While exercising this morning I ran into a truth which may be encouraging to you. I was literally running, which isn’t my favorite fitness activity, but I include it to balance my exercising and to stay mentally tough. The challenging part is 100 meter wind sprints up a hill. By only the second sprint my legs felt like dead weight and my heat pounded. Toward the top of the hill and the peak of my fatigue, the sun rose behind me painting the summit with gold, warming my back, and uplifting my heart. I thought, “I could do this.” The panoramic view from the top of the hill along with the billowy clouds lined with peach and pink inspired me to keep exercising and not quit. The happiness from the summit faded though, as I descended from victory on the peak to the cold, heartless, shadows of the valley to face another grueling surge up the hill.
Life can be like my run. Seasons of comfort and well-being, periods of growth, or moments of victory many times are ambushed by difficulty, discouragement, or defeat. I have a family friend who was diagnosed with cancer last week and the doctors just realized it is worse than they first thought. He’s waiting to hear what the prognosis will be and possible treatment. My heart goes out to him, his family, and our family.
The good news is that we can depend on God when circumstances pull us down from mountaintop benefits. For those who trust and obey God, he will see us through any difficulty. David, the next anointed king of Israel, experienced suffering for 15 years. Day after day, month after month, year after year he ran for his life as an innocent fugitive from the current king, Saul. He was reassured by the truth that God was with him. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). Joseph was a favored son among several jealous, older brothers. They considered killing him, but ended up selling him into slavery. As a slave he served well and was promoted, but then was falsely accused of foul play and imprisoned. During 13 years in slavery and prison, most people forgot Joseph, but God did not. God freed him and placed him second in power in Egypt in order to save his family and thousands of others during an upcoming famine. Daniel, an exiled Jewish slave, served God faithfully and rose to power in Babylon. Out of jealousy rival leaders attempted to kill him for his faith. Their efforts resulted in him being thrown alive into a den of hungry lions. God spared him from any injury. Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, friends of Daniel, also served in the royal court of Babylon. They were thrown into a fiery furnace for their refusal to worship anyone but God alone. God sent one like a Son of God to accompany them and preserved their lives again without harm.
Another example is Saul, a pious Jew who was being groomed to become a religious leader of Israel who met Jesus and gave up his life of privilege to follow Jesus even though it involved being outcast, distrusted, and becoming a target. He experienced setbacks, stonings, death threats, imprisonment and shipwrecks. But he trusted God to see him through then and into eternity. “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10). Paul wrote consistently that life in Jesus is worth any short-term cost because his abiding presence now and his tremendous reward in the future, “…knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:14-18).
The most amazing example is when Jesus, God the Son, descended from heaven to become a man and bear the sin of the world for us. He voluntarily endured separation from his Father, rejection from his people, betrayal, abandonment from his friends, physical torture, and an excruciating crucifixion. Through it all, he humbly depended on God and therefore God exalted him, raising him from the dead and enthroning him to his rightful place as King of kings, Lord of lords, Head over all things, Creator and Savior of the universe.
So hopefully you can see that for believers, difficulty and suffering, do not defeat them. They have an underlying peace, contentment, and joy in drawing close to God and experiencing his grace, strength, love, and presence delivering them amidst the trial and not just from it. Not only does this build them up, but it helps others come to know God too. Paul wrote about this, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us…What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?…Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:18, 31-32, 35, 37-39).
If you are not currently trusting and obeying God through Jesus, everything I have written is still relevant. You might only view suffering as negative and want out of it as quickly as possible when it comes. I understand that. No one wants to suffer. Yet when you do suffer or descend into difficulty, you don’t want to miss the good that can come out of it. The greatest good is to come to know Jesus as your savior and grow in your relationship with God. During difficulty you want to avoid blaming God for your suffering. Usually suffering is due to our own choices, collateral damage from someone else’s sin, natural consequences from a fallen world, or the evil of Satan. God knows that trials are worth it in the long run if that is what it takes to bring you back to him, for nothing is worth being separated from him for eternity. God allows suffering in your life and sometimes even sends it in order to get your attention. C.S. Lewis, a former skeptic who became a Christian and well known author wrote, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” God is calling you to find your hope and strength in him and not yourself, someone else, or anything this world offers.
Also during difficulty avoid turning to God just to get out of the suffering. When Jesus miraculously fed over 5,000 people they wanted him to be king of their lives to alleviate their oppression under Roman rule. They recognized he clearly had the power to make them prosper. However, they primarily looked for blessing from him rather than a relationship with him. Jesus answered them, “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.’ Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.'” (John 6:26-29). Your primary work in life, especially during trials, is to believe in Jesus. Sincerely and completely put your faith in him which is hope, loyalty, trust and obedience and he will give you his abundant life now and forever.
He has proven this to millions of people, as well as, through fulfilled promises in the Bible. The promise God gave through Moses to Joshua, who faced many challenges in order to occupy the land God gave Israel, is the same for believers today with whatever they face. “The Lord your God himself will go over before you…Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:3, 6).
Joni Eareckson Tada who became a paraplegic as a teenager from a diving accident wrote, “When life is rosy, we may slide by with knowing about Jesus, with imitating him and quoting him and speaking of him. But only in suffering will we know Jesus.” Blessings grow in the valley, as well as, the mountaintop. No matter what comes, depend on God and you will reap the benefits of both.
P.S. Blessings by Laura Story is a touching song along this line.