When I Can't Say - Part 1
The
previous post raised a question. The tempest tears. Loss. Soul sears. Questions
too deep to be spoken. And yet… What has it accomplished? I don’t feel closer
to him. I don’t feel like I’ve grown or learned some great wisdom. I don’t feel
“gain.”
Isn’t
suffering supposed to make me stronger? Isn’t it supposed to do something? Or
isn’t he supposed to send encouragement, help me feel his peace and presence?
But, Lord, it is just black! Dark… Silent… Aren’t we supposed to be able to
say, “I’d do it all over again because I know you more, love you more, feel you
more, am a better Christian”? Or, isn’t this what we’re supposed to be able to
say with the psalmist, “Your love is better than life”? What about those times
when I don’t feel his love is better than life? When I don’t know if I can say
honestly his love is better than X? Lord,
right now I’m in pain and I can’t feel you. Lord, right now I can’t say your
love is better than fill in the blank: the dream I had; the potential that fell
through; the heart desire; health or freedom from pain; the relationship; the
financial security (not even prosperity, Lord!). Where is the good? The growth?
The promises?
The ravaged
beach is left in ruins; it appears no restoration, no healing. Only ruins.
First of
all, these cry-questions surge while we are still in the storm, before the
fairy tale ending. The ravaging storm does give nitrogen to the ground and
water to the roots, but the fresh blush of green is not seen until after the
storm. If you feel an inferior Christian because at that moment you can’t see
your “gain,” whatever you expected, give yourself grace in the moment. Time.
That moment is fierce. The lightning just struck. But time.
Time is
something God has crafted into the structure of the universe, into the
structure of relationships, including our relationship with him. We do not live
in a vending machine relationship—put so much suffering in, and out pops the
reward. We do not live in a microwave relationship—zap for sixty seconds and
insta-Christian. No, we live in a relationship of grace, a God who is committed
to us for the long haul (indeed, from before time began and until well after
time ends). God who is present in silence, present in the dark moments, present
before and after, and sees the after. He is growing a soul of eternal glory,
not a slim beach grass blade that will fade in a week. Give yourself time. Do
not condemn yourself for those doubts. Hold fast. Weather it out.
Related,
God gives us grace to be human. He knows we are but dust and has compassion on
us (Ps. 103:14). We are human. We doubt. We fail. We grow. We fall and we get
up. In that moment, give yourself grace. Christ’s faithfulness covers your
doubts. God is not condemning you when the pain of the moment causes doubts and
fears. He is with you in afflictions (Isa. 63:9). He knows the weakness and
temptations of being human (Heb. 4:15-16).
Allow
yourself to be weak. Rest in that. The oak may crack in the storm as it tries
in its own strength to be strong, but the pliable beach poplar, in its
weakness, bends and sways and survives. “Strong” is not always strong, and
“weak” is not always weak. Sometimes, our search for “gain” can spring from a
desire to be “strong.” We want to set out on a self-improvement adventure and
gain the most from this suffering. We want to be self-sufficient. Strong.
Worthy of honor and praise. We want to be the hero, the buoy that stands strong
in the storm. But, we need not be superheroes. We should not be superheroes. It
is God who is the Life-Saver Buoy, not us.
To try to be more than we are, to mask doubt and despair, is not the
dependence that glorifies him. Grace. Allow yourself to be human, as he does.
Fourthly,
know that there are emotions, and then there is faith. Emotions are but a
mirror of the wind—the wave crests that are tossed, twirled, whipped in
everywhich direction with the gale gusts. Faith is the deep beneath—the two
mile down deeps where the storm does not stir. We may in moments gasp in doubt,
in fear, question, rage. But deep beneath, there is still a certainty. Deep
calls to deep. Heart still knows.
Yet, most
importantly, in that moment, know that he is sustaining you. You may fail. You
may doubt. You may not feel him. You may feel abandoned. But you have breath
still (whether you want it or not)—it is by his good pleasure and design. Pleasure. Design. Even in that gasp—he
is still delighting in you. He is still purposing your life. His right hand
still upholds you. Christ’s faithfulness covers your failures. The Spirit is
groaning with you. Even in those moments of doubt, denial, fist-shaking, rage,
you are surrounded and secure in the Triune God.
I have sat
on the floor and sobbed, feeling the absence. The lack. The nothing for all of
this. The loss. I have lied, curled up in a fetal position, too numb, too dark,
to cry or ask. These are truths for that moment. Little anchors for the soul. My
words seem so light for a storm so fierce. I realize these little anchors are
not easy to remember in those moments. In those moments, he seems distant. But
during the next ebb of the storm, though it still rages, I realize he is still
sustaining me, even in those moments. Faith is a gift from first to last from
the Author and Perfector of our faith (Heb. 12:3). Even in those moments, he is
our anchor in the storm.
“So when God desired
to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable
character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two
unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled
for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before
us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters
into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner
on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of
Melchizedek” (Heb. 6:17-20).
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