Embracing Suffering: Trials, Faith, and God's Guidance

I would think of the first chapter of James, where he says, "When all kinds of trials and temptations come into your lives, my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends. Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance." But then he says this important thing. He says, "Let the process go on." And God does let the process go on. Remember that Israel had to go through that wilderness. Daniel had to go into the lion's den. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had to go into the furnace. And sometimes the furnace lasts a long time. [00:01:18]

I don't know a better therapy for depression and despair and grief itself than this formula from Isaiah 58:10. Start pouring yourself out for somebody else, because there are a lot of people in much worse shape than you are. You cannot do it alone. It's only by the grace of God, and He will help you. When you start doing that, something amazing happens. This principle of exchange starts to go into operation and, as he promises here, then you will be satisfied. Your own hungers, your own needs will be met when you start meeting somebody else's. [00:02:00]

In the passage describing Paul's thorn in the flesh, he says that it was not only a gift given to him to prevent spiritual pride -- which clearly means that it had to be a gift from God -- but he said it was also a messenger of Satan given to buffet him. So that has settled my mind forever in trying to figure out whether something that comes to me is from God or from Satan, because we live in a fallen world in which Satan is the prince of the power of the air -- and he apparently has tremendous authority because he offered to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. [00:02:48]

We are at the mercy of Satan up to a point, but he has no rights over us any more than he had over Job, any more than he has over Jesus, and yet God gives him permission. We can't plumb the mysteries, but we can recognize that we belong to God, and "greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world." [00:04:39]

One aspect of anyone who is bereaved, I suppose, experiences the fact that their friends -- many of their friends -- sort of fade away into the woodwork because they don't know what to do. They don't know how to respond to this. And I -- come to think about it, I do remember people actually avoiding me, and I didn't take it hardly. I took it simply that they did not know how to respond. [00:06:05]

I can't handle bad emotions. I can't handle loneliness, I can't handle despair and discouragement. So it becomes material for sacrifice. It's something which I literally have to offer to God. And, if you want me to give you a -- my own very simple formula, and it's not the way you have to do it, but it has been of, of a great help to me, to just get alone somewhere, get down on my knees, and say, "Lord, you know how I'm feeling" about this thing, whatever it is. [00:09:02]

In other words, God may give me the same thing a thousand times to give back to Him, and He keeps exchanging it and giving it back to me. And He is working in mysterious, unseen ways which, ultimately, I think we're going to see -- just as the poem about the weaver tells -- He is at work. And the day is going to come when He will unfold the pattern, and it will be your responses that are going to make the difference there. [00:10:52]

The most practical book in the world is the Bible, and I can give you a verse from John 14, and then I'll try to bring it down to earth maybe, if it's not practical enough to suit you. It says, in verse 21, John 14: "The man who has received My commands and obeys them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and disclose myself to him." [00:11:22]

In other words, the knowledge of God is not an intellectual exercise. It is the reward of obedience. And I gave you the story of my friend Terry, who decided to obey God and honor her mother. And, instead of arguing, and fussing, and whining, and howling, and creating a scene, when her mother said, "No, you can't go," she said, "Okay." Now, I don't know how to be any more practical than that. [00:12:16]

Very often, young people -- college students, high school students -- come to me and they say, "I really want to do the will of God. I really want to know God. Now, how do you get there?" You know, they think I'm way up here on some kind of a pedestal that they've got to struggle to get to, and how did I get there? And I try to show them that I'm still right down here in kindergarten struggling the same way they are. [00:12:57]

We are to do the work of God without haste and without sloth, and only God can help us to sort out what is His will and what is ours or somebody else's. [00:15:33]

Our pattern is Jesus, again. He was a very busy man, and yet He, He moved in perfect serenity from one thing to the next. And I think the secret of the peace that He gives is to do the work that God has given us to do. And that's, of course, the tension that you and I have to deal with. I constantly pray, "Lord, Thy list be done." [00:15:33]