound by sin. Eternity and a new likeness to Christ (I John 3:2) will help me to see all the ways God was making me better through the pain. Until then, I will sit on His lap, and I will trust Him even though it hurts.

“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” (Job 13:15, NKJV)

Dying Dog On My Trunk

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I paced around the stores asking God to show me a family to help. It was a few days before Christmas, and I was hoping to recognize a family in financial need that I could bless with food or toys. “Please God, lead me to someone,” I prayed to myself. “Show me exactly the right people.” And so it was with disappointment that I left the last store of my shopping spree, not having sensed the Holy Spirit show me anyone for which to buy anything.

I started home in my car and approached a familiar three-way intersection. Just as I began to apply my brakes to stop at the sign, I watched a blue truck ease out of a stop directly opposite me in the intersection, coming toward me. Running beside the large, shiny pick-up truck was a cute dog, a beagle. The driver could not have possibly seen the dog running right alongside the passenger side front wheel, because the truck was so high from the ground.

As the dog continued running near the truck, I whispered to myself, “Get away, little dog. Move away.” My words were to no avail. As the truck sped up to go through the intersection, the dog ran directly under the vehicle and was run over. Every second of this horrific event unfolded before my eyes. When the dog was hit, I screamed. Immediately, I knew I had to stop, though I had no idea what I could do or how I would handle this dog that had been crushed through the middle.

I pulled over into a driveway as the dog writhed in pain in the middle of the road. A man raced to the dog and covered him with his coat. I stood with the man who gently put his hand on the dog and explained through tears and anger, “I am the dog’s owner. I saw him running by the truck, and I jumped out of my car to try to stop him, but it was too late.” The man cried as his pet continued to struggle.

A stranger threw a blanket toward us, and the dog’s owner wrapped it around the poor beagle and carried the animal to my car. He looked at someone else and said, “I don’t know whose car this is, but I want to lay my dog here.” I told him it was mine and he could surely let his pet rest on my trunk. So He did.

Within a few minutes, the dog stopped tossing and died. Right there on the trunk of my car, the beagle perished. Soon, the dog owner’s wife and step-son made their way to the scene, and the woman began to sob uncontrollably. As I put my hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her, she came to reveal a sad fact. At the moment of their dog’s accident, the family was on their way to the hospital to pick up her mother, who was coming home to die of cancer after a long battle. Unbelievable. They witnessed the death of their pet on the way to begin the journey of imminent death of a beloved family member. On top of all this, the elderly gentleman who was driving the truck that hit the dog arrived at the scene, unable to stop apologizing or hold back tears. He was obviously filled with grief about the accident, certainly wishing he could somehow “undo” what had happened.

As I stood in the driveway on this cold, bleak winter day with a dead dog on my trunk whose blood now began to drip down my tail light and a sobbing stranger at my side whose mother was dying, my heart came into focus. I realized God had answered my prayer and shown me a family – and a whole lot more.

We don’t really have to search for hurt; it’s everywhere. Every person we pass in the store is carrying some pain and facing some difficulty. No one escapes the heartbreak of sin’s effects. We drive down the road and meet death and suffering at the intersection, so to speak. The trunk of a car that usually bears the weight of groceries or shopping bags or picnic supplies can also bear the weight of destruction and death. No person, no animal, and no thing evades the clutches of sin’s curse. The devastation is real; do not deny the strength and ugliness of the results of rebellion against God. Know it. Then hate it. Fight against sinfulness wherever you find it. Begin in your own heart. Determine to do battle with sin and its icy cold grasp, for it is the source of all this misery.

That evening, as my husband and I packed up freshly baked cookies, a fruit basket, and a devotional book for the hurting family I had just met hours ago; I asked the Holy Spirit to deliver hope. When we arrived at the home, we were invited in for a few minutes by the family that was definitely shocked to see me again. I expressed my sympathy about the dog and my prayers for their mother who was now already at the house receiving hospice. I just wanted to take a taste of the kindness – the grace – of Jesus to that family. Perhaps the power of sin would be broken in one more little sphere of this world.

Later that evening, my own uncle succumbed to his battle with cancer. I sat with my extended family around his body and once again pondered the agony of the last enemy that Jesus will one day conquer – death. How hideous evil is. How gruesome its fallout.

As I went to sleep that night, I could not get my family, the dog, or the other family out of my head. But I realized that – as Christians – we all need reminded of the ultimate battle that is taking place. In a dark world, we must be shining the light of the hope of ultimate redemption. When I had taken a bucket of soapy water and flushed the remaining dog blood out of my taillight that afternoon, I was reminded of the truest sacrifice of all time – the blood of Jesus Christ. What blood we now see shed as a result of sin is really nothing compared to the blood of the sinless God-Man once dripping from the Cross as the cure for sin.

This cosmic conflict isn’t a game; this is real. Everything is at stake. Death and suffering have come to all because of sin. There is a real problem; there is a real answer. Jesus saves. Jesus delivers a hope that darkness cannot steal from us.

We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. – I John 5:19-20 (ESV)

Far As the Curse Is Found

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Third verse of Joy To the World:
“He comes to make his blessings known far as the curse is found…”

Just exactly how far IS the curse found?

It reaches down every aisle at Walmart in the hearts of frustrated people.
It’s found at every opening of a bottle of medicine at the hands of the sick.
It strikes the houses in the neighborhood in the hearts of lonely people.
It stretches to the office of every person with an unfulfilled dream.
It extends to the corner of the classroom with the isolated child.
It spreads through the community after the devastating storm.
It seizes the face of the hurting as tears run down their cheeks.

Jesus came to bring His redeeming grace far as the curse is found. This grace currently enables us to hold on while we walk in the places touched by the curse. This redeeming power will one day overcome the curse in all places of its grasp.

The God who brought the curse because of our sin, will soon remove the curse because of His Son. The curse does not magically disappear; it has been undone through the curse put upon the Son of God on the cross. (II Corinthians 5:21)

Thank you, Jesus, that one day no person will walk in frustration.
No medicine will ever again be needed.
No person will ever be lonely.
No worthy dream will ever go unfulfilled.
No natural disaster will ever wreak havoc.
And no tear of sadness will ever be shed.

“He comes to make his blessings known far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found.”

(Revelation 21:3)

Comparing Your Life to Someone Else’s Life: The Problem and the Answer

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“Lord, what about him? Why is his life easier than mine?” or “Lord, what about her? Why is she so healthy while I suffer?” or “Lord, what about him? Why does he live in a big house with lots of things and I don’t” or “Lord, what about her? Why is her family so functional and mine dysfunctional?” or “Lord, what about him? Why is he so successful in his pursuits while I seem to fail at so many?”

Comparisons. Questions about why things are different for other Christians. We all tend to measure our circumstances against those of other people. However, this aspect of fallen human nature can lead to all sorts of problems. We waste our time contemplating and comparing, and we cease following Jesus as He intends. We are too busy looking side to side rather than to our God in front of us.

Jesus counseled Peter in comparing and contrasting. Immediately following Peter’s restoration as beautifully outlined in John 21:15-17, we find our Lord preparing Peter for a great sacrifice. Jesus was reassuring his dear friend of forgiveness for the denial of a lifetime. Remember when Peter swore after the arrest of Jesus, “I do not know the man”? Recall that three times poor Peter denied His Savior. (Matthew 26:69-75) What a deep peace must have descended upon this disciple as Jesus now commissioned him three times to serve God. What a flood of hope must have swept over Peter as he walked again with His Savior. Yet, in the midst of the rejoicing, Truth called Peter to understand a difficult part of the future.

Jesus looks at His precious disciple and says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (John 21:18, ESV) The Bible makes clear in the next verse what Jesus meant by these words: “(This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this [Jesus] said to him, ‘Follow me.'” (John 21:19, ESV)

Our Lord here tells Peter that he will be crucified for Jesus’ sake. He allows Peter to see that he will be a martyr for the Kingdom of God. And yet, this tough information was followed by Jesus’ command to “Follow me.” Christ did not tell Peter of the unbelievable task he would face in order to discourage him. Jesus did not reveal this part of the future and then say, “Give up” or “Turn back, Peter, because it will be too much for you.” No! Christ says, “Follow me!” In other words, Jesus knows that Peter will make it. Although crucifixion seems too much, our Lord knows the Source of His child’s strength. Perhaps Jesus here had in mind the words of Hebrews 12:2 (NIV, 1984), “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” You see, Jesus set our salvation before His eyes as He accomplished the unfathomable task of deity dying for sin. He looked to us as His motivation. Now, we look to Him as our motivation and strength.

Next, we encounter the great comparison. After hearing this news of his own martyrdom, Peter “turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved [John] following them . . . When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about this man?'” (John 21:20-21, ESV) I chuckle as I read these words because I can hear myself. “Jesus, what about her? What about him? Why is my life more difficult or my way not as prosperous?” Can you hear yourself too? Oh, how blatantly human were the disciples of Christ! Peter has just had an intimate and healing encounter with Jesus and then heard of his high – but challenging – calling. No sooner did Peter turn around than he was comparing his lot to that of John! “Lord, what about him? Is he going to have to be crucified?”

Now, Jesus is the God of Truth – not psychological babble. He deals with the human tendency of comparison in a very direct way. He pointedly says to Peter, “If it is my will that he [John] remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (John 21:22, ESV) Wow! “What is that to you?” This rhetorical question of our Savior rings in my ears and resonates in my heart. I have heard Jesus speak it to me a thousand times since studying this passage of Scripture. If someone else’s way seems easier, what is that to you? If some other Christian’s life seems to make more sense, what is that to you? If someone else seems more successful, what is that to you? If someone else is healthier or more materially prosperous, what is that to you? If someone else seems to be more blessed than you according to your understanding of things, what is that to you?

In other words, we should not compare. On this, Jesus is abundantly clear. In essence, Jesus says, “Peter, don’t look at John’s way. Look at ME!” In following Jesus and not the lives of others, we find our peace and our fulfillment. In living out Hebrews 12:2 (cited above), we find our true joy.

In fact, Peter died a martyr’s death, having been crucified under the reign of emperor Nero. John, however, was the one disciple to die of natural causes after having been exiled to the Isle of Patmos and writing the book of Revelation. Nonetheless, despite the difference in their lives’ ends, both Peter and John had God’s joy and God’s reward. We hear the words of Peter as he writes to the people of God being persecuted in Asia Minor, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, . . .” (I Peter 1:3, NIV, 1984).

No doubt, we will talk with Peter and John in Heaven, and both will say what a marvelous thing is salvation! Both will recount the faithfulness and love of God. Both will testify to the goodness of God, though their lives were very divergent.

Do not look to the circumstances and lives of others. Do not look to the left at one person or to the right at another. Look straight ahead – at Jesus. And hear Him say of any potential comparison, “What is that to you? You follow me!”

The Merging of Human and Divine Suffering

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Human misery abounds. We endure pain that comes in many shapes, sizes and ways. The heart aches, the body hurts, the mind is torn; and all the while life goes on. The questions beneath the surface are, “Does God understand?” and “Does God care?”

In teaching an adult class in Christian apologetics (a reasoned defense and articulation of the biblical faith), I was moved deeply in one moment of time as we recognized the profound message of God through one of the Psalms. We were studying the miraculous fulfillment of prophecy (against mathematical odds) as evidence of the Bible’s credibility. In particular, Psalm 22 is a psalm of David, written c. 1000 B.C. And yet, we find much of its content fulfilled in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ c. A.D. 30. God stays true to His Word over the span of a millennium. The Spirit of God worked through David’s life and mind as the words of Psalm 22 were written, and the same Holy Spirit was at the Cross of Calvary as Jesus suffered.

Striking me in our class that one particular day, were the beauty and comfort of the merging of the affliction of both man and God. You see, David was a mere human. He was a brave shepherd who became a king, but he was also a person who committed adultery and murder. David was a man of flesh and bone. He knew success and he knew failure. He prospered at times, but he also endured great loss. Hated and pursued by King Saul, having watched his baby with Bathsheba die, betrayed by his own son, and regretting deeply His sin; David was a human who knew anguish. That anguish pours from his pen in Psalm 22.

Hear David’s first lament in verse one, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1, ESV) Have you ever felt this way? Forsaken by God? As if God is distant and not hearing your groans? Perhaps we perceive a distance because our distress is so great, or because our sins against God are so palpable. In either case, we at times feel that the Lord has thoroughly forgotten us. We understand David’s grieving.

Ah, but do we understand God’s grieving? Do we recognize that for however intensely we sink into sorrow, God sinks even deeper? Though David asked and recorded these dark questions 1,000 years before Jesus came to earth, the Son of God Himself uttered the same words as He languished on the Cross. Yes, I at times feel like God has abandoned me. The sinfulness of me and the whole world has shattered the framework of peace and right as originally intended. That invasion of brokenness as the result of sin leads us to sense that we have somehow been deserted. Though the feeling is very real to us, the truth is that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was actually isolated as His Father substituted Him as the offering for our sin in the grueling moments of the Cross. Jesus did, in fact, endure the unimaginable darkness of being abandoned by the Father. With incredible determination, Jesus willingly took the hit of “being forsaken.” We hear Him call out loudly from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, ESV)

Would you look to the dovetailing here of human and divine misery? What David feels, God fulfills. The hurt we humans face is met directly by our Creator. His love is so profound that He dives even lower into the hurt than we can go. Never believe that God does not understand. Place one finger in your Bible at Psalm 22 and another in Matthew 27, and then ask God to comfort your heart with His immeasurable and tangible understanding of your pain.

The entirety of Psalm 22 is filled with allusions to Christ’s suffering. Amazingly, God parallels the hurt of Jesus with the feelings of David. David cries, “My heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast” (Psalm 22:14b, ESV). We know that misery. We have experienced our heart “melting” in despair. Incredibly, this outpouring of David by God’s Spirit is surrounded by words we again can tie directly to God’s Son: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death” (Psalm 22:14-15, ESV). Jesus’ body was hanging on a cross – bones out of joint – but not broken. He suffered unbelievable thirst. Ultimately, God laid His Son in the dust of death, as no human took His life. Following the death of Jesus, water and blood poured from His side at the strike of the Roman spear. All these details correspond to the feelings and prophecy of David’s Psalm. Do you see the merging of how we sometimes and temporarily feel with the actuality of God’s suffering?

Take comfort! The last verses of the psalm confirm the glorious end result of God’s work in the midst of greatest distress. God was in control even as Jesus died. God raised Him up! God accomplished His goal; the suffering had purpose! So does yours. “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (Psalm 22:24, ESV).

God knows. Your greatest misery merges – just as David’s – with the suffering of God. He did not have to, but God chose to enter into pain more profoundly than we can imagine. When you pray, He understands.