The Christian Appeal (November 2000)

"NEVER MIND," they tell you. "Time heals everything."

But it isn’t true. Time does not heal. Time does not make suffering easier to bear. When life crashes in and the formerly unthinkable has actually happened to you, what then? You will do as the psalmist did or you will find no real comfort. In your distress you will cry unto the Lord, or you will remain comfortless.

How irreligious people manage I don’t know. And yet perhaps I do. I have a suspicion that they are still living on the rumors of a faith blown to them from their fathers. When life’s storms overwhelm them, their hands still grasp, almost unconsciously, broken pieces of the faith of other days still floating on the waters of their minds. They stay afloat by truths from a faith they have learned to ridicule or largely ignore.

Faith admits there is pain and suffering in this world. Faith is aware of grief and disappointment. But these are not the Father’s final will. These are the results of Satan’s designs and mankind’s blundering. The innocent suffer, but that does not erase the fact that sin is at the root of all suffering and, after all, who among us is really altogether innocent?

When Jordan Rolls

Over in Jeremiah 12:5, I find a thought-provoking passage. Here a man bursts into God’s presence—hot, angry, complaining. "It’s unfair. Why must I suffer like this? You are supposed to be loving and merciful. You are all-powerful. Why don’t you do something?" And God answers with the words of the fifth verse. Let us examine those words and paraphrase.

God asks this man just what it is he has to complain about so far. Does he complain about the ordinary vexations of mankind? Then those are just the "footmen" he’s been racing. What will he do when he has to contend against swift horses? If the little rubs and frets of life leave you questioning and doubting God’s love, what will you do when some great crashing tragedy comes screaming out of the dark to crumble your ordered way and leave a tumbled ruin of your life? If you have caught your breath while wading a shallow summer brook, what will you do when Jordan bursts its banks and rushes far as the eye can see, one huge wild swirl of angry waters? If you have whined and fretted at the little things, how can you survive the swelling of Jordan?

Yet Jordan swells for all of us sooner or later. For years we go on our sunny ways. We see disaster befall others and we feel a twinge of pity. Then unbelievably it comes to us. What then? It is then that we cry unto God out of the depth of our distress. And God hears us.

But if we do not have God, where is our hope?

Many religious people do not really believe in God as an ever-present help in time of trouble. Their God is a vague concept, not a real person. To them religion is a fair weather affair that crumbles with a little rain. It is a high-flying but fragile aircraft that crashes from the first shot or is shattered by the first adverse wind.

Are Ravens Really Black?

Read Ezekiel 24:15-18. Suppose you discover as Ezekiel did that this life is not going to give you all you had expected. You find that all your rosy dreams are not going to come true. Can you bow to God’s will without bitterness and still believe in the promise of God in Romans 8:28?

In 1 Kings 17 God fed Elijah by means of ravens. The raven is a black, ugly, carnivorous bird known to have plucked out the eyes of both animals and men. He is so greedy that we have drawn from his name the ugly word ravenous. Yet God used ravens to bless Elijah.

There is a lesson here.

God has both white and black providences. We receive a white providence, and we are elated. Unexpected money falls to our lot, and we cry, "Oh, it is mercy!" But then perhaps we get primarily interested in money and lose interest in God. Then a black providence strikes and we lose money or health and we cry, "Oh, it is a disaster!" and whine and complain. But in our desperation we cry unto God and are thrown back upon reliance on him. What we called the white providence threatened us with eternal ruin. What we called a black providence became a means of salvation.

Perhaps there was a loved one who blessed your days and was dear to your heart. But a black providence came and caught your loved one away. You wept as you watched the retreating footsteps of death and bewailed the terrible injustice of it all. But since then you have thought of heaven daily instead of weekly, for you have a treasure there. As your mind dwells on things that are above, you grow more kindly and more godly. It is not self-righteous now to admit that you are a better man or woman than you were before the black providence came.

The Road’s Ridge

There comes a time when the road running on through the years crosses a little ridge. At such places we stop and look back and try to look forward. Back there lies the way already traveled. There are the past joys and sorrows, the rubs and disappointments, the successes and deliverances. We gaze ahead and can’t see much in that direction. Sometimes we are a little afraid of what may lie ahead.

Back there at the start of our pilgrimage life was a daring challenge and thrilled us. We read the promises of Christ and were excited. How beautiful it would be if those promises were really true and really applied to us and were exactly what he really meant.

Well, what have the past years taught you?

The journey wasn’t always pleasant. There were trials. You have been tired and looked at a climbing path and wondered if you could make it. Yet now you look back and see that somehow you did make it. Sorrow came, and you cried out that you could not bear it. But somehow you have borne it. You have walked through the tumbling of those icy waters, though at times you have felt that each step might be your last. God’s grace was like the manna, given day by day, but always it was enough for each new day. Always he has been with you and seen you through, even when you were close to forgetting him.

So now you turn again and look toward the future. We cannot tell what lies before us, but this we have learned from the past: every foot of the whole way God will be very near. We may, in moments of discouragement, think that God has forgotten us, but that is impossible. If ever he forgot us we would simply cease to be.

Your life is dark to the extent that it lacks Christ. But Christ is ever available to those who seek him. It isn’t hard to believe Christ when everything is going just right. But when life grows bitter, that is when you must believe in him. There comes a time at last when, in my distress, I must cry unto the Lord. The promise of Scripture is that the Lord will hear me.

I have tested this promise and found it to be true.

Copyright © 2001 The Christian Appeal