Why, O LORD, do you reject me and hide Your face from me? — Psalm 88:14
Sooner or later, something will happen in your life that will contradict everything you believe about God. You trust God as your provider, but you might experience lingering financial crisis. You trust God as your healer, but you might lay on a hospital bed and cry out for healing that doesn’t come. You trust God as your protector, but you or someone you love may be violated.
I say this not to discourage you or your faith; I say it because it is reality. We build our lives on the foundation of God and His promises, and then the storm comes. I have experienced all of these disappointments in one way or another. You probably have too.
When this happens to you, I will not have the answers. I will not be able to explain to you why you are suffering or what God is doing.
Remember Job? His friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar tried to give him answers, but all their answers were wrong. Then Elihu gave him answers. Elihu did better: His answers were technically correct, but they were inadequate. They could not bring peace to a despairing man. Only when God spoke, did Job find resolution.
There are two lessons here:
1. Behind the pain, behind the injustice, behind the apparent betrayal by the Almighty, is the Truth, the Truth that will set you free. You find God in the middle of the pain, and He will lead you out of it. All of us want to leave the pain with or without God. But it doesn’t work that way. Pain has a purpose in the life of the believer: It invites us to get real with God.
2. We can be there for our friends when they suffer, and we should be. But it isn’t our answers that will comfort them. It’s our connection with Jesus — that is what we have to offer.
Be encouraged!
Dwight