This guest post comes from one of our Summit members, Sarah Short, inspired by a recent message on Psalm 73.
Have you ever known someone who seemingly has it all but grumbles and complains through life? Maybe they have money, fame, good health, and success and yet, they’re never really content?
On the contrary – have you ever known someone, either up close or through reading or watching their story unfold, go through a season (or an entire life) of suffering – and do so with this intangible, can’t-put-your-finger-on-it joy? Amidst great pain and heartache, they somehow have this underlying, seemingly supernatural peace.
Why are we so drawn to the latter? What is it about these people? What is that thing they have that makes no sense at all? Why aren’t they angry? Why aren’t they bitter?
– How can someone whose body is ravaged with cancer have that kind of joy?
– Why would someone trust a God that would allow his or her child to suffer?
– Why are they not constantly angry, grumbling, and furious at God for allowing their circumstances?
When we see something beautiful and lovely and joyful sprouting up out of circumstances of despair, it just seems incomprehensible.
But what about this? What if there is something in suffering that produces this unlikely joy?
What if suffering … is a gift?
My daughter fell on our front steps the other day. She busted her eye and it bruised black and blue and she came running inside and right into the arms of her dad. He comforted her and hugged her and wiped her tear-stained cheek.
Later that day as we left the house, my husband closed the front door behind him, and as he and my daughter approached the front steps, she reached up for his hand. She has walked up and down those steps a hundred times on her own.
Why reach now?
Because she knows that in her fear and uncertainty, she can trust his hand to hold her.
This scene has played out in various ways over and over in her tiny, three-year-old life. She falls; he picks her up. She scrapes her knee; he comforts her and hugs her tight.
In her pain, she is learning to run to and trust her father. This is a gift to her.
In my walk with God, I am that child. It is most often my own pain that causes me to reach for the strong, loving hand of God. In times of ease, in seasons when I feel like I’m making it just fine on my own, I’m prone to forget how much I need my Heavenly Father. But when I experience suffering, I know in that moment, in that painful season, through a trial, or on a long, hard, uncertain road – I can trust God’s loving hand to hold me.
As the Psalmist says:
“Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.”
Psalm 73:23
As we walk through life as believers—day by day, season by season—through trials and difficulties with unanswered whys, falling down, bruised and broken, we can trust that the hand of God is reaching for us amidst our suffering and pain.
Could it be that God would allow us to suffer because he longs to be close to us? Could it be that he wants us to long to be close to him?
If the greatest gift God has to give us is eternal life with him, doesn’t it make him a good, good Father to want to be close to us, whatever the cost to us in our brief time here on earth? (Romans 6:23)
If our suffering gives us more of Jesus, a precious closeness to the God who deeply loves us, who has PROMISED to hold us with his right hand, doesn’t our suffering then become … a gift?
I wish it wasn’t so. I wish my stubborn, sinful heart could be molded, drawn to God, and sanctified in seasons of ease like it is in seasons of pain.
But doubt, envy, and dissatisfaction: they grow best in the fertile soil of ease and comfort. Because nothing this world has to offer will satisfy the deepest longings in our hearts.
But the holy ground of suffering produces the fruit of faith, perseverance, and trust because it is watered by the tender, loving hand of God.
I pray for a heart that can walk through pain and heartache, reaching with confidence for the nail-scarred hand that is stretched out in love for me.
I pray for a heart that can say, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” Psalm 73:25
I pray for a heart that suffers with a view of heaven in clear sight – because, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
And I pray that I will suffer well, pressing deeply into the truth that God’s presence and promises are enough for me; that others might see in me that incomprehensible can’t-put-their-finger-on-it joy—the gift in suffering—that is born from a heart full of gratitude for the extravagant love God has bestowed on me.
I pray this for you, too.
