Praying for God to remove the pain of affliction is asking for a quick–fix solution. It's
looking to jump through the fire without being singed, only to be
completely unprepared for the next trial which looms on the other
side, brighter and hotter than the one previous. A lesson is worthless if it has no application, after all. As Bono put it in Yaweh, “There's always pain before a child is born.” Perhaps not the most astute observation he's ever made, but the idea is sound: pain is always attached to beauty. In fact, in the context of that particular song, beauty is the end result of pain. In the same vein, the Scriptures would teach that it is through suffering that followers of Christ are grown, tested, and transformed. Although painful experiences certainly aren't fun by any estimation, we are still encouraged to “count it all
joy” when we encounter them, because the end result of
any affliction is
the fruit of patience (Jas 1.2).
As I sit writing this, the thought running through my head is
probably similar to what you, reading it, will also be thinking: “Right. Easier said than done.” And if that isn’t the truth, I don’t
know what is. Christians (myself included) like to talk a lot
about the appropriate Biblical responses to situations and circumstances which beset us, but when the rubber actually meets the road, we are often
caught up in our own wants and emotions and stumble as a result. Purely by the grace of
God, however, it is always possible to regain our footing and look
to our Father for the guidance and the strength we need to carry on.
So, temptation and suffering. What distinguishes them, and – more importantly – how do we deal with them?
I think it's safe to assume that most people have
read or are at least familiar with Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” a dark and poem about lost love. The Alan Parsons Project even wrote a concept album around it and other memorable works of Poe. While it is not absolutely clear in the text what has happened to Lenore, the woman for whom the narrator pines, but knowledge of the losses in Poe’s personal life
and the tragic fates which typically befell the personas in his writings make it safe to assume that she has succumbed to death. Late one night, “dark and dreary,” the
narrator of the poem finds himself unable to sleep and is idly flipping through old books of literature to distract himself from his misery when he is confronted by the raven, a supernatural harbinger of doom. Desperately, the narrator pleads with the specter to identify itself or simply to give reason for its unscheduled visitation, even though he seems to already
knows the answer. However, the raven, be it a tempter–sent demon or a tempest–tossed prophet, offers no answers with his repeated reply: “Nevermore.”
There is a line toward the conclusion of the poem when the narrator, beginning to grow frantic, beseeches the Raven, “Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!” His question is an echo
of God's own words in Jeremiah 8.22: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter
of my people not been restored?” Gilead is a mountainous area east of
the Jordan River between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, and plenteous evergreens growing there were a source of medicinal resins in Biblical times. By
asking for “balm in Gilead,” the narrator of “The Raven” is
desperately seeking some type of cure for his omnipresent misery,
some reassurance that he will see his lost Lenore again. Descending further into hysteria, he demands in the following stanza, “Tell this soul with
sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn / It shall clasp a sainted
maiden whom the angels name Lenore – / Clasp a rare and radiant
maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” The raven's only reply is his horrible croak: “Nevermore!”
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"Balm of Gilead" is a popular literary metaphor for the
divine alleviation of pain and sorrow.
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In his daily devotionals, C. H.
Spurgeon wrote, “When
he [the Christian] is burdened with troubles so pressing and so
peculiar, that he cannot tell them to any but his God, he may be
thankful for them; for he will learn more of his Lord then than at
any other time. Oh, tempest-tossed believer, it is a happy trouble
that drives thee to thy Father! Now that thou hast only thy God to
trust to, see that thou puttest [sic] thy full confidence in him.” Here is the other reason for our trials: we need to be repeatedly shaken of our self–dependence. Not only do we want comfortable and easy lives, but we also want to be in control, to be autonomous. When things are going smoothly, we feel safe and we grow prideful. However, when everything begins to unwind at the seams, that is the moment we realize our need, and the trouble drives us to our Father – our Father who was in control the whole time. Trials and suffering help us to see our need for God more clearly.
That being said, it is often difficult to draw a line between
what is “tempest–tossed” and what is “tempter–sent” –
in other words, what is the discipline or instruction of God in our lives and what
is the attack of Satan. The problem is that there can be no definitive answer, and trying to interpret the situation in which you find yourself can often be detrimental to simply focusing on living righteously through that situation. There's a lot of reading material out there dealing with delineation between temptations and trials, and even between divine correction and punishment, but such studies aren't nearly as pertinent as understanding our response to suffering. Our responsibility is to “count it all joy” and magnify the Lord, because we trust in His perfect plan, and because we depend upon His provision alone. As Christians, it is far more important to understand what our appropriate response to suffering should be and put it into practice rather than to waste time trying to identify where our pain is coming from (2 Cor 4:7-18; 8.1–15).
There are some things that we need to remember when we find ourselves buffeted. The first is that God does not tempt anyone to sin (Jas 1.13). He does not tantalize or deceive, and he certainly does not nudge us toward a sinful decision just to see if we love Him enough to say no. It is also clear through Scriptures that God sometimes allows the believer to come under significant attack by Satan in order that he or she might grow to trust God more (see the story of Job). Clearly, God tests us for the purpose of growing our faith, refining it through fire. That can look like the loss of a loved one or a failed relationship, or even the spiritual oppression by a prominent person in your life. Regardless of the means, God will challenge us to grow, and allow us to be tempted, because it will conform us more and more to the image of His son.
People, Christians or otherwise, typically don't like this idea. I've heard the angry rejections (“If God really loved me, He wouldn't do this to me”) and the distorted understandings of God's hand of discipline (“God took my child because I didn't pray enough”). I certainly can't slap a definitive label on your circumstances, but I can tell you that God is not heartless, and He does not act without reason. He is not a sultry, jealous lover whose self–love drives Him to make sure we really really love Him – as Max Jacob (a French Poet) characterized Him in his Symposium poems. While God certainly chastises us for the purpose of correction, He does not punish – He corrects, and He does so lovingly, not out of anger. He is motivated by His own glorification and His love for us, and therefore He holds our best interests at heart. This road we walk is about two things: firstly, God's glory, and secondly, our sanctification. Both will be accomplished, and both will require a measure of pain – the kind which strips away our callouses and makes us soft to the impression of the Spirit.
Angry people do not grow in their faith. It is not “okay” to be angry at or “have it out” with God. The audacity that comes with the territory of airing one's grievances to God literally fills me with a sense of fear. We are so ungrateful to our merciful, loving Father, who is constantly caring and providing for us as His children. We accuse and we grow miserable, and without even batting an eye, we criticize the One who, in His infinite mercy and wisdom, has brought us to the hard points in our lives for very specific and ultimately love–driven reasons. As the Lord demanded of Job out of the whirlwind, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me” – as though a mere man could instruct the creator of the universe (Job 38.2-3). The Lord then proceeds, for the next two chapters, to list His works of creation and other acts of power, and Job can do nothing but bow his face to the earth in fear of the Lord's holiness, ashamed at his own pride for questioning the Almighty.
In his book, Irresistible Invitation (not a book I recommend, though it does contain some useful insight), Maxie Dunnam writes: “The providential care of God does not protect us from the bumps and bruises of life, nor from the struggle – and sometimes tragedy – of living. Brothers betray brothers. Husbands desert wives. Good people lose their jobs…Hurricanes devastate cities. Tornadoes destroy trailer parks and rivers flood towns. An earthquake in the middle of the ocean causes a tsunami a thousand miles away. As such, it may not always seem apparent that every part of God’s creation is good. But we can be confident that God is always working out His magnificent plan of redemption.” What we often fail to recognize is that calling God's providence His “plan” for our lives does not insinuate protection from pain. However, it does incorporate God's loving care for His children. Isaiah 43.2 records for us the fact that when Israel passed through the fire, God was with them, and the same is true of us as well. “I will be with you,” our Father promises in this passage. He doesn't say, “You go and I'll watch from a distance.”
Therefore, we have no justifiable grounds to be angry with our God. He is in control, and He has a plan for our lives. It is easy to slip into anger and frustration when our emotions run high, and even then our Father is merciful and understanding. But we must learn to recognize that these types of reactions to less–than–ideal circumstances are the tools of Satan. The last thing he wants is for us to look at suffering the proper way and grow in our faith as a result of the experience.
If, on the other hand, you are comfortable in your Christianity and have been for some time, that should also send up warning flags of another nature in your heart. Comfort is a good indicator that you have become lukewarm, content to go to church and maybe read the Bible, but the passionate love of God is absent from your heart. The mission of Satan also includes a flanking strategy to distract believers from truly living out their faith. There is no better way to accomplish this than to place images in front of them which will distract them from the bigger picture – images of Forbes–style American living and B–grade, watered–down Christianity.
Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle is a book largely influenced by Marxist theory, but his critique of capitalist societies may be perhaps more pertinent to Christian living than expected. Debord defines “the spectacle” as autonomous entity, sustained by society itself, because it renders within the people a desire for passivity through a mediated bombardment of desirable images. The spectacle is obsession with making money, where the commodity has not only “attained the total occupation of social life,” but also become the means of interaction, the only connection for relationships, and a substitute for life itself. The point is this: as American Christians, we like to give the minimum possible effort so that we can get back to our various forms of entertainment and relaxation. Additionally, many of us make money our idol, not in the sense that we make burnt offerings in honor of Mammon, but in the sense that it dominates our time and our thinking: “Gotta work to afford my kids, gotta work to afford my bills. Here's my tithe – not that I can afford it. Gotta work overtime this week.” By Debord's definition, glorification of the spectacle is desiring capital to “such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image,” but idolatry begins long before we find ourselves sitting in front of our flat–screens while our interest accumulates.
As stated, God brings suffering into our lives is to make us more
dependent upon Him. He intentionally interrupts our daydreams of bigger homes and even our honorable desires to be good providers for our families to re–orient our focus. “It is a happy trouble that drives thee to thy Father!” Spurgeon wrote, reminding us of the wonderful mercies of our Father's open arms. Because we have a tendency to drift away from Him in the
easy times, intentionally or otherwise trusting our own capacities
rather than His, our loving Father allows trials into
our lives both to strengthen us and to bring us running back to Him from
wherever it is that we have wandered. His arms are always open to
receive us, no matter how many times we stray. The promise in John's first epistle is not just for the repentant sinner coming to Christ for the first time: “If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1.9).
Related to the themes in Debord's social critique, there is another incorrect perspective on suffering
that haunts churches in America, and that is the idea that suffering
is always a direct result of personal sin. Largely, this is the
propaganda of the Prosperity Doctrine, or the Word of Faith movement – the idea that God wants
everyone to be a believer so they can live happily on the earth, at
peace with one another. Granted, the movement's theology is significantly more skewed from a Biblical perspective than in this area alone (a general synopsis can be found here), but proponents of the Prosperity Doctrine would say that God
wants his followers to be rich, to own thirty acres of land and five
Jaguars apiece, and that if you don’t make six figures every year,
it is because there is some sin in your life and God is punishing you
by withholding material blessings. In other words, if you find
yourself beset by suffering while the rest of the congregation around
you is rejoicing and content, it is because you are in sin. According to this doctrine, God does not want believers to suffer. He wants them to be happy. This is the very rosy picture of
Christianity that unfortunately infiltrates many presentations of the
gospel and common perceptions of what Christianity itself represents.
Obviously this philosophy
flies directly in the face of the inspired Word of God. The story in John 9 of the man born blind is a clear discussion of the fact that suffering will exist in our lives regardless of the sins we’ve committed. Additionally, Paul instructs the believer to count earthly gains as loss
(Phil 3.7), and both Matthew and Mark speak
into the fact that we as believers are called to give up earthly
comfort because they are nothing more than distractions to our faith. In Matthew 5.12 Jesus said, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven
is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were
before you.” This passage connects ideas of blessing and suffering to specific locales: blessings are stored for us in heaven, and suffering is a certainty of the believer's life on earth. Granted, God has blessed us abundantly already through the work of His Son, and continues to renew our strength through the Spirit which indwells us, but these blessings are not tied to physical possessions or wealth (Eph 1:3, 4). We are to store up treasures in Heaven, not on earth, because our servitude is to God alone – not to the American god of money (Matt 6.19-24).
I've been talking a whole lot. Let me tie these things together.
The point I really want to get across is this: if we
as believers are unable to rejoice in suffering and grow in the
challenging times, then there is no possible way we can be useful to
God. This is the discussion about being salt and light to the world, and it immediately follows Jesus' admonition to expect persecution (Matt 5.13–16). The testing of our faith produces patience, a characteristic which not only identifies us as followers of Christ but also enables us to love and serve one another (Gal 5.22–25). God desires followers
who are swift to hear and slow to speak (Jas 1.19), who can bridle
their tongues and control their whole bodies (Jas 3.2), and who can
use gentle words to dispel wrath (Prov 15.1). If we cannot patiently and joyfully accept suffering for what it is and grow in our
understanding of the tremendous purposes it serves, then
all we value is our own physical, emotional, and social comfort. We
become like the narrator of “The Raven,” vainly pleading for
respite from grief instead of capitalizing on the
situation through the direction of the Holy Spirit. In that state of
mind, we fail to recognize that suffering is always a blessing in
disguise, and certainly not something we should go out of our way to
avoid (Phil 1.12 – 2.11).
It is also important to remember that, just as suffering
is a recurring aspect of the believer’s life, so also resisting
temptation is an active, lifelong struggle, and not a one–time
vaccination. This is illustrated through the famous “Armor of God”
passage in Ephesians 6. We are not taught how to arm ourselves
against the “wiles of the devil” for one battle. We will
struggle against sin and temptation throughout our lives. Similarly, Peter's admonition to be sober and vigilant because our “adversary, the devil, prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” serves as both warning and encouragement (1 Peter 5:8). It's a warning because the attack is imminent, but it's also an encouragement, because verse 9 goes on to say, “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” We are not alone in temptation or suffering. Our brothers and sisters around the world are enduring the same
temptations and the same sufferings, perhaps with different circumstances, but in the same war in which we all engage. In other words, it is neither fair nor
justified for us to sink into self–pity and think that no one
understands our predicament. The fact of the matter is that someone,
somewhere has gone through the same experience.
Furthermore, we should be encouraged by the knowledge
that Christ Himself endured all suffering and all temptation during His walk on the earth, more than just to simply provide an example for us to follow. As the author of Hebrews recorded, Christ endured all the suffering and all the temptations that we as humans do, and is therefore able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses (Heb 2.18; 4.15). As the result of our Father's perfect will, Christ is able to identify with us in our sufferings and the Holy Spirit guides us through them. Matthew's account of Jesus' 40–day trial in the wilderness begins, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” The parallel stories in the other gospels also use similar phrasing to illustrate the fact that Jesus was following the direct leading of the Holy Spirit (Matt 4.1–11; Mark 1.12,13; Luke 4.1–13). If you trace those same Greek words for “led up” through the New Testament, you'll find them again in Galatians 5.18, which says, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law,” and again in verse 25, which builds upon that foundation: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” In in the context of Jesus' temptation, the Scriptures leave no doubt that if we are actively allowing the Spirit to lead us in our lives, then it is a guarantee that we will be brought into places of emotional drought and periods of suffering in the same way our Savior was. Therefore, when we come upon the hard times and places of temptation, we should immediately remember that if anyone understands our pain and struggles, it is our Lord and Savior.
This understanding alone should bring incredible confidence to us as believers, recognizing that the God we love and serve is consistent and unchanging, flawless, and ultimately
with us throughout our
times of trials. He does not fail, no matter how often we do. In his most reputable work, The Confessions,
St. Augustine wrote, “The vessels which are full of you do not lend
you stability, because even if they break you will not be spilt.” It may come as a bit of a shock to our human pride to recognize the fact that we do not support God, because He does not need us – even though He chooses us. Yet at the same time, how comforting it is to know that the God who is with us in the times
of suffering will never fail! If we choose to let Him govern our
lives, He holds us together from the inside out.
I don't know where your heart is as you sit reading
this. Maybe you're in a drought or maybe there is simply someone
you have in mind who needs encouragement. Regardless, remember the
admonition of Moses to Joshua upon giving him leadership the people of Israel: “Be strong and courageous. Do
not be terrified or discouraged, for the Lord your God is the one who
goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deut 31:6). This was true for Joshua and the Israelites, and it remains true for God's people today.
So avoid being like the narrator of “The Raven.” Don't
simply look for respite from suffering. Look for the optimal path
through the challenges, trusting the Lord's guidance, and be on the
alert for the temptations encompassing you. Pursue righteousness. Recognize the providential care of our Savior, and the fact
that He has a plan for your life. Don't give in to stress or panic
even though the world seems to be falling down around you. The answer is “yes” – things could
be a whole lot worse. However, thankfully, our Father is
the one who is in control, and He will faithfully carry both you and me
through to the other side. As believers, we can rest assured that everything the Lord does, is ultimately for His glory and for the good of those who love Him (Rom 8.28). He Himself will be our balm in Gilead, because we are promised that, one day, He will wipe away every last tear from our eyes, our sorrow will be no more, and our journey will finally be at an end (Rev 21.3, 4).
~*~
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil!–
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted –
On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore –
Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
from "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
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