I am sharing an article from a friend of ours, Rein Schmidt. He writes an e-zine of theological "Ramblings," and this particular one from September 29, 2015, can be helpful to all who are going through a dark valley.
Rein says, "It
seems like the more we desire to serve the Lord, the more obstacles Satan puts
in our paths. Sometimes, it just becomes too much to bear. So here are a few
things the Lord reminded me to think about. I know there are many ways the Lord
can use to keep us encouraged, and I listed only a few of them. I would love to
hear how the Lord has worked in your life regarding this topic that I rambled
about."
If
you would like to share a thought with Rein, please make a comment below, or contact him at THIS E-MAIL ADDRESS. You can use the same e-mail to sign up for his "Ramblings."
Thanks for allowing me to share this, Rein!
~~~
Does God Really Love You?
By: Rein Schmidt
Your
suffering is a great enticement to Satan. He and his anti-God federation are
irresistibly attracted to persistent suffering and pain. Notice how he obsesses
over Job’s misery. Notice how he shows up in the wilderness at the height of
Jesus’s weakness (Matthew 4:1–11).
Satan is
savvy enough to know that his lies are less effective during prosperity, so he
waits until life is hard and we are more vulnerable (though he has plenty of
weapons for our good times as well). Then, when he suggests that God does not
love us, he suddenly sounds compelling. In other words, we need all our wits
about us when suffering comes our way. Does God love me? Am I suffering
because I have done something to incur his displeasure? These can drift into questions about God himself.
Is he
good? Does he hear? Does he care?
Over
the past several months there have been times when I have asked the same
questions. Does
God love me? Am I suffering because I have done something to incur his
displeasure?
Does he
hear my prayers? Does he really care?
Satan has a unique way of bringing discouragement into
life and before long discouragement produces disillusionment which produces
doubt. Once doubt enters your mind you find yourself asking the questions I
mentioned above. As you seek answers to those questions, depression settles in
and the answers to those questions seem even farther away.
At
this point there are a few things to remember.
1. Jesus Suffered, So I
Suffer
In the Old
Testament era, there may have been good reason to believe that God was either
letting us go or chastising us in our suffering. Everything changes, however,
when Jesus comes as the suffering servant, lives in poverty, is rejected by his
closest friends, absorbs shame, submits to a gruesome death, and inaugurates the
new covenant with God’s people. In this, he is celebrated as the image of God (2 Corinthians
4:4,
Colossians 1:15), the one who is fully God and fully human, our
perfect representative and our King.
This creates
a new story for us. Jesus, who is clearly loved by the Father, goes through the
worst of suffering. As believers, we have been united with the Son, so we expect
to know both suffering and love. As Jesus goes, so go his people. If the King
was not spared the hardships of this present world, we should not expect to be
spared. This is why the apostle Paul boasted about his suffering. Those
sufferings showed his connection to Jesus and to the Father’s favor
(2
Corinthians 11:24-30).
2. Jesus Was Tested, So I
Will Be Tested
Look more
closely at Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11). God’s children have always been refined through
testing. Even before Adam sinned, he was tested. This is what royal children
expect. If we are to ascend to co-regency, our allegiances will be tested too.
But as we are led into our wilderness, our suffering, we are not alone. We have
the Holy Spirit to help us, and with his help we can grow in maturity and wise
judgment.
Two things are
important here. One is that we can take joy in being tested (James 1:2). It is
evidence that we are beloved children who have been found worthy. The other is
that we want to grow in the testing, which means that we aim to trust him,
believe him, and seek him in our suffering, rather than turn from
him.
3. God’s Love Is
Sophisticated, So I Trust Him
New covenant love
takes on new features. Our Father’s love is now revealed as more developed,
“sophisticated,” in a sense. In fact, it is beyond our understanding. All we
have to know is this: He displayed irrefutable love when he died for enemies,
and his ongoing love includes reworking us into the shape of Jesus, which is the
greatest of all gifts (Romans
8:28–29).
To paraphrase
the apostle Paul, this means God will certainly not abandon us now. He will not
even get a little stingy with his love. His love is relentless, sacrificial, and
generous. The cross of Christ is the evidence. So we trust him, as a young child
trusts a good parent (Psalm 131:1–3).
4. I Walk by Faith, Not by
Sight
These
realities of God’s love are, of course, spiritual, which makes them difficult to
see. To complicate that chronic challenge, suffering can impair our vision even
more. It can dominate our perspective and become the only perspective. So our questions keep haunting us.
Does God
love me? Does he hear? Does he care? To combat these questions, we acknowledge our
need to see by faith (2 Corinthians
5:7).
This is
when we call out for help from the body of Christ. Spiritual battles should not
be fought without the aid of other people who can join us in prayer, encourage
us with their presence, and offer apt words of truth from God’s
Word. We could ask
them to pray for us as Elisha prayed for his servant. When surrounded by an army
that was sworn to kill the two men, Elisha prayed that his servant would see by
faith. “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see” (2 Kings
6:17).
Then we keep our
faith eyes peeled. We look back and see the pinnacle of love in the person of
Jesus. We also look ahead and see that suffering will end someday, and the one
we desire to hear with our ears and touch with our hands will be fully present
with us. But for now, with our eyes wide open, we walk with him, in suffering,
today and believe that he will give us grace again for tomorrow (Matthew 6:33–34).
Where mere human sight sees only darkness, faith sees that we partner with
Christ in his agenda to show his power in our weakness.
5. Here Is a Better
Question: Do I Love Jesus?
In keeping
with God’s surprising ways, one other response to suffering’s questions is to
ask a new question , one Jesus posed to the apostle Peter. Peter had witnessed
the life and resurrection of Jesus, so he had no doubt that he was loved. But he
was still weighed down by his betrayals and assumed that he had relinquished his
usefulness. In response, Jesus asked a question. He asked Peter, “Do you love
me?” (John
21:15–17).
Perfect,
isn’t it? We could be passive until now, as if waiting for enlightenment to
strike. Now there can be no passivity. Our answer will not change
his love (2 Timothy 2:13), but
it might suggest that the problem lies within us, rather than in God. At the
very least, this surprising question gives us another way to pray and ask for
prayer. We want to know the expanse of the love of God and love him in
return.
Suffering does
interrogate our souls. But we have the means to wage the spiritual battle. We
identify ourselves as united with the suffering servant, we see God’s purpose in
testing, we trust him, we walk by faith, and we test ourselves by asking about
our love for him. Taken together, these spiritual disciplines can overcome our
lingering questions about God’s love and send us in the direction of peace and
even joy.
