I'm stuck in it. You are stuck in it. And for the time being, there is no way out of it. We are ever in this grave reality that at times lessens, though at other times increases. And it is not about to go anywhere, anytime soon. That is because time is the great obstacle to this entire conundrum in which we find ourselves caught.
Everywhere we go we find ourselves overwhelmed with some level of difficult news. Pain bears down upon us at every twist and turn. A baby feels it from the moment they are out of the womb. The baby cries indicating something is unsettling about this new, unknown environment. The baby cries then when he feels hunger pains. Of course as this child grows, he will feel the pain in the form of fear over a dark room. Later on in life, it will be in the form of friends who hurt with words or actions. And of course down the road the physical injury suffered (broken arm, chipped tooth...) will reinforce this ceaseless cycle life puts all of us through.
And then of course later in life there is not only the known pains that we have endured up until then, which never truly go away (we just get somewhat used to them), but it is also new arenas of pain. A man wakes up to a ringing phone, and it is the voice of his father in broken, choppy manner, saying, "Your...mo...ther......just died!" And the heart breaks unlike anything previously thought possible. The harsh letter from the attorney your spouse hired calling for the termination of your marriage strike with a great, previously unknown, pain. The ailing backs, the cancer, the loss of sight, the financial earthquake, and still countless additional matters strike you and I, will continue to do so. Even when all this isn't going on in our lives, it is happening, to someone, somewhere. As one man recently said, "There is every hour across the world, simultaneously, a wedding and a funeral." From the highest of highs for some, to the lowest of lows for others.
Amid all the pain and misery we experience, have experienced, and know one day we too will experience, it is tough to believe in a good God, an able God, a loving God. And yet this is how God reveals Himself to us in the Bible. The problem is we miss, or doubt this as reality because of our current painful reality.
God is shouting at us to remember though. We need to remember the temporal nature of suffering. All suffering, for the righteous, is temporary. It is real, but it is temporary. It will eventually end. And it will end when time is no more either at death, or at the end of the age. And yet the joy the righteous will experience is ETERNAL. It is only when we get these two realities backwards that we find ourselves hopeless.
I am not for a moment advocating we deny the reality of pain. It is real, it is strong, it is exceptionally difficult to deal with, but it is not ultimate. What God is calling us to do is to right-size the reality of pain. How? By reflecting on the eternal reality of what it will mean to be with God. David in Psalm 52 helps us with this. He is in anguish as he is running from King Saul who is trying to kill him. It is every bit real. And that is some considerable pain, and threat of pain to deal with. He speaks of Saul as one who "boast[s] of evil," and who "plots destruction." He loves "evil more than good." And on and on you feel this painful reality of David's life. Still, all of what he mentioned is but temporary. Saul would not last.
However, as relates to David and God, he says, "I trust in the steadfast love of God FOREVER and EVER. I will thank You FOREVER." And in that he sums up the ability to endure through pain, struggle, suffering. He points to the infinite distance between suffering and joy by talking about time and eternity, and by talking about man and God. The point is while suffering is a part of David's portion now, still God is David's portion FOREVER. And even while suffering is a part of David's portion now, God is not only His portion FOREVER, but also right now. The superiority of God is visible in that He will remain David's everything when eternity commences, but also in David's suffering now, God is right there for and with David in it all.
So we have this marvelous two-pronged reminder to get us through: 1) Suffering is temporary, but 2) God, our hope now and joy now, will also be our portion FOREVER.
Learn to live in the great tension of these two realities, instead of succumbing to the lie that your suffering is the final reality. We make too little of God and glorify our suffering, when God demands of us, we glorify Him above all else. May these real pains we really endure only point us to Him, who one day soon will remove all suffering from the righteous and fill us with joy, the very joy He has had perfectly IN HIMSELF for all ETERNITY before time, and will for all ETERNITY after time.
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