Trusting God in the bad times

One of the hardest things I think we are called to do as Christians is to accept the place that God has put us in with grace and trust especially when it is the last thing we would ever want. It may be a place of great trial and difficulty and we do not feel we have done anything to ‘deserve’ it but this is where we find ourselves.

There is an incredible clip on YouTube of a young mother dying from cancer explaining how she is managing to cope in this heart breaking situation.  Four months later she died leaving two small children.

This is some of what she said: People ask me why is God taking me away when a murderer gets to live a long life? There is an implicit assumption in this that I am a good person – I deserve better.  I am not a good person.  I do not deserve better.  As it says in Romans 3: 23 we have all done wrong things.

I have railed against not being able to do what I want.  It is frustrating and I get angry but the root of this is unbelief. What I am saying is I do not believe this is right for me.  God you do not know what you are doing. If you do know then you are not good or you are not in control. I don’t want this.  God you are not being fair because you are not giving me what I want. This is what our hearts say when faced with circumstances we do not like but God is good. He is in control. He is fair.

When I try and make him into a God who serves me – I sin. Our natural bent is to sin and that is our greatest problem.

I am so challenged by this.  I am not in the circumstances of this young mother but I have been in circumstances I do not like. I may rail against God and what is happening. I too get angry and frustrated but this will not help me or those around me.

Too often our default position as Christians is that God is good and therefore only good things should happen to us as his children. When bad things happen, it must be because we have sinned or because the devil is attacking us. This may be true or we may be in this place just because that s where God has us at this time.

Trusting God in these times is the answer; believing that God is good, he does know best and he has a bigger picture and purpose that he is working out in our lives. He has not forgotten or abandoned us but is holding us securely in his hand despite all our emotions that tell us otherwise.  We can and must trust him.

Rejoicing in trials

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.  Matthew 5: 11 – 12

I have been reading The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun, a Chinese pastor who along with many Chinese Christians has been imprisoned and horrifically beaten, tortured and persecuted just for being Christian. They have an understanding of the joy of persecution that I have no comprehension of.  Yet their experience is Biblical.  Jesus suffered greatly for us. His disciples and the apostle Paul all suffered terribly for the Gospel and most were martyred yet I doubt any would have preferred an easier life.   

James tells us ‘to consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds’. Why? Because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything (James 1: 3 – 4).

Brother Yun says, ‘There are many ways the Lord may lead a Christian during his or her life but I am convinced that the path of every believer will sooner or later include suffering. The Lord gives us these trials to keep us humble and dependent on him for our sustenance. I believe when suffering and pain increases, sinning decreases. … How we mature as a Christian largely depends on the attitude we have when we are faced with suffering. Some try to avoid it or imagine it doesn’t exist, but that will only make the situation worse.  Others try to endure it grimly, hoping for relief.  This is better but falls short of the full victory God wants to give each of his children.

The Lord wants us to embrace suffering as a friend.  We need a deep realisation that when we’re persecuted for Jesus’ sake it is an act of God’s blessing to us. This might sound impossible but it is attainable with God’s help.

When people malign you, rejoice and be glad. When they curse you, bless them in return.  When you walk through a painful experience, embrace it and you will be free! When you learn these lessons, there is nothing left that the world can do to you.’

Most of us have little experience of what Brother Yun suffered, yet how to endure and, yes, rejoice in our lesser suffering is the same.  His experiences were so extreme and dreadful yet all of us will also have trials at some time with family difficulties, work problems, financial worries and church! It is through these that we can know that God is always with us and will use these circumstances to bring about his plans for our lives as we press into him.  Self pity will always try and grip us but instead we must embrace God.  Our character and maturity grow to bring us to completeness as we persevere in the midst of our difficulties and as we test God’s eternal word and find it is completely faithful and trustworthy.  Maybe we will even learn to rejoice in our suffering realising God is doing a great work in our lives.

 

Psalm 13

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me? Psalm 13: 1 - 2

It is one of the hard facts of the Christian faith that it is the difficult times that produce the greatest fruit in our lives, if we make the most of them. That of course is the dilemma because it is the hard times that are most difficult to make anything out of.  All of our good intentions fly out of the window and every truth that we believe about God and our lives as Christians is tested to the limit in our trials.

A year ago our youngest son, who had been living in America for a year, was getting ready to be married to a very nice American girl in USA and two weeks before the event everything went wrong.  Our daughter in law was having great difficulty getting a British visa and to add to the difficulty the dog chewed her passport making it unacceptable to be used at all. The delay caused by getting a new passport meant she would have no passport to go with on honeymoon. They had spent a lot of money on the honeymoon, applying for a visa and now she needed a new passport as well.

In addition to all this, Hurricane Irene blew up the north east coast on USA wrecking the park they were going to use for the picnic that they had planned for their reception. They had no visa, no passport and it looked like no reception venue and no honeymoon. Everything was awful – it was no one’s fault but why had God allowed it? They were two lovely Christian young people who had been faithful to God and now on the biggest day of their life so far everything had gone pear shaped. Why hadn’t God intervened?  It just wasn’t fair!

They were upset and all parents on both sides of the Atlantic were upset and personally I found it very hard talking to a devastated son who was thousands of miles away. I felt really down and moaned and moaned to God. My attitude was not good but at least I was talking to the only person who could actually do anything about the situation. Two days later I felt so low and quite ‘by chance’ I listened to a song called Psalm 13 by one of the Vineyard bands. The lyrics touched me deeply as they spoke right into the situation. I read the psalm and the last two verses were ‘But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me’ Psalm 13: 5 – 6. The light bulbs came on and with no evidence to support it I declared that I will trust in God’s unfailing love – why?  Because the Lord has been good to me.

I may have been squeezed till I almost screamed but I could never deny that God had been good to me so I could trust him despite all the evidence to the contrary. I knew all would be well. On the other side of the Atlantic my son’s future mother-in-law was urging them to trust God. Within a week all the situations had been turned around; the sun shone on the wedding day, another reception venue had been found for the picnic, our daughter in law got two passports – one for the honeymoon and one for the visa - and two days after the wedding her British visa was granted.

God is good and utterly reliable and trustworthy despite the circumstances and we will never discover this for ourselves till we have had this truth tested in the fires of adversity. I now KNOW I can rely on God because he has been good to me and even in the midst of difficulties God is still good to me and all his children.

Do not fear the fires of afflictions but ask God to help you walk through them with integrity and honesty, praising and worshipping our Creator who is good and wonderful no matter how hard the road we are walking on. You will bear increasing fruit as you trust him because you will know for yourself the truth of God’s goodness and faithfulness even in the midst of adversity. Cross references:

1. Psalm 13:1 : Ps 6:3
2. Psalm 13:1 : Ps 42:9; La 5:20
3. Psalm 13:1 : S Dt 31:17; S Ps 22:24; S Isa 8:17; S 54:9
4. Psalm 13:2 : Ps 42:4; 55:2; 139:23; Isa 33:18; Da 7:28
5. Psalm 13:2 : Ps 94:3
6. Psalm 13:3 : Ps 9:12; 25:18; 31:7; 35:23; 59:4; 80:14; 107:41; 119:50, 153
7. Psalm 13:3 : S Ps 4:1
8. Psalm 13:3 : S Ezr 9:8
9. Psalm 13:3 : Ps 76:5; 90:5; Jer 51:39
10. Psalm 13:4 : S 1Ki 19:2; Ps 25:2
11. Psalm 13:4 : Ps 38:16; 118:13
12. Psalm 13:5 : S Ps 6:4
13. Psalm 13:5 : S Job 33:26; Ps 9:14; Isa 25:9; 33:2
14. Psalm 13:6 : S Ex 15:1; Ps 7:17

 

Persevering to victory

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. Matthew 19: 29

I was reading something that Joyce Meyer wrote about the difficulties she experienced in the early days of her ministry and how glad she is that she persevered and did not give up. I think we would all say ‘Amen’ to that as the Church would be a poorer place without her ministry and practical encouragement to us all.

The Scripture she quoted was the one above and I remember how relevant that was in our early Christian walk.  God called us to leave the church we were going to and join a new church where we knew hardly anyone. I remember grumbling and complaining to God about this and why was it all so hard and God reminded me of this verse.

Nearly 30 years later I can smile as it all seems so silly now. The things that were so hard then are not hard now and God has been so faithful because as we have faced harder and harder trials somehow things have got easier and easier which sounds so unlikely. However as I think about it with each and every trial that we face we have to draw closer to God and depend on him more and more. As we do that it makes the whole of our life easier because of the greater dependence and trust we have built into our lives.

However the converse is also true.  Imagine Joyce Meyer had given up when things were so hard or imagine we had not been obedient to God and stayed at the church where it was all so much easier. Today we would not have the blessing of Joyce’s ministry and we might still be living compromised lives in the church we were going to having things easy but unfulfilling at one level but not knowing the joy and satisfaction of having pushed through to greater heights in our walk with God.

I marvel that any of us have survived some of the spiritual lows and difficulties that God has taken us through but it is so true that there is nothing we go through where God is not with us every step of the way, holding our hands, encouraging and strengthening us and whispering to us all the time, ‘Don’t give up.’  Jesus showed us that the Christian life may not be easy but it is always worth it. If Jesus could ‘for the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.’ Hebrews 12:2 we too can endure our difficulties so we too rise triumphant to greater glories for him.

Be strengthened if you are facing trials and difficulties and remember it is worth it and if you are in an easier time, thank God and rejoice in his faithfulness and love.

How long O Lord

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me. Psalm 13: 1 -2 and 5 – 6

It is an unfortunate fact of Christian life that sometimes things go wrong and in some cases very badly wrong. In the last 24 hours I have spoken to people whose lives have literally fallen apart leaving them feeling that God has forgotten them and does not care about them.

Nothing of course is farther from the truth but that is certainly how it looks and feels and David must have felt exactly the same in order to write this psalm. So often our first thought in these awful circumstances is either ‘why me?’ or ‘what have I done wrong?’ There can also be an implication that God is punishing us for some misdemeanour.

Let me assure you, you have done nothing wrong and God does not punish us. All of our sin was punished on the cross when Jesus paid in full for our salvation. However we live in a fallen world, full of fallen people who do not necessarily do or say the right thing, egged on by a devil who wants to cause as much misery to as many people as possible. It is not personal. The devil is horrible to everyone.

What the devil wants more than anything else is to drive a wedge between you and God and fill your head full of lies about how much God does not care for you and has no interest in your life. He wants you to believe that the horrible things happening to you were orchestrated by God.

Dear friends, God only does good things. He does not send us nasty things to teach us lessons. He does not send sickness and cancer to help us grow in faith. He does not break up marriages because we have not been a good husband or wife. What God does do is promise never to leave you or forsake you. He promises to be your healer when sickness does strike. He promises to be your provider at all times of everything you could need (II Corinthians 9: 8).

Neither does he leave us in the lurch. How can our loving heavenly Father leave us at our most awful times? He can’t - he is there with us. The thing we have to do is find him in the midst of difficulties that are threatening to swamp us. We must do as David did: But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.

Hard as it may seem, with the world around you collapsing, that is what will get you through. God and his unfailing love for you. I pray you find him and his love to strengthen you in your hour of need.

Consider it pure joy

‘Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.’ James 1: 3 – 4

There are several times in the Bible when the believer is encouraged to rejoice in the face of trials or testings and persecution. For some this may be the very real possibility of losing their job, being ostracised from the family, being beaten, imprisoned or killed for their faith. When Peter and John were imprisoned and threatened by the Sanhedrin they came away rejoicing that they had been considered worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name (Acts 5: 41).

Most of us will not face these kinds of threats or persecution but we can nevertheless learn how to deal with our own difficulties.  The one thing we tend not to consider when we face trials is pure joy. The first thing tends to be anger, disappointment and frustration or irritation. We rail against the instrument of the trial whether that be a person or situation and probably have a rant and rave and if the person is close, we may then do the stony silence routine. There is definitely no rejoicing!

I have learned over the years that after the initial anger or frustration that I feel, I then ask God what is going on and what can I learn from this?  This takes things away from me and how I feel. Sometimes the devil is behind it and what looks like a person being mean, unkind or inconsiderate is actually the devil using a situation which we may have played a part in to bring division, discord and disharmony – his stock in trade.

Other times it is the weakness of the flesh, mine or another’s but nevertheless there are lessons to learn and fruit to grow. Our friend forgiveness opens the door to turning a horrible experience into a situation that develops faith, perseverance and brings us to maturity. Having forgiven and been forgiven by God, we can then attack the enemy, tell him to get off the situation and ask for healing and restoration.

I have seen many domestic tiffs miraculously turned around by this. Having dealt with your own frustrations and anger and asked God’s forgiveness, we can then go and apologise (often regardless of the rights and wrongs).  The transformation can be rapid and we will have grown in maturity. Instead of a stony silence and ‘I am hurt and you’re not helping’ attitude, normal service is resumed and we will have learned valuable lessons in love and grace. We will have stepped up from ‘poor me’ or worse still self righteous indignation to becoming mature men and women of God.

Sometimes of course the situation is more serious but the same principle of not feeling sorry for ourselves but looking to God to bring healing, restoration and spiritual growth in our lives is the same. There have been a couple of times when our pastors (of many years ago) treated us quite badly and were quite inconsiderate and hurtful. I felt so let down and disappointed but managed to find forgiveness and let God heal my heart. At the time a friend told me that in years to come, I would be glad about what had happened which seemed unbelievable at the time. Now looking at the situation, I can rejoice over what was so painful and over which I shed many tears. I learned so much about trusting God not man to bring good out of situations. I have grown and so has my perseverance and faith.

Several times Jesus and the apostles talk of rejoicing in difficulties and trials because of the maturity they bring to our faith. When we face trials, let us use them as a step up to greater levels of grace and maturity and let us see them not as an obstacle but as an opportunity to grow into Christ like character.