Regaining a Patient Perspective

The last two years in my life have been an emotional roller coaster whose peaks and drops have become more pronounced with time. In the last week alone have come perhaps the highest highs and lowest lows to date, in mind-blowingly quick succession. And once again I find the Lord encouraging present me through something He showed past me. So today, I share a post I wrote back in 2018 because I need to remember it and because I pray it will be a good reminder for you too.

 

In The Baron’s Apprenticeship by George MacDonald, the character Barbara is recounting a conversation she had with the curate, Thomas Wingfold: 

 

Mr. Wingfold said that it was not fair, when a man had made something for a purpose, to say it was not good before we knew what his purpose with it was. “I don’t even like my wife to look at my poems before they’re finished,” he said. “But God can’t hide away his work till it is finished, as I do my verses, and we ought to take care what we say about it. God wants to do something better with people than people think” (p. 95).

 

The truth and accompanying implications here, stated another way, are these: 1) God does things with a purpose; 2) God’s purpose in a given situation is not usually apparent to us at the outset; 3) we should avoid jumping to conclusions about our circumstances, assuming we know His purpose, and judging Him and our circumstances according to those assumptions. As these thoughts were simmering in my mind, I came across several Psalms that help us look deeper into this idea.

 

In Psalm 105, the psalmist is recounting the history of Israel from Abraham to the exodus from Egypt and return to the Promised Land. In the middle of the psalm, we read, “When he [God] summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them […]” (v. 16-17a, ESV*).  Here we see God’s preparation for His people, years before they ever knew a famine was coming. What a beautiful, good thing!

 

But in the rest of verse 17, we find an unexpected ending: “When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph who was sold as a slave.” So wait, our good God provided a means of survival for His people, but He did it by allowing a man to become a slave? You got it.

 

I think it’s safe to say that we can all agree that slavery is bad. And being kidnapped by your brothers and sold to foreigners isn’t something we would call “good.” Yet, Joseph himself acknowledged that God’s hand was in his slavery. He told his brothers, “And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God,” (Genesis 45:7-8a). He later told them, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). Very clearly, Joseph understood that what seemed like a bad situation was actually a good one. But likely, he had doubts when he was in prison in a foreign land, having been unjustly accused after having been sold into slavery.

 

Joseph’s story is probably the most common illustration for the idea that what looks like something bad can actually be something good, but that shouldn’t make it any less potent. And when we combine it with Thomas Wingfold’s admonition to avoid judging things as “not good” prematurely, it becomes even more thought-provoking. What would have happened if Joseph had insisted that God had sent this flood of horrible circumstances upon him and therefore couldn’t be relied upon much less worshipped? What would have happened if he had hardened his heart to God because he judged God’s purpose to be against him instead of for him? How often are we guilty of doing just that?

 

In other Psalms, we see this idea again, that God uses bad to bring about good. Psalm 66:11-12 reads, “You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through the fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.” Notice God is the one doing the action here. God is the one bringing them into the net; God is the one laying a burden on them—and not just any burden, a crushing burden; God is the one letting them be ridden over. The verse prior to these tells us that God did these things to test and try His people; in other words, God put them through challenging times to refine them for their ultimate good.

 

Are we comfortable and confident enough in our faith to accept that God sometimes puts us in painful, difficult, even crushing situations? Do we believe in a God that is big enough to redeem evil and use it for good? In these verses, God is the one inflicting the “negative” things on His people, but He is also the one bringing them out of those things into a peaceful place where they can flourish. His purposes were sure all along, even though the process might have obscured them from view.

 

Elsewhere, the psalmist writes, “You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again” (Psalm 71:20). Again we see that God is the one making him experience trouble, but that God is also the one who brings back to life what has been crushed. God can send someone to the lowest of lows and then bring them up again.

 

In all of these cases, what is important to note is that God is not cruel in allowing bad to happen to us. In our finite existence, it can seem that sad and painful circumstances are always and forever bad, but in God’s infinite reality in which we live, where His ways are far above our understanding, His good purposes are always at work and will always prevail. As the psalmist testifies, “The works of his hands are faithful and just” (Psalm 111:7a). We must be careful, then, that we don’t unjustly accuse our all-wise God of cruelty or callousness simply because we cannot see the bigger picture or all of the details of His eternal plan.

 

Because we know who He is from His Word, we can trust Him completely—even in the midst of crushing burdens that weigh us down, grief that knocks our breath away, and pain that doesn’t relent. He is in control. And He is good. I can’t think of a better way to conclude than to revisit Thomas Wingfold’s words. May they sink into your soul, challenging and encouraging you as they have me.

 

Mr. Wingfold said that it was not fair, when a man had made something for a purpose, to say it was not good before we knew what his purpose with it was. “I don’t even like my wife to look at my poems before they’re finished,” he said. “But God can’t hide away his work till it is finished, as I do my verses, and we ought to take care what we say about it. God wants to do something better with people than people think.”

 

PC: Yandle Multimedia Photography. Used with permission.

Source: MacDonald, George (Phillips, Michael, ed.) The Curate of Glaston. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1986.

*All Scripture is quoted from the English Standard Version

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Reminders about Self-Sufficiency, Prayer, and the Glory of God

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been asking a lot of people for prayer regarding several situations, a particularly heavy one of which is yet to be resolved. As wearying as the situation itself is, I’ve found myself also becoming weary with continually asking for prayer. It’s easy to feel like I’m being annoying at best or burdensome at worst for the small army of prayer warriors God has amassed around me.

But as the Lord does so often, He’s used something He showed me years ago, before this difficult situation was even on my radar, to remind me of the importance of prayer and of sharing our needs with others. That something He showed me was from a few verses in 2 Corinthians, and I wrote about them in some of the first blog posts I ever wrote, back in 2015. So today, I’d like to share a slightly edited version of those early posts, and I pray that it encourages you in whatever season of life you find yourself in to be persistent in prayer and diligent in allowing others to come alongside you to pray.   

In several posts here on An Iris Awaits, I’ve talked about how God can reveal things in the Bible that have previously gone unnoticed to us. When this happens, it’s almost like the verse jumps out at you like a page in a pop-up book saying, “Look! Right here! Look at me!” So here’s an example of one such “pop-up verse” from my own life.

I was reading in 2 Corinthians 1 one day. Verses 3-7 in this chapter make up one of my favorite passages of Scripture. They identify God as the God of comfort and explain the purpose behind our receiving comfort from him, namely that we can in turn comfort others. But this time as I was reading the chapter, verse 11 jumped out at me:

“You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”  (ESV)

I’d never really noticed this verse before, but as I read it and reread it that day, I realized just how much meat is really there. The context is Paul telling the Corinthians how he and Timothy had reached the end of their own strength and were learning to fully rely on the power of God to sustain them (vv.8-9).  In the preceding verse, he expresses his complete confidence in God to continue to provide deliverance (v. 10). Then he writes,

“You also must help us by prayer…”

At first glance, this might seem disingenuous of Paul; if he really believes God will deliver them, why ask for prayer?  Why must the Corinthian believers also pray if God will already sustain and provide?

“…so that many will give thanks on our behalf…”

I love those two little words: so that. Whenever we see them in Scripture, we know that whatever follows is an explicit answer to the question “why.” And this verse is no exception. Why does Paul want the Corinthians to pray? So that many people will give thanks to God. In other words, the more people who are praying, the more people will be praising God when He responds. So with that one little phrase “so that” we see the motivation behind the request: for God to receive more glory.

But what are the people giving thanks for?

“…for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

Paul knows that as his fellow believers pray, God will hear and will bless him and Timothy. Yet he is clear that this blessing will come “through the prayers of many.” Paul speaks of the power of prayer here, for even though he is thoroughly confident in God’s deliverance, he knows that there is still blessing that God will provide when His people pray. So from this one verse, we can see that prayer is important, that it makes a difference, and that one result of prayer is God being glorified. Which when you think about it, is the best result of all.

But there’s more. Whenever you come across a “pop-up verse” like this, it’s always a good idea to look deeper into the surrounding verses as well. As I did so with the verses preceding 2 Corinthians 1:11, I found more implications for the Christian life when it comes to prayer, our view of self, and God’s glory.

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.” 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 (ESV)

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.”

Paul does not hide his struggles from his fellow believers. To the contrary, for them to be “unaware” of his “afflictions” is precisely what he does not want. Coming on the tails of the comfort passage (vv. 3-7), this statement is clearly connected to the fact that as affliction is shared so will comfort be, but, as we saw earlier, this verse also leads to Paul’s asking for prayer in verse 11. Thus, part of the reason he wants the Corinthian believers to be aware of his struggles is so that they may pray for him.

Let’s fast-forward to 21^st-century America for a moment. Our society takes pride in individualism, exalts the “self-made man,” and encourages a certain level of isolation. Self-sufficiency is lauded, and anything that might reveal weakness is avoided like the plague. Sadly, this mindset often creeps into the church as well. Christians who are suffering—whether from physical ailment, emotional affliction, or spiritual struggle—often hide their pain and their neediness for fear of looking weak or spiritually immature or of unnecessarily burdening others with the weight of their own problems.

But look at what Paul’s dealing with:

“For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.”   

That’s some pretty serious suffering—and I don’t think he’s just being melodramatic. Neither is he trying to collect sympathy. He is acknowledging that his own strength is not strong enough; he is admitting he is weak. But he doesn’t stop there.

 “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

In the very same breath, Paul directs the attention to God and praises Him as the One powerful enough to raise the dead. As Paul reveals his own weakness, he testifies to God’s strength. He shows that he and Timothy were brought to the end of themselves so that they would trust in God’s sufficiency rather than their own. And the result?

“He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.”

By sharing about his struggle, his weakness, and his dependence on the Lord’s strength, he is able to share about the deliverance God provides, which in turn leads to God’s receiving glory. If people didn’t know about Paul’s afflictions, they wouldn’t see the power of God at work in his life. If people were unaware, they would not be praying and thus, as verse 11 shows, would not be able to give thanks to God when their prayers were answered.

So it is with each of us. If we keep our struggles to ourselves, not only do we deprive our fellow members of the Body of Christ from being able to do their job, but also we miss an opportunity to encourage others by letting them see God’s hand at work in our lives. Pretending that we’re strong enough doesn’t harm just us; it affects our brothers and sisters in Christ as well. And when it comes right down to it, projecting an image of self-sufficiency diminishes the glory given to God.

Let’s not be afraid, then, to ask for prayer when we are struggling. Let’s not deceive ourselves by thinking we can be self-sufficient. Instead, let’s encourage one another, pray for one another, and rejoice with one another as we see the work that God will do. That way, He’ll get all the glory.

PC: JoEllen Boggess. Used with permission.