Trusting God when we suffer

Is it hard for you to trust God?  To believe that He has your best interest at heart?  To be able to bear what you thought you never could because He allows certain trials to go on and on? 

None of us knows the future, no not one.  But God does.  He knows the beginning from the end.  

A friend once told me that all of the chapter titles in the book of our lives have the same title:  Trusting God.

The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I believe what she said.

The trick is to make sure that we are trusting Him and not only in what He can do for us.

Yes, He is our Provider, Deliverer, Protector, and so much more.  But when we trust Him for the provision, the deliverance, the protection by looking to those things rather than Himself, we will get tripped up. 

Why?  Because the provision rarely comes as we’d anticipated.  The deliverance rarely happens as quickly as we’d like.  And all kinds of stuff still happens to us that we feel like He hasn’t protected us from.  

No, our trust has to go back to the Source.  Our trust must be in Him, because in Him are His omniscience, His wisdom, His timing, His flawless ways.  

Remember Christianity 101:  God is not there as our personal Santa Claus.  God is not obligated to answer our prayers at all.  The fact that He answers them at all is proof more of His lovingkindness and mercies toward us than our meriting His answers.  

God is a loving Father.  None of us can begin to imagine just what all this love encompasses, even if you had the best earthly father example possible.

Good fathers delight to give their children good things. But our Heavenly Father never kowtows to our whims and demands as some earthly fathers may.  

What about suffering, you may ask.  What about it?

I recently watched the movie, “Father Stu” with Mark Wahlberg.  It is based on the true story of a very rough kind of guy who is eventually called into the priesthood. Shortly after he is ordained, he contracts a very rare disease that causes him to lose control over his muscles.

At one point, Father Stu tells his flock, “Suffering is a gift.” 

Father Stu learned that though he never would have asked for such a life of suffering, it was the very thing that God allowed to draw him closer to Himself, to learn His ways, and to be of more value and use to God’s Kingdom.

I don’t know why it works this way.  But I have experienced the same sort of “gifts” in my own life.  Thankfully, not so much in the way of physical suffering. But we all know that mental and emotional anguish can be just as painful as physical, if not more.  

So when God does not seem to protect me from the hurtful barbs that fly my way, He is still very much my Almighty Protector.  Everything, without exception, is allowed by His loving hand for His purposes when we belong to Him.  

If you’re waiting for your season of suffering to be “over,” I am not here to tell you that it will end any time soon, if ever.  I don’t want to give you false hope or for you to place your hope in anything else other than the person of Jesus Christ.  

On the other hand, your suffering may end today.  Only God knows.

But I do know this. I agree wholeheartedly with Father Stu that suffering is a gift.  The question is, what will we do with such a gift?  

If we bemoan and complain, or even get really raw with God and blame Him for it, we only make matters worse (thought He can take all the lashing out that you can give.  He’s God.  He loves when we are honest and real with Him).

We don’t have a clue as to His vast and grand design - not for the universe let alone our lives.  We are but a tiny part of that plan.  Yet every life is an important and crucial part of that plan.

If we can get to the place where we love God so much that we trust Him in our suffering, then we are making progress in our faith.

I am almost certain that harder days lie ahead, not just for the U.S., but globally.  It’s already happening.  

So any suffering that we are already doing, I believe that there is much more to come.  So let us accept it now and learn how to “suffer well” while things are as good as they are.  

There is no shame in suffering.  No one - I repeat, no one - has a life as picture perfect as the one they post on social media.  As Christians, our goal is not to live a "picture perfect" life, but a life that honors God.  And part of the Christian life involves suffering.

This is all not to say that suffering is the only fare on our life menu.  Our Lord is gracious and knows precisely how far to go with us, how long to allow our suffering seasons to go on.

Trusting God means trusting Him in every season, no matter how good or bad.  Remember, we are trusting in the Person of Christ, never in how "well" our life may or may not be going at any given time.  If we trust in circumstances, they will eventually prove incapable of truly and fully satisfying us.  Why?  Because we were made for more.

If we can only trust God when life is going as we wish, then that is not true faith.  Faith is built in the valley, the darkness, the wilderness.  But if we walk with the Lord during those times, we always have a Comforter with us.  We always have our best Friend with us.  We always have purpose because we trust that He knows exactly what He is doing.

Dear Lord.  Help us suffer well.  Help us see every trial and tribulation truly as Your gifts to us.  Please use every hardship in our lives to draw us into a closer relationship with You so that we can live as we were meant to live: in communion with You all our days.  In Jesus' Name.  Amen.