Why does God allow
suffering to His faithful?
Why are dreams so long to become fulfilled and sometimes never come to pass?
Why does He seem so silent at times while the world is quick to speak its opinions?
Why are dreams so long to become fulfilled and sometimes never come to pass?
Why does He seem so silent at times while the world is quick to speak its opinions?
I read Job in a week. I’m not sure if a book in the Bible
has ever captivated me so fully and so wholeheartedly. Portrayed as a man
faithful to his God, Job enters an incredible sequence of events that
completely shake his entire life: in a matter of minutes and as a result of
spiritual warfare, everything (except his negative wife!) was stripped away
from him. We don’t know how long his agony lasted, but part of his suffering
included a constant outpour of various words and opinions from his “friends.”
Every single one of them had an opinion; and while each opinion held truths
within it, it did not address Job’s real issue. Then God stepped in. He did not
answer Job’s questions; rather, He pointed out His sovereignty. Job was
absolutely humbled; how foolish he had been to try to explain the meaning of
what was happening to him. While God blessed Job in unmeasurable material and
familial ways in the long run, Job received the most important gift right after
God’s words humbled him: a true heart for God –not a heart after sacrifices and
ordinances, but a heart after the Almighty.
Yesterday, I began reading I Samuel. I jumped into a
storyline early on that I had expected; but I also discovered a similar theme
to Job that I had not foreseen. I Samuel begins with an insight in the life of
a woman, Hannah, desperate for her own child. She and her family are seen as
faithful to God through their regular prayers and sacrifices, similarly to
Job’s situation prior to his moment of desperation. Hannah, too, is persecuted,
though mainly emotionally. Her dream for a child was honorable –yet God did not
seem to be fulfilling her vision. Eventually, He did provide her with a son,
Samuel, who would do wonders through God for Israel. Why did God make Hannah
wait? What did God want of her?
He wanted her heart…just like He wanted Job’s…and He wants
ours.
There is no telling how Hannah would have been toward God
and the future of her son had she not had to wait, had she not had to endure
the pain from the words of her husband’s second wife. There’s no telling how
Job would have continued viewing God had he not been tried. Would both Hannah
and Job have continued in simply following the rules and offering sacrifices
rather than truly pursuing the heart of God?
The desires God places in our hearts are for a very, very,
VERY specific reason; but if we try to meet them on our own timetable or if we pursue
them more than the One who gave them to us, we risk missing quite a bit of
beautiful growth in the Lord –we risk missing what He wants most for us: a
heart after Him and His purposes. Jesus boasted of Mary’s best decision: to
choose the “good portion” of life (Luke 10:41-42), pursuing the heart of God.
Similarly, God looked past David’s human mistakes and still had him remembered
for his most important trait: a heart after God’s (Acts 13:22).
So to those of you waiting for your dream to come, to those
of you praying for healing, to those of you who are confused about your next
step, remember that if your heart is after God’s, you already have everything.
Let your heart pursue Him, confessing His sovereignty. He CAN be trusted. “He
suffered you to hunger…that He might make you know that man does not live by
bread alone…” (Deut. 8:3) –He wants us to have the most important part of life:
satisfaction in Him, in pursuing Him, in knowing Him. Forget the calling,
forget the mission; yes, those are important. But what He wants most is our
heart. As so beautifully said by Amy Carmichael, “It is a safe thing to trust
Him to fulfill the desires He creates.”
