These artful words have lingered in my soul for years. Spoken by a man long ago, they tell of someone who moved from one type of knowing to another…from hearing about to seeing…from knowing facts to experiencing.
And in spite of the questions the book raises, in spite of my fear that God is preparing me for suffering if I read it, and in spite of my desire to only read joyful words from God, I can’t get over what happened inside of Job when everything outside of Job fell apart.
From the beginning of the book, when God Himself describes Job as “a good man,” to the end where Job repents and acknowledges this new intimacy with the Lord, what caused this deepening of faith?
Suffering.
In a world that chases comfort and thrill, talking about suffering is avoided and seems out of context. Suffering is painful and inconvenient—it stops us in our tracks and often there isn’t one thing we can do about it.
The trail we walk is sometimes so winding that it seems to go nowhere. It feels as though our lives have gotten off course and maybe He's unaware. We want to turn back and go to what we know, we want to stop and find people who will commiserate with us, we want to turn any direction other than the one we are going. Words that once seemed sure feel like a thin paper map, and we fear a wind will come and blow it to pieces. We begin to question what we once knew. We begin to question God's character; we certainly question our own.
When I am suffering and caught up in the worst of fears, I often make a list I title: What I Know. The simple writing of this list reorients my thinking and lifts my eyes to a faithful God and away from myself. Sometimes my list is just a few words and sometimes it’s longer. Here is my most recent one.
What I Know:
God's love for me is unchanging. There is nothing I can do to make Him love me less and nothing I can do to make Him love me more, because His affection for me is based on His character, not on mine.
He is aware of my suffering and is involved in the details of it.
The things God is accomplishing in me in the midst of this time is more important than the things I feel I should be accomplishing.
If He is not responding to my request, it is because waiting is better than a resolution.
This time of suffering has an eternal significance—God uses suffering to draw me near, to humble, to expose, and to bring Himself glory.
His desire for me, above all else, is that I know Him from personal experience, not just hearsay.
There are some realities I learn about God that I only understand through struggle and suffering.
The truth of who God is and His heart toward me is still true even when the feelings are absent.
My strength and peace will run out sooner than I expect, but the strength and peace that God supplies will not. This is one of the beautiful and painful lessons of suffering: the practical “how to” of leaning on the Lord and not on ourselves.
My heart, though lukewarm, doubting, wandering, or questioning, securely belongs to Him because He paid the highest price for it.
And yet, we suffer on. And we love a God who allows suffering. And we follow a Savior who suffered...not so we would never suffer, but so in our suffering we would find Him there, tenderly pursuing, compassionately healing our souls. And we must listen to The Great Whisperer, the Spirit who lives in us and reminds us of truth: truth that is strong and unchanging; truth we cling to when everything else is giving way underneath; truth that we are held by the strong God who knows us and knows what He is doing.
I hold onto His words, but during times when my grip is weak, they hold me.
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