Reflecting on the last year, I realized that it has been one of the most difficult years of my life. Maybe, the hardest. John Piper said that before he and Noel married, they both knew that life was not going to be happy all the time. That at 20 and 22, they bore scars from their own sufferings and the suffering of others. They grasped the reality that this world is painful because it isn't our home.
At 19, I sometimes feel like I am watching my world fall apart. People I love are sick, others heartbroken, some are struggling, others lost, and others are lonely. All of these people are Christians and they are suffering. I witnessed and experienced a lot of pain this year. (My "sufferings" pale in comparison to most, but they were difficult nonetheless.) Each tiny wound drew my eyes not to despair, but to another hope. A hope that is completely outside of myself. As my hopes for this life faded, my hope in the next took new color. My desires were for good things, but they weren't centered on Christ. As my loves were uprooted from my heart, a new love stopped the bleeding. Every time God confronted an idol, he followed up the surgery with a fresh taste of himself.
I was reminded of this pattern on Sunday. My pastor, Keith Breault, preached on Hebrews 12. He stressed verse 11, "For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." I so appreciated Keith's expansion of this verse, "In Hebrews 12, God makes it clear that our suffering is by his hand but it is a specific, intentional trial to forge his spirit in us. He is pointing to our dilemma declaring , 'That pain, that suffering, I am in the midst of it. I am not an ER doctor trying to salvage your faith; I am the surgeon trying to train you to see my glory.' The view here is to train us, to transform us, to left our eyes to God. He is working to change us so that we will invest less in this world and more in God." God allows suffering to help us desire him. He takes our carnal hearts and purifies them of idolatry that we might know him.
What a shift in perception! Suffering is not God withdrawing his love, but employing it. He allows tragedy to happen so that we can see the one thing that will fulfill us. If a child was poisoned and refused the antidote, you would justifiably force them-even harm them-to get the antidote in his body in time. So God graciously strikes us to save our souls from an eternity in hell. His love is not about pleasing us, but about showing us the only way to happiness, the way to himself. He purges our hearts of wrong desires to fill us with the right ones. This is real love. A love that is willing to refine dross, so that it can belong to the Almighty. A love that takes our eyes off ourselves and place them back on the amazing Lord we serve. What a kind, kind Father!
“For most people, love is whatever puts human value and human well-being at the highest point. Jesus’ loving behavior is unintelligible to them. But let us learn from Jesus what love is and what our true well-being is. Love is doing whatever you need to do to help people see and savor the glory of God in Christ forever and ever. Love keeps God central.”
-John Piper on John 11
"And the Lord will strike...striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them."
Isaiah 19:22
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