Suffering

April 14, 2020

“Be careful what you ask for. God might just answer your prayers.” My Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Cantrall, stood before her class of 13 year olds, tears streaming down her face. “I told God that if there were anything standing between him and myself, I wanted him to remove it,” she said solemnly. “And I loved my husband dearly.” The room was dead silent as she continued, “I asked God to do this, and soon after, my husband had a heart attack and died. Be careful what you ask for.”

One could argue that God didn’t take her husband, but to the end of her days, she was convinced. She wasn’t bitter, but she was wiser. Her words to that Sunday School class echo in my ears to this day, especially as we pray our way through this COVID 19. I’ve heard countless prayers begging for an early end to it; I’ve prayed a few of them myself. I’ve listened to prayers for protection, safety, and healing; I’ve prayed a few of them myself. But what if...?

God can freely give healing to the sick, presence of mind to the tormented, wisdom to the confused, even life to the dead. But what if God intends to use this pandemic for purposes we have yet to discern? In Romans 8, Paul addresses our circumstances from 2,000 years ago. He lays out the situation in vv. 18-22.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

Creation is groaning, longing for deliverance. What God created and called good still retains much of its glory, but disease, natural disasters, and ecological crises of human origin have the earth in a death-grip. So we pray, but often blindly. We long for deliverance and pray accordingly, but sometimes we get the specifics wrong. Paul continues in vv. 26-27:

“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

We often pray blindly for all sorts of things, thinking that what we want or how we would do things is what God wants and what his ways are. Such is not always the case. Isaiah reminds us, 

 “My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” —Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV

I’ve learned that before I blindly pray about anything, it is wise to first ask God what it is he might be trying to accomplish. I don’t like being ill, but sometimes God uses it to get my attention. I didn’t like the years when Park church nearly folded due to the spiritual attack upon it back in ‘04, but I learned a lot through it.

Paul concludes his thoughts on the groanings of Creation with these oft-quoted words:

“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 delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

—Romans 8:31-39 NKJV

In the middle of this paean to the never-ending presence and power of Christ that overcomes all our troubles, Paul inserts a quotation from Psalm 44:22: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” It’s a strange insertion, but an accurate reminder for the people to whom Paul was writing. You see, we are facing a natural disaster. There are all sorts of political questions surrounding its spread, and people will be pointing fingers and assigning blame for months to come, but Paul’s audience was feeling the pressure of political and military power arrayed against them. They were not just suffering; they were suffering for Christ. 

It matters not the reason for the trouble; for the Christian, the answer to it is prayer that seeks God’s mind, trust in God’s heart, and hope in God’s future, all of which is vouchsafed to us in the crucified, resurrected, and glorified Jesus Christ, our Lord.