Dear Cell, last Friday, we were all asked this question, “Does it bother you that God is intentionally hiding? Why and why not?” Some of you were of the view God does not intentionally hide from us. In fact, one of the members said that it is more like we are hiding from Him; just like Adam and Eve did when they were aware of their nakedness and were afraid of it. For those who are hiding from God because of sins, guilt, fear and shame, James 4:8 issues this invitation, “…Come near to God and He will come near to you.”
But the question plumbs deeper than this. The question expects us to delve deeper into our hearts and our circumstances to reveal our human frailty and agony. All of us have moments of anguish and angst. All of us have cried to God and cried to our loved ones. Some of us have even cried to ourselves until complete physical exhaustion. In this life, there are indeed sorrows too deep for easy reach, pain too intense for quick relieve, and sadness too unrelenting for words or consolation. And we are not alone in our pain and sorrow. Psalms 88 is one of the most discouraging chapters in the Bible. In that scripture, the Psalmist poured out his heart to God. “But I, O Lord, cry to you in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?”
There are others waiting in line to share their grief in this life. CS Lewis is just one of the millions. CS Lewis was only ten when he watched his beloved mother die of cancer. Then, he was sent to a boarding school only to find himself tormented in the hands of a sadistic headmaster. Two years later, his headmaster was declared insane. Thereafter, CS Lewis’ life ascended to great heights of literary fame and worldwide adoration, which culminated to his marriage to his soul mate, Joy Gresham.
Just when everything was going right for him, Joy was diagnosed with cancer, the same dreaded disease that killed his mother. Their marriage did not last long, only five years, when Joy succumbed to cancer and died at age 45. Was God a cosmic sadist or a spiteful imbecile? - asked CS Lewis. These were tough times for him and he asked tough questions. The man who led many intellectuals to an intellectually-defensible conviction of the existence of God in a world of seemingly unspeakable cruelty was so distraught that he penned these haunting words in his book A Grief Observed, “What chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers (Joy) and I offered and all the false hopes we had. Not hopes raised merely by our own wishful thinking, but hopes encouraged, even forced upon us, by false diagnoses, by X-ray photographs, by strange remissions, by one temporary recovery that might have ranked as a miracle. Step by step we were led up the garden path. Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture.” Was God playing with him? Was God toying with his faith? Was God hiding from him when he needed Him most? Although CS Lewis died a stronger Christian than before, he was not exempted from the pain and suffering that this world had inflicted on him. He braved through each and every one of them even during times of great despair and disappointment. Indeed, only in our sorrows do we truly experience the searing paradoxes of humanity; the joy and the pain, the laughter and the sadness, the hope and the betrayal, and the life and the death.
In the book Life in the Balance, I read about a renowned physician by the name of Thomas B. Graboys, MD. He had everything going for him in his life. He was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a president emeritus of the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts, and a senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In 1985, he was part of the team of doctors who won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He had a beautiful and smart wife, Caroline, and two lovely daughters. But I guess you’d have expected what comes next. Dr Graboys was singled out for special mention in this letter not because of his achievements, which were extraordinary by any standard, but because of the tragedies that befell on him.
At the peak of his career, Dr Graboys’ experienced his first loss, his wife, Caroline. She endured, suffered and died of colon cancer in 1998. Although Dr Grayboys remarried in 2002, and his life seemed to be back on the fast track, the next loss was even more insidious than the first. Dr Graboys was diagnosed with Parkinson disease. In his own words, he describes this merciless and faceless robber of the human soul as such, “While Parkinson’s, which is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, is usually understood to be a disease characterized by loss of control over body movements, most people afflicted with the disease also experience difficulties with attention, concentration, problem-solving, concept formation, sequencing, vision, depression, and memory. But a significant portion of Parkinson’s patients – and I am one of these – have an associated degenerative disease, known as Lewy Body disease or Lewy Body dementia, which seriously impairs cognition and has other powerful side effects, such as hallucinations and violent REM sleep, that can result in injury to oneself or one’s sleeping partner. By night, I can suddenly lurch out of control; by day, I feel as though I have an on-off switch that controls my brain and I am not in control of it.”
Imagine, gradually losing yourself, your mind, and your personality, and leaving the empty shell of your body totally immobilized, utterly useless and progressively wasting away as the days and weeks roll by. As a result of the disease, he was forced into early retirement in 2006. He now struggles with everything, from physical movements to cognitive abilities, that we all take for granted most of the time. He takes ten times longer to write a short note. He is trapped in a body that no longer fully responds to his will. He has double vision and minor hallucinations. He has to depend on others to bath, wear his clothes, eat and tie his shoelaces. He suffered from slurred speech and temporary paralysis. Even the simple tasks of carrying a cup of coffee and paying for it have become a daunting challenge. Dr Graboys expressed his frustration in his own words, “I am angry over my losses, angry about the terrible pain and anxiety my illness has introduced into the lives of my wife and daughters, angry at the loss of much of my sexuality, angry that my young grandchildren will never know Pops without dementia, angry that it takes me twenty minutes to change a light bulb, angry that the disease has ripped apart the fabric of my life, and angry at being dependent.” Many times, Dr Graboys thought about ending his life and sparing his loved ones the agony of caring for someone who will one day treat them as perfect strangers. In fact, he is not afraid of dying, but he is “afraid of living with a mind that has been erased.”
In the closing of his book, he has this advice to those who are enduring their own life-threatening illness, “Use your faith in God, if you believe in God. There were times when Caroline was ill when, for no apparent reason, I would sit in the non-denominational chapel at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, even though I am not a religious person. Yet sometimes I would find comfort in prayer.”
But, at this juncture, you may ask, “Where is God in all these sufferings?” Where was God when Paul was going through his trials so poetically recorded in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28, “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers; danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea. Danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” Where was God when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Was God hiding? Was He restraint? Was He silent? Where was God when King David wrote Psalms 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.”
At last Friday cell, most of us are travailing in our own Garden of Gethsemane. We are hard pressed by circumstances beyond our control, struggling to make ends meet. Meeting deadlines that require more than what we can physically and mentally offer. Holding on to hope that seems so tenuous, so fragile. Some are even questioning God for not giving enough grace for the arduous journey ahead. Well, I would have you know that the word Gethsemane actually means “the oil press”. In order to make olive oil, you will have to press the olive drupes. By pressing, you separate the oil from the other fruit contents like vegetative extract liquid and solid material. So it is with your trials and your travailing. Whatever your circumstances, there is a distinct final product to be gained from your endurance and perseverance. That which seems most puzzling and indefinite to you when you are bombarded by one trial after another will one day come to light with the empowerment of God’s grace, comfort and assurance. Of course, the final product once you have overcome your trial is your absolute reliance on God and your maturity of faith and character in Him.
Having said this, we all know it is never pleasant or easy when you are in thick of it all. It is therefore natural for the tormented or the oppressed in Christ to do what CS Lewis had done – point the finger at God and cry “Foul Play”. Dr Graboys did the same by asking the all too familiar refrain, “Why? Why me? Why now?”
I know ultimately that it is your trial and, in an unfortunate way, it has your signature on it. This means that it is your lot in life and it is for you to overcome and rise above it. But you should never for one second succumb to the devil’s insinuation that you are all alone in your personal struggles. This is the time to rally loved ones and friends together. Of course, our loved ones cannot possibly be with you 24-7 but at the very least, their collective prayers would embolden you and strengthen your faith. God Himself did the same when faced with the evil of Calvary. God in the form of man, that is.
In Matthew 26:38, Jesus rallied Peter, James and John together to pray for and comfort him. To them, he confessed, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Surely, it is tempting to say that Jesus must be kidding. He was the Son of God, not by adoption like us, but by divine identity. He had the power to turn the tide over in his favor. Yet, when faced with the wrath and insanity of humanity at the cross, he was no different from mere mortal man; tormented, emaciated and fearful. What was Jesus thinking? Well, the truth is, Jesus was not thinking. He was merely obeying. For it is from his lips these words were spoken, “Not my will but thine be done.” Jesus was not looking for immediate deliverance of his trial. He was not looking for a hand out from heaven. He was not asking for power from on high to subjugate his enemies. He was merely asking for strength, strength of the heart, to do what was asked of him. Here, Psalms 10:17 is instructive, “O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted, you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear.”Of course, we know that Jesus’ obedience bore fruits of universal redemption. We know that the end justified the pain and sorrow.
The question here is, “what is your end?” How will your trial turn out? What has God planned for you in your afflictions?
Well, beloved, the first battle would have to be time, chronological season. Your trial will last for a season. As surely as one season goes and another comes, your trial will pour first before it drizzles off. During such time, your hope is twofold: hope of the expiry of your trial and hope in an assurance of eternal glory. I have to say that nothing last forever. Even in death, we know where our eternal address ultimately resides. Some trials are just not made to last. Divorcees, cancer-survivors, discharged bankrupts, reformed convicted and the bereaved will attest to this. They have been through the worst of time in their life and they have the scars of experience to show. But, when the dust settles and the hours turn to days and the weeks to months, the pain of their trials will progressively loses its sting. There will come a time when the trial will become a distant memory and its haunting fades into the pale.
In the interim, your hope is in God to sustain and deliver you. In his affliction, Paul allowed these words to lift his spirit, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” God’s assurance abound in the Bible and you can surely draw strength and hope in Isaiah 43:2, “When through the deep waters I call you to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; for I will be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress.” Indeed, God will lift you above the rivers of sorrow and preserve you in your deepest distress. In fact, the same verses go on to assure, “When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie, my grace, all-sufficient, shall be your supply; the flame shall not hurt you; I only design your dross to consume and your gold to refine.”
Beloved, I think we should meet suffering on God’s term. This was how Joni Eareckson Tada overcame her ordeal. Due to an accident early in her life, she became a quadriplegic. Now, in her sixties, she managed to live life with passion and an all-consuming purpose to help others overcome their own handicap. She is a fighter and her unyielding and indefatigable spirit overcame all that life throws at her. Personally, meeting suffering on God’s terms means to rely on God for your daily sustenance. Instead of seeing troubles with our own eyes and expecting it to end in our time, we put our trust in Him and walk apace with his divine will and plan. Joni put her hope in God and was able to proclaim these words, “Our hope is for the Desire of the nations. Our hope is the Healer of broken hearts, the Friend of sinners, the God of all encouragement, the Father of all comfort, the Lord of all hope. And it is my prayer that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so that you might know this hope to which he has called you.”
Lastly, beloved, please do not try to understand your pain with your mind. You cannot rationalize why this and that happened to you and get an answer that would satisfy you intellectually. Job’s friends offer many seemingly logical explanations for his plight and it got Job no way near to full comprehension of his lost and pain. In fact, for most of our trials, there are no apparent answers and that’s the way it is going to be, whether we like it or not. It is ultimately your heart that God wants to minister - not with answers that your mind so seek – but with the conviction that He is bigger than your trial. Your hope should therefore be in the ability of God to deliver you and not on the intensity or ferocity of your trial. When your heart is open to God’s full plethora of creative powers, you will then be at peace, resting on the knowledge that God is indeed in purposive control. Even in the eye of a storm, you can rest assured that you are in good hands. At this point, a graffiti found on the wall of a basement in Kuln, Germany, comes to mind, “I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when He is silent.”
Let me end with a worthy quote describing the uniqueness of our God only Pastor John Piper can so deftly capture.
“God is holy in His absolute uniqueness. Everything else belongs to a class. We are human; Rover is a dog; the oak is a tree; Earth is a planet; the Milky Way is one of a billion galaxies; Gabriel is an angel; Satan is a demon. But only God is God. And therefore He is holy, utterly different, distinct, unique. All else is creation. He alone creates. All else begins. He alone always was. All else depends. He alone is self-sufficient. And therefore the holiness of God is synonymous with His infinite value. His glory is the shining forth of His holiness. His holiness is His intrinsic worth – an utterly unique excellence.”
(This quote and many others can be found in the Book, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, whose general editors are John Piper and Justin Taylor)
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