Suffering .... and faith?

BY ELDER LEE TECK MENG

Of late, we in GPC have seen the passing of many of our worshippers. Whilst some passed away peacefully, others suffered long. It’s hard to stay unaffected. In reality, we can’t. Whether you were that caregiver or just a passing acquaintance, suffering – experienced or observed - impinges upon our theology. In other words, we often find ourselves asking, where is God in all of this pain? Does He care that I am in such pain? 

In his book “Suffering” (we have a copy in our church library) Paul E Tripp writes about his walk with God in the midst of his personal suffering. In writing frankly he hopes his readers would feel loved, prepared, thankful – not for the pain but for God who is always there with us even in our pain. He writes:

• You and I have no power to make our lives stay as they are.

Life can change in small little ordinary moments or in dramatic big moments. We have no power to welcome only the good things into our lives and ward off the bad things. These moments have the power to transform your life, for good or for bad. No one comes out of it unchanged.

• Our hope is not found in understanding why God allowed suffering into our lives.

Our hope is not found in the belief that somehow, we will tough out this crisis. Our hope is not found in doctors, lawyers, pastors, friends, family. Our hope is not found in our resilience or ingenuity. Though we may look to all these temporary helps, ultimately, our hope rests in the faithful and gracious presence of the Lord with us.

• When you are suffering, its vital that you preach to yourself the truth that Scriptures declare.

Wrong thinking about God’s truth will only complicate and worsen your suffering. Bad theology will crush your hope when it needs to be strengthened. Bad theology will leave your heart wandering, when instead it needs to be rooted and at peace in God. Psalm 27 shows how the psalmist remembers God – perhaps at a time of crisis.

But when you are suffering badly, beaten, defeated, confused, to the point of being barely able to think, there are two promises about God’s presence that offer sturdy, lasting hope to your soul:

THE TWO AMAZING PROMISES OF GOD’S PRESENCE in the midst of your suffering

1. “I am with You Always” Mt 28:20

In that verse, Our Lord Jesus was commissioning His own to suffer for His sake. Our Lord was commissioning His disciples to go out into the world as His agents of His great redemptive mission. Jesus knew the world He was sending them into. And He knew what they would face. He knew their way would be difficult, uncomfortable. They would face constant opposition, accusation, rejection, misunderstanding, persecution, beatings, imprisonment. Jesus spoke these words to give comfort to these His sufferers. He would not let them suffer alone. He would not leave them to suffer in their own strength, would not leave them to rely on their own wisdom. He would give these loyal suffering ones the best assurance ever – that He would always be with them. These are the very words of our Lord. Not man’s words. His words can never be doubted.;

In the OT, God’s presence filled the Tabernacle each time it was erected. The tabernacle in a real way was His residence amongst His people.  But to experience His presence, they had to go where He led them. They had to find God wherever the Tabernacle went. 

But in the NT, when Jesus spoke these words, He was alerting them to what would happen upon His death and resurrection. No longer would His children need to go to the temple to experience His presence. Instead His people would become the place where He lives! Whether you sense it or not, He lives in you. Whether or not you have sought His help on a particular day, he lives inside you. Whether in your suffering you have forgotten Him, ignored Him, gotten mad at Him, He lives inside you. There is no escaping His presence. There is no such thing as being beyond the reach of His care. He is near to you in your suffering. He could not be nearer.

2. “I Will Not Leave You or Forsake You “ Josh 1:5

This promise is found many times in Scripture. Every time God’s children or community faced something new, hard, difficult, overwhelming, God would assure them with this promise. No matter how hard their situation, God was with them and for them. It’s a humbling reminder that God remains faithful to us no matter what, not because of who we are nor what we do but who He is. We didn’t earn His faithful presence by our obedience – which is prone to failure most of the time and neither does our disobedience take away His presence from us. The central message of Scripture is that God is with us forever all because of one thing – His Grace! In your suffering never worry yourself with the fear that you will be forsaken by God. He is for you. He will never leave you.  This God’s promise is a huge comforting reminder and a huge protection from the Devil as well. The devil will try to make us believe his lies that God will leave us, especially when we have let God down, feeling remorseful, defeated & desperate. It is horrible to rob a sufferer of the only place where they look to for Hope. That’s what the Devil does - to try and trip up our faith especially in times of suffering, mocking “Where is your God now?”  

Don’t buy into his lies. In all of your suffering – your good days & bad days – one thing is for sure, your Lord is with you and there is no crisis – either from without or within – that will ever drive Him away. His presence with you, guarantees that in your suffering, you will have everything that you need. 

In the sermon this morning - the ‘Lost’ parables of the Lost sheep; Lost Coin; Lost Son – can you see the Agape-Love of God that chases after us, that seeks us out, determined and resolute to see that we are protected in the blessedness of His Agape-Love?

Easter is just around the corner and the Lenten devotional article for today is about how God’s people were saved from poisonous snakebites just by looking at a bronze serpent which God directed to be made. Can you see again the faithful Grace and Mercy of God towards His people, despite their repeated failures to obey Him? This is the God who never leaves His people.

In CWBS we are studying the Gospel of John. And if you read the subsequent letters which John continued to write; you quickly notice a very strong recurrent theme of (Agape) Love. Perhaps John understood & experienced deeply what it meant to be so Agape-Loved by Our Lord Himself. Could that be the reason why he often called himself ‘the one whom Jesus loved’? How blessed it is to understand what’s it like to be so secure in the embrace of God’s Agape-Love.  

Perhaps this article should be re-titled ‘God’s love’. His Love so overwhelming that all pain & suffering just has to recede into the background. Not that we will ourselves to ignore pain & suffering, but that it gets overshadowed by an Agape-Love that’s so overwhelming. 

The Shalom of the Lord be with you, especially to those of us in the midst of suffering.