It is becoming blatantly evident to me, and even more so, as I grow older; that our lives, and the lives of our family, friends and acquaintances, are plagued with hardship, pain, sickness, death, suffering, difficulties and misfortune.
Unfortunately, this is happening with ever increasing regularity and pace; sometimes gradually and expectedly, but other times; suddenly and unexpectedly.
There have been many major disastrous world wide events; like the Genocide in Rwanda, which resulted in the annihilation of a million lives; the many lives that were devastated on September 11th; the Tsunamis that consumed many parts of South East Asia; the London bombings in 2005; many other acts of terrorism and the constant fighting in the Middle East. The world is in turmoil and chaos, and seems to be spinning out of control.
Closer to home too, are daily tragic examples of, would-be mothers delivering still-born or seriously handicapped babies; depressed individuals taking their own lives; bodies ravaged by cancer, life threatening diseases and other terminal illnesses; orphaned children born to drug addicted or AID infested mothers; senseless murders, rapes. There are so many broken homes and broken lives….
Do we shudder and shy away from all of life’s circumstances and complexities? Do we question and shake our fists at a “silent” and “arrogant” God? Do we retreat into our little “boxed-in” lives? Do we carry on our lives in ignorant bliss? Do we deny the existence of God? Or do we trust wholly in a Sovereign God who is awesomely good and in total control?
The answer to all of life’s calamities and unexplained hurdles, struggles and pain, is steadfast faith. What is faith? Faith is an instinctive, unquestioning belief in, and reliance upon a loving God. It is to have absolute confidence and certainty in a faithful, trustworthy Heavenly Father. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”.
An example of a man who had remarkable faith, in the midst of personal crisis and turmoil, is Job. With God’s permission, Satan afflicted him with the loss of all his children, all his property, livestock and servants. There were no obvious reasons why he had to endure such intense suffering. Yet, he said “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:21)
“Unwavering trust is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic. When the shadow of Jesus’ cross falls across our lives in the form of failure, rejection, abandonment, betrayal, unemployment, loneliness, depression, the loss of a loved one; when we are deaf to everything but the shriek of our own pain; when the world around us suddenly seems a hostile, menacing place-at those times, we may cry out in anguish, “how could a loving God permit this to happen?” At such moments the seeds of distrust are sown. It requires heroic courage to trust in the love of God, no matter what happens to us”
We may not fully see through the cobwebs of life’s heartaches and tragedies, or make sense of bewildering and heart-wrenching situations in and around us. Nor will we always understand all the perplexing questions that life’s circumstances throw at us. Trusting involves “seeing” God in the darkness.
“The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future”
(“Ruthless Faith” pg 12 Brennan Manning)
John Flavel, the Puritan writer once wrote “The providence of God is like Hebrew words. It can be read only backwards”. It is true, that only after we have been brought through our later trials, do our earlier trials make “more sense”.
We have a big God who created the vast, expanse of the universe and who put the stars in space and planets into orbit. Who are we, to challenge the ways of God? “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Who stretched a measuring line across it?” (Job 38:4-5)
Amidst the chaos of life’s trials, surely we can put our trust in a powerful, awesome, loving, gracious, dependable Father, who loved us and gave His son for us all.
“Do not throw away your confidence, it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (Hebrews 10:35-36)
A day will come when God’s ultimate purposes will be fully revealed in its entirety.
