Sincere followers of the God of the Bible have been a source of unending bafflement to nonbelievers for millennia.
This is especially true when believers are observed trusting their unseen God even though suffering countless hardships and trials.
The Apostle Paul laid out this seeming paradox unflinchingly in 2 Corinthians 4:8-11:
“… we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are constantly being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh.”
Why are we not spared suffering? “… so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves …”
Glorifying God
In a previous essay I wrote: “I had a close friend, John M. who was a truly godly man and active in Christian ministry. He had a devoted wife, three lovely daughters and everything to live for. Then came his throat cancer diagnosis, which led to years of painful treatments, ending in his untimely death five years later.
“John and I talked many times during his illness, but one conversation is seared in my memory. I asked what he thought God was teaching him through all the pain. Without hesitation, John responded with a quotation from Job 13:15-16, one of the earliest writings of the Old Testament:
“‘Though He slay me,
I will hope in Him.
… For a godless man may not come before His presence.’
“For we who live are constantly being handed over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal flesh.”
2 Corinthians 4:8-11
“Tears welled up in my eyes as I told him that this was the identical passage that God had given me years earlier when I, too, was struggling with a life-threatening bout of cancer.
“In our endeavors to make sense of what was happening, John and I — like Job — were inundated with a lot of worldly advice from our friends that was just plain dead wrong.
“It was only when we turned to God and, in effect, said, ‘God I don’t understand any of this, but this I know, I trust you above everyone else, no matter the outcome.’
“We faced our human limitations and took hold of the only unmovable Being in the universe, God Himself. The resulting inner peace carried us through like a child falling asleep in his mother’s arms.”
When Job tearfully uttered, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” he had just suffered the loss of family, health, wealth and reputation through no fault of his own.
All the while, Job’s wife and friends were pushing him to just curse God and die.
Likewise, the Apostle Paul, and innumerable saints down through the centuries have often found themselves alone, out on a limb with God — and that’s just where God wanted them.
True heart-felt faith has nothing to do with so-called “name it and claim it” pseudo-Christianity, which is always trying to make deals with God to get “stuff.”
Truth be known, when such people “name it” and are unable to “claim it” they often lose their faith altogether.
Out on a Limb
Decades ago, in my engineering days, I visited Boeing Co. on a project. We were working on test equipment for 747 wings.
Those wings were tested applying crushing static weights, intense fatiguing vibrations, extreme temperatures and endless load cycling.
If those wings could talk and you asked them, “how’s it going?” what do you think you’d hear? Yet that is what it takes to build a reliable airliner.
Would you get on an airplane that hadn’t first been tested to its limits?
It’s the same when God sets about making individual saints. Oswald Chambers wrote: “… It means breaking the husk of my individual independence of God, and the emancipation of my personality into oneness with Himself, not for my own ideas, but for absolute loyalty to Jesus. There is no possibility of dispute when once I am there. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ — “For My sake.” It is that which makes the iron saint.”
How About You?
God’s ultimate desire for His children, simply stated in Romans 8:29 is, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son …”
There are no shortcuts here. If God did not spare His only begotten Son from suffering and grief, why do we expect to be carried to Heaven on a bed of ease?
4-1-1
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