World-famous
missionary wife, Elisabeth Elliott, whose husband was brutally murdered (in 1956) trying
to give the gospel to a semi-nomadic Indian tribe (considered among the most violent in the world) deep in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador,
once wrote, “People who have themselves experienced both grief and fear know
how alike those two things are . . . They are equally disabling, distracting
and destructive.”
“Fear
is a natural emotion common to all human beings, and it is neither inherently
sinful nor godly,” reads a quote from an online ministry site. “Our fears are
often connected to the things we love the most. We may fear losing something or
someone we love. Or we might fear that we will fail to obtain something we
desire. We may fear offending one we love. Or perhaps we feel a reverential
fear of something or someone we admire. The cause of our fears is often the
love or admiration of some created thing or of God Himself.”
People say they could never accept
a God who allows such suffering in the world, but as a preacher points out, "We
know the world isn't dying for love; the world's dying in
spite of the greatest love anybody could ever know."
From what I’ve learned over the
years, fear for an unsaved person contemplating believing in Jesus Christ can
be very intense. They fear losing their relationships, their reputation, their
social life, their comforts, habits, on and on. They fear being embarrassed, ridiculed,
ostracized and left lonely. They fear the devil’s retribution. They fear God
making them change at the expense of their basic happiness and/or ability to
cope.
*****
In what C.S. Lewis calls an “inconsolable
longing,” and uses to describe it the German word Sehnsucht
(which has no direct English translation but is akin to words such as craving,
yearning, hunger), he writes in his book The Weight of Glory:
“In speaking of this desire for
our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain
shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open an
inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you
take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and
Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in
very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward
and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell,
though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something
that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because
our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers
at the mention of a name.”
*****
Believers throughout time have
attested to how the trials and tribulations of their lives either led them to
Christ or made them lean on Him all the more closely.
One of my favorite hymns dating
from childhood, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," has the line, "Can
we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?"
The text for the well-beloved song
from 1857 was originally part of a letter of comfort Joseph Scriven wrote to
his mother upon learning she had a serious illness but knowing he could not be
with her since he was in Canada and she was in Dublin.
Another great old hymn, "Safe
in the Arms of Jesus," proclaims, "Free from the blight of sorrow,
Free from my doubts and fears; only a few more trials, only a few more tears. .
."
The song was one of 9,000-plus
spiritual pieces written by Fanny Crosby, who was blinded for life at two
months of age in 1825 when a man falsely claiming to be a doctor treated an
illness of hers with hot-mustard poultices applied to her eyes!
Crosby, who would go on to such
success she was personally acquainted with all the U.S. presidents during her
lifetime of 95 years, lost her father only a few months after going blind. Her
mother was forced to take a job as a maid, leaving Crosby to be raised by her
Christian grandmother.
Her first attempt at verse, at age
8, reflected her lifelong refusal to engage in self-pity:
Oh, what a happy soul I am,
Although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't,
To weep and sigh because I'm blind
I cannot, and I won't!
Also as a child, Crosby zealously
memorized the Bible and could recite the Pentateuch, the Gospels, Proverbs, the
Song of Solomon and many of the psalms.
Crosby once wrote about the doctor
who unwittingly caused her blindness: “I have heard that this physician never
ceased expressing his regret at the occurrence; and that it was one of the
sorrows of his life. But if I could meet him now, I would say, ‘Thank you,
thank you, over and over again for making me blind.’ Although it may have been a
blunder on the physician’s part, it was no mistake on God’s. I verily believe
it was His intention that I should live my days in physical darkness, so as to
be better prepared to sing His praises and incite others to do so.”
*****
Preacher Richard Jordan makes the
observation that personal suffering is exactly what makes the Bible appealing
to an individual.
He explains, "You go through
some difficult times, you get down and you're on your back looking up and I've
asked myself this question many times: 'Why would I want to know about all this
information if I never had a time in life when I needed it and could see it
live in me?' All of a sudden, when you think about it that way, the tribulation
isn't tribulation so much."
Paul says in Romans 5:3-4,
"We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
And patience, experience; and experience, hope."
Trouble's not to be a curse, but a
circumstantial context in which God works in a Believer's life. God uses our
circumstances and surroundings as a context in which to apply sound doctrine.
"It's like your life is a
stage, as the great bard says," explains Jordan. "You don't go out on
the stage to find God's will; you find it in His Word. You hide His Word in
your heart and go out on the stage of life to apply it. Our circumstances and
feelings are not the means of divine revelation. Learning to apply God's will,
I begin to grow. I apply the doctrine to my life and it begins to work in
me."
Paul tells us it's the trying of
our faith that works patience. The problems of life say, "Are you going to
rest in who you are in Christ or are you going to go on your devices?"
"What trouble tests is your
resolve to walk by faith," says Jordan. "It tests whether or not
you're going to stay with the doctrine—stay with your identity in Christ—or
you're going to go on your emotions, or other counsel.
“Tribulation is designed to teach
us that if we stay with the doctrine, and that's where patience comes in, that
‘staying’ works experience. We develop a persistent fortitude and unwavering
endurance by just sticking by the Word.
"And when you stay with it,
and stay with it, and stay with it, in spite of the circumstances—meaning you
say, 'This is the truth, I'm not going to walk by sight, I'm going to walk by
faith'— you get some experience. Experience is simply skill in handling a
problem. Experience comes when you face the problem, deal with the problem, and
it comes to a successful conclusion.
“Paul tells us God is ‘the God of
all comfort; who comforteth us in all our
tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by
the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.’
“The idea is that the experience
gained through tribulation lends an enhanced capacity of maturity to
effectively help and comfort others by giving them some of the hope we've
gained through our experience. It's about a maturing process.
"The justice of God can give
you peace, but it can't give you patience. He can give you access, but He can't
give you experience. Patience comes from the life application of the sound
doctrine.
“Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, ‘I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’
"Paul says the thing you
learn in your Christian life—and keep learning at different levels—is, 'It's
not I, but Christ.' You see, when he says, 'You're complete in Christ,' you
can't get God to give you any more. You can't say, 'Oh, God, give me some more
of this or that.' He's got no more to give you. He gave it to you already. All
you can do is appropriate what He already gave you and to appropriate it,
you've got to do two things. One, you've got to know about it, and two, you've
got to need it.
*****
“Life is made up of attitudes and
actions. You go out in life and it doesn't take long before you know you need
something bigger than you to take care of the way you act and your attitudes
about life, and it's going to be Christ, His life. It's sort of a partnership
in maturity, in wisdom, and it comes progressively as you grow spiritually.
This is just the process of growing up spiritually.
“Through the tribulations, Believers
are meant to reach a level of maturity where nothing motivates them but the
love of God in Christ Jesus. That's why Paul says, ‘The love of Christ
constrains us.’
“Through this maturing you're
willing just to relax and not be motivated by a desire to make God happy with
you so that He'll accept you and bless you. You're not motivated by being a big
shot and showing everybody what you know. The thing that love lets you do is
relax.
“Paul says in II Corinthians 4:14,
‘Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’ Life is designed to be a walk of faith,
and the things we endure down here temporarily on earth build a capacity in our
inner man that will last FOREVER. The suffering is what strengthens that inner
man.”
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