Day: 33

Enduring Suffering

When tragedy strikes, some persecuted believers fall on their faces and proclaim, like Job, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” He holds them close as they pass through the crucible of persecution. He provides peace and wraps them in love and compassion so they feel carried through the crisis.

If you think the persecuted always pass through times of suffering gracefully, in full control of the Spirit, then you’re mistaken.

Many experience intense hardship and loss while praising God with unshakeable faith.

Others, perhaps like you, carry a cross so heavy that they barely survive. They feel crushed to the ground under its weight. They are left feeling bewildered and terrified as they blindly navigate their crisis. This may sound more familiar as you look at your own history.

The Merry Go Round of Why

Whether the sufferer walks through the desert of crisis hand-in-hand with God or distanced from Him, their minds constantly cry out for answers. They tend to ride a merry-go-round called, “Why Did This Happen?”

Sometimes boarding this ride can be healthy – taking time for introspection to examine your own personality and weaknesses can result in fruitful growth. We all encounter pain in our lives associated with our weaknesses. Your personality, whatever type, will create problems for you in this life that you need to grow out of as best you can.

In this case, seeking the “why” answer will lead to insight and personal growth.

Most of the time, however, dwelling on the “why” is fruitless. The final answer, the final “why,” is that we live in a broken world where Satan still rules. That brokenness starts with us and with our fellow human beings, creating a world of pain.

Also, as a Christian living in this fallen world and involved in an immense spiritual battle, we will be targeted by the evil one. All that makes for a life that will be sprinkled (or doused) with pain!

The Fire

Whatever the cause of our suffering, God wants to use the pain of our trials to purify and transform us into His image.

Psalms 66:10 says, “For you (God), tested us; you refined us like silver.”

Proverbs 17:3 says, “People use a furnace to refine silver and gold, but God uses the fire of pain and affliction to refine the hearts of people.” JKV (Jeff King’s Version).

In the Psalmist’s day, silver was refined by taking rock (ore) from a quartz vein with a high silver content and heating it to a temperature of 1500 – 2000 degrees.

Through this refining process, the precious, hidden metal would be separated from the rock it was encased in. It’s the same with us.

God doesn’t create evil but He can use it. He hates the evil of the world, but He uses it to refine and purify hearts, making them shine and resemble Him.

Pain Lessons (taken from impregnable)

This pattern is just as relevant to you as it is to persecuted believers. Your suffering will look different; you won’t be thrown into prison and tortured for your faith. But suffering will come into your life. You can bank on it.

Life is linked with suffering; In fact, you will probably suffer greatly at points in your life. This simple fact goes against the grain of much of American Christianity, where we continually hear (in many different ways) that “God would never let His people suffer.”

Those who believe that God would never let his people suffer have either not lived long enough or do not know about the persecuted Church.

Does God cause or allow the suffering? He doesn’t create the evil we encounter but He will want to use it.

One of my favorite songs is Natalie Grant’s “Held.” It is based on the real story of a couple that experienced their greatest sorrow when they lost their two-month-old baby. There is a part in the song where she says “who told us we’d be saved from nightmares?”

Later in the song, she lays out the Biblical lesson about pain and suffering when she says God’s promise was never about unending blessing but rather that He would hold us (we’d be held) when we inevitably go through gut-wrenching sorrow.

This song is the greatest truth for us as we go through intense pain.

Embrace

When you find yourself in the desert, that is when the devil whispers into your soul.

Remember, he’s a roaring lion! The devil’s second greatest lie is that God has forgotten you and doesn’t love you. These lies will leave you desperate, panicked, turning in circles, and in great fear.

If you are in this situation, I want you to try something that is totally counter-intuitive: stop trying to escape!

Rather, embrace your pain and your circumstances. Thank Him for the prison you find yourself in.

Because this doesn’t make any worldly sense, you will have to do this by faith at first.

Your suffering is a desert that stretches to the horizon ahead of you, and there’s usually no way out of it if this journey has been assigned to you.

Regardless, thank Him repeatedly for the growth the pain. Let the pain drive you close to Him rather than sending you into a panic to flee your cage.

Thank Him over and over, until your heart starts to overflow and thankfulness truly comes. Something happens when you reach this point, something almost magical.

You will be set free! Not from all the pain, but from the fear, panic, and despair. He is close to the broken-hearted and knows your pain.

Once you run on the fuel of trust, gratitude, and God’s presence, it will break Satan’s power.

This is one of the great secrets of the persecuted.

Remember the letter Andrew Kim Taegon wrote from prison to his free brothers and sisters just before he was martyred?

“God numbers the very hairs on our head and in his all-embracing providence he has care over us all. Persecution, therefore, can only be regarded as the command of the Lord or as a prize he gives or as a punishment he permits.”

Andrew Kim Taegon (Martyred 1846)

Your “prison sentence” has the potential to be the high point of your spiritual life. I can personally attest to this. The periods of life where I encountered the worst journeys through the wasteland of pain were the periods of greatest growth and sweetness with the Lord.

The Promise

I’ve seen the persecuted struggle through intense suffering, but so often they let the pain drive them to the Lord rather than away from them.

I can testify along with my persecuted brothers and sisters that His closeness while in the desert of great pain is the sweetest thing you will ever know.

In the end, that is enough to satisfy me emotionally, but I also must remember that God wants to use my pain to transform me. He will use it to take me where I could never go without it.

This simple truth is a key part of the whisper from the persecuted and the martyrs.

So when the shadow of death or pain passes over your life, remember that God’s enduring promise is that if you stay close to Him. . .

You will be held.