God and Suffering

I need to talk about this. This has been really heavy on my heart lately (in lieu of recent events with my mental health), and I feel like this is something that needs to be said and re-said for the sake of all of us.

When I suffer (especially when it's related to my mental disease), I have a tendency to go, "Well, why doesn't God fix it? Is He punishing me or teaching me or purifying me? What is He doing that He is allowing me to suffer so badly?" And then I listen to songs on the radio that go, "Yeah, I'm suffering, but my faith in God will make it better." Or something to that extent. That God could fix me.

And I know God could fix me if He wanted to.
So my selfish little mind of course goes, "Why am I not better by now? I have the faith that God could do it, why am I not fixed now?" Like it's a formula. Problem+faith in God=problem fixed, right?

NO.

That's not how God operates. If He gave us everything we asked for right when we asked for it, what kind of a world would this be, huh? Sometimes we will ask for stuff, and we can have the strongest faith in the world, but it doesn't fit into God's plan to let us have that right when we ask for it.

My favorite radio DJ of all time is Brant Hansen from Air1, and he is undoubtably one of the biggest role models in my life (I'm sure he has no idea, but he has tweeted at me before when I tweeted him questions! Brant, if you're reading this, I'm JesusFreek317. You said I ask good questions.). He answered one of my tweets once that asked (in fewer words), "If God has forgiven us all of our flaws, why do the flaws persist? Especially the bad ones, like mental disease? If I am forgiven and made whole in God's presence, why does God still allow me to suffer?" And Brant answered me, "He uses our weaknesses to glorify Him. If I do something because I am awesome, I get credit."

That stuck a chord with me. That answer resonated with me, hard.

It isn't the comfort I had hoped for.
But then, how often are the answers to the tough questions really comforting?

This answer meant that God would allow me to continue to suffer, maybe indefinitely, to demonstrate to those around me that even when their suffering is great, is massive, is more than they know they could POSSIBLY handle on their own, there is a God who will give them just enough strength to get through it, and through that, through the fact that I have somehow managed to endure far more than should ever be humanly possible, God is glorified, because He has not only gotten me through it, He made His light shine through me in the process.

It reminds me of the story of the widow of Sarepta in First Kings 17. When Elijah first approaches her and asks for an offering, she tells him she has nothing to give. She has just enough flour and oil to make some bread for herself and her son, and after that, it was over. There would be nothing left, and they would both die. But Elijah tells her, "No, it's okay. Make a little something for me first, then for yourself and your son. The Lord won't let you run out." And God didn't. For months Elijah lived with that little family--a widow and her son--on the flour and oil that was supposed to have run out that first night. Because every time she took some out of the jar, there was still a little left at the bottom. God never fills the jar all the way back up, but there's still a little left at the bottom.
But the miracle doesn't stop there. Later on, as this woman is still watching the bottom of that jar very carefully for the day there's no more, her son--the only thing she has in the entire world--sickens and dies. And she lashes out at Elijah for taking him away from her. She curses and screams at him, accuses him, asking why he would do this to her, why, when he had sustained her on next to nothing, left her hanging by a thread for months on this stupid jar, would he take her entire world away? And Elijah goes upstairs to where the little boy is lying dead, and cries out to God. And God brings her son back, and Elijah hands him back to her.

Notice something about this story.
The status quo never changes.
The jar never fills back up. Even after her son is brought back nothing else happens. And when the rains come and the fields start producing again, the jar stops leaving just a little at the bottom, because they can take care of themselves now, and the world will go back to just how it had been before Elijah got there.
Except for one thing.

For the rest of her life, that widow will know that she witnessed a miracle, and that the Lord looks favorably on her. She will know, forever, that no matter how close to empty the jar gets, no matter if she thinks she's spent everything she has, every ounce of strength, determination, even faith is about to run out, the Lord will sustain her. By a thread. And in her suffering, her daily struggle with starvation, God will be glorified. All who see her will say, "That is the one whose son was raised, whom the Lord sustains from death." And they will know that the Lord is good, and He is merciful.


May it be so with me.
That when people see me, and they know my suffering, that they can look at me and say, "You know, I'm pretty sure if she didn't have God in her life she wouldn't keep getting up every morning." And they will see God working in me, healing me just enough each day to keep me going, and they will know that the Lord is good and merciful in me.

"I hope that they see You in me." ~Thousand Foot Krutch


May it be so with me.
Amen.