Suffering takes on many forms – addiction, depression, physical ailments, strained relationships, health concerns, financial shortfalls – and many people find this as a time to cry out to God for relief. And when our hoped for relief isn’t provided in the time we allot, we can be disappointed, questioning God, thinking he may not care for us or choosing to believe there is no Creator at all.
Issues in our lives come up in two fundamental ways –
either self-imposed or not.
It is not always that black and white, but often times we do or do not contribute more or less to the difficulties. Challenges related to addiction are brought on by our continuous use of substitutes for God. We may have a role in relationships that are unstable. Financial woes and some distressing physical conditions may also be matters to which we contributed.
Some suffering is clearly undeserved and we did not contribute to it in any way. In both cases, the result is the same. We are miserable, anxious, perhaps feeling hopeless and alone. So why when we would ask God to take care of this, he sometimes seems to stand aside?
We can’t know all that God does nor his motivations and reasons. However, scripture does contain many verses on how God provides during our most difficult times:
God’s view is the long term – the longest term – and ours is often
times the immediate and urgent.
As a father, I sometimes would discipline my children – which is actual a form of “controlled suffering” – to spare them from what I know will be greater suffering later if their behavior continues. When catching one of my kids being dishonest, I might issue a grounding from something enjoyable rather than allow him / her to continue on being dishonest, which, if this persists on into adulthood could render devastating consequences.
So too, our Father may at times allow what he might see as “controlled suffering” as a means of correcting us and also drawing us closer to and more dependent upon him. He might see this near-term suffering as the means to keep us from the longest suffering which is an eternity separated from him. There simply is no suffering in this world that is so great that it is worse than that.
If you are in a season of suffering currently, my heart very much goes out to you. I would urge you to continue to pray for relief from your difficulties, and at the same time ask God to work in you to teach you and make you of greater use to him in bringing his Kingdom to this world. Ask for endurance, and don’t be apprehensive about expressing your impatience or pain.
He loves you. He will care for you. He wants to bring you into his glory, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Richard Bahr 