Sonsofthesea.org

"Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Matthew 4:19

Tag: Suffering

Let’s Talk About Suffering.

February 4, 2023 /
MaryEllen Montville

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. –Isaiah 55:8.

“If God is loving, why does He allow so many to suffer?” “Why are some healed while others are not?”

I don’t know about you, fellow Christian, but I have been asked these questions numerous times by as many people. Now I am no theologian, no Bible scholar. I am a fellow believer in our Lord Jesus Christ who, like you, asks and, via Scripture and by the leading Holy Spirit as my teacher and guide, attempts to answer questions we may be asked or ask ourselves.

Some, claiming to believe in Jesus, attempt to answer these “beyond our paygrade” questions intellectually or emotionally. Yet, at their core, such answers are only partially understood spiritually within a faith-filled relationship with our Lord, Jesus. But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (meaningless nonsense) to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated. –1 Corinthians 2:14.

Truth is, fellow believers, we, the Church, will never fully know, comprehend, or be able to wrap our finite minds around, the answer to these very real questions, this side of eternity. Today’s Scripture verse makes this evident. In 1 Corinthians 13:9, Paul clearly spells this out for us: Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!

God never intended for His children to have all the answers.

Most of our walk and understanding of God is done by faith, as God intended. From the beginning, we were meant to know in part. Yet we’ve been commanded to act on what has been given us, leaving the rest to God. The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. –Deuteronomy 29:29.

God has given us solid threads throughout His Word—lifelines. We can cling to these strong, sturdy, and steadfast threads, keeping our hope and faith alive and thriving until we, like Jesus, “know in full.” These lifelines enable us to share the life-changing Truth of God’s love and justice with a hurting and confused world.

So, what is God’s heart towards us, His children? His creations? The most accurate answer is Love. God is Love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” –John 3:16.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. –2 Peter 3:9.

I thank God for the Truth found in 2 Peter 3:9. Why? Because I was one of the “any“ our brother Peter is referring to. I thank God that it was His heart towards me that I should live—on earth and in heaven, with Him. Here, in part, is why:

In 2008 I suffered what some of the best neurologists in the country have categorized as a massive Ischemic Stroke. A blood clot had formed in my body and shot to my brain, causing what now resembles half-dollar size dead areas of brain tissue when seen on an MRI. These dead areas are on my brain’s frontal, parietal, and occipital lobes. The clot that hit my brain was described to me this way:

“Think of a pinball machine. You hit the little metal ball, and it bounces off several bumpers. That’s what happened in your head. One clot bounced off several lobes of your brain, damaging them as it did.”

I don’t remember much about the first few days after the stroke. Loud noises and voices, really. I now know they were the sounds of the MRI machine and those of the doctors and nurses who were treating me. My first conscious thought, the first thing I remember, is hearing my children’s voices. I couldn’t respond to them, as hearing them was like hearing someone far off, but I knew they were there, which comforted me. Eventually, I would awaken to find that the entire left side of my body had been paralyzed. I say “had been” because God healed my body in His infinite mercy. If you saw me today, like many, you’d likely say, “to look at you, you’d never know you had a stroke.” And you’d be right. Only God and I, and those closest to me, recognize the minor residual effects of that stroke.

I share my testimony with you in the hopes that it will encourage you. Restoring hope to that one who may be suffering some physical malady or is walking beside that loved one who has or is. Hang on—God is not finished with you/them yet. There is a purpose to what may appear to be this random suffering. God will redeem it.

He doesn’t play favorites. God did it for me, and He will do it for you or in the life of your loved one.

Those who know me will tell you that I often say one of the best things that ever happened to me was having that stroke. Sounds insane to some, I’m sure. Others may say my saying this is the result of the brain damage I sustained. But I say what the enemy meant for evil, God used for His glory and my good. I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us. —Romans 8:18.

 I was not saved when that stroke occurred.

I was knee-deep in sin and rebelling against God. Had I died, I’d be in hell today. But God! Instead, within a few short months of returning home from the hospital, the Lord saved me. He wooed me back to Church, and once there, He came. Oh, glorious day! For at just the right time, while we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. —Romans 5:6.

Since that moment, my life has never been the same—not perfect by any means, and certainly not sin-free. But I am fully committed to the God who gave purpose to my suffering. Who, through that affliction, redeemed my life, using it to connect you and me and countless others. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. –John 12:26.

Beloved, you and I are here today because God is mercy-full and Loving.

On our best days, we forget this Truth—at least I do. Never mind when we are in the thick of suffering. We all too quickly forget that, as believers, we will share in Christ’s suffering, one way or the other. So, let’s not be afraid to share that Truth, one with another. Reminding one another that our God is loving, kind, and mercy-full. And that if, as with Job, God allows affliction to strike, He will surely redeem our suffering. Using it as a living testimony, a beacon of hope for those in our God-given sphere of influence, and a lifeline for the lost and hurting.

I am grateful to God for allowing me to break off and share this small corner of my testimony to minister hope to you or your loved one in your hour of need. Know that I am praying for you. And may God, in His infinite mercy, bring healing to your bodies, minds, and souls. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed at the revelation of His glory. –1 Peter 4:13.

And if you are new here, dear friend, thank you for reading our blog. I pray it has been a Word in season for you. And I pray that if you have not asked my Mercy-full Father into your life as your Lord and Savior, you’ll do it now. We are not promised tomorrow, friend. As I have just testified, life can change in the blink of an eye. I don’t say this to scare you, only to share the Truth with you. Please, don’t miss saying yes to Jesus. Seeing that the warning still comes to us, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time of the provocation. –Hebrews 3:15.

Take Courage, Beloved! 2 Corinthians 1:4.

March 7, 2020 /
“Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Now here we have a very peculiar source of consolation in suffering. The thought that the apostle’s suffering benefited others soothed him in his afflictions, and this is a consolation which is essentially Christian. Consider how the old Stoicism groped in the dark to solve the mystery of grief, telling you it must be, and that it benefits and perfects you. Yes, that is true enough. But Christianity says much more; it says, Your suffering blesses others; it gives them firmness. Here is the law of the Cross: “No man dieth to himself”; for his pain and loss is for others and brings with it to others joy and gain. –F. W. Robertson, M. A.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Look at this young girl’s face. Her countenance speaks volumes. Her face a billboard for one who came hoping to hear one thing, but instead, heard something quite the contrary. Her hope snatched out from under her just as quickly as a magician makes a quarter disappear. She is downcast. Questioning. Searching. Disheartened. Dare I say fearful? I have seen this same expression all too often as of late. Many in the Body of Christ have been wearing this very same face. God has sent me to you, beloved brother, dearest sister, to re-mind you that your loving Father is right by your side. His all-powerful right hand holding yours—lending you His strength in your time of weakness. Take Courage, beloved. El Roi, “the God who sees me” is with you. “We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives!” –2 Corinthians 4:8 MSG.

The enemy of our God—our soul, is keeping busy. We have been lulled, however temporarily, into forgetting that we live in a fallen world. Eden no more…

One in which we both reap what we sow and, are suddenly seized by the inevitable end-result of having lived at all. A world in which God never promised us a trouble-free existence. “I have spoken these things to you so that you shall have peace in me. You shall have suffering in the world, but take heart, I have overcome the world” –John 16:33. A world that is filled with people who will one-day leave their mortal coils in the very dust from which they were created. He, our enemy, wants us to forget about this part. Conning us into believing we’ll live forever. That death is for others, not for us. He does everything possible to shift our focus away from God, from pursuing a life in Christ, a relationship with Him. From beginning to prepare ourselves for those things God has clearly foretold will come to all mankind. The saved and unsaved alike. No race or social class left exempt. As with death, disease and trials, tribulations, and hardships are among the great equalizers of this, our one human race. It is a sure sign of Grace when a man can trust in his God, for the natural man, when afraid, falls back on some human trust, or he thinks that he will be able to laugh at the occasion of fear. He gives himself up to jollity and forgetful-ness, or perhaps he braces himself up with a natural resolution—”To take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them.” He goes anywhere but to his God. –Charles Spurgeon.

I’ve received reports of loved ones being suddenly struck ill. One minute healthy and smiling, the next in peril or pain. Cancers being diagnosed, brain tumors and shingles attacking bodies, strokes leaving once strong and virile men at the mercy of bodies they can no longer control. Being washed now, dressed too, and fed by the very woman they once took pride in gallantly protecting—providing for. Minds once sharp and quick now muddled, processing as slowly as molasses pours. Others still whose memories are being wiped clean by Alzheimer’s. So frustrating! Such heartbreak. And yet, it is to these very souls that we must go fellow Christian, and, with a touch as tender as a child’s, hearts bursting with compassion and the love of Christ, uphold these words we find in today’s scripture verse.

For us as Christians, tribulation, trials, and sudden hardships should be expected; a thing we know with certainty will come. Christ made it clear to us that they would. And He cannot lie. The only unknown is the ‘when’ of it. That is for God alone to know.  Yet, as I’ve stated, Christ expects us to go to, sends us to, these very souls hip-deep in sorrow, shredded by recent loss, dazed by the 1-2 sucker punch of their child’s, son’s, brother’s diagnosis, and encourage them to fear not. To re-mind them that God sees them, knows what has just happened to them and that He has a plan to bring some-thing, some future good, from this seemingly rotten, pain-full, confusing circumstance—if, they’ll but trust Him. If they’ll but leave the door of hope cracked just enough that He might come into this, their worst nightmare, and flood them with, overtake them with hope. Comforting them, offering His strength to endure, press on and into Him…

But how? How do I go to one so raw, so exposed? What can I possibly say to them to help ease their pain or return to them just a glimmer of the hope they just lost? How do you and I go and comfort, bolster, build-up, offer peace to the one whose world just got turned on its head? We can only do this, offer this because we have first experienced it for ourselves. More, because the Spirit of the Living God lives in us, enabling us. He alone gives us the words, His Words. His peace. We can do this because we have experienced it first-hand. We know it to be real. We simply offer our Truth. His Truth. As tenderly and surely and deeply, yet as confidently and powerfully as Jesus Himself would! Is doing through us. We who have felt Christ come and wrap us in a peace that should not exist amongst the chaos of the moment. Strength to stand and take the next step and the one after that, after leaving the last ounce of the strength we possessed discarded, at the feet of that terminal diagnosis.

Have you been here Brother? Sister? Church mother? Pastor? Friend? Is it you I was sent back to encourage today? You whose hand I might hold and say, “fear not, beloved one, God is nearer to you than you could ever imagine. Closer to you than your skin and breath…”

Is it you that I was sent to share my survival story with? My, suddenly-that-day-when-the-bottom-fell-out-of-my-world-too, testimony? Because I have one, I do. One where I not only survived but thrived and grew and, as a result of my suddenly moment, God stepped into the very center of it and saved so much more than this my mere flesh, this temporary tent I call me. Jesus walked right into the messy middle of my fractured mind and commanded it to reroute. He commanded the clot in my brain to cease from doing any further damage, and He then lavishly, lovingly, poured healing balm over every area of my brain, restoring it. Jesus saved the real me, His child; safe. He saved my immortal soul; healing my mind and emotions, and a brain fractured and failing as the result of a massive stroke. He came calming that fear that that would well up inside of me each time I so wanted to move the left side of a body, a side I could no longer control. In those instants, God came with His peace, His strength, and re-minded me that there was never a moment, not one second of my life as I’d known it, including that very second a blood clot ripped through my brain, that I’d ever been in control of, could stop from happening, what could happen to this earthly tent I call my-self. None of us has that ability. That is His alone. He alone is Sovereign.

But what we can do, are called to do, must do, is come to you and her and him amid your trials, your dis-eases, your crisis, whatever they may be and, right there in the messy middle of them, share the love of this same Jesus who met us, met me, dead center in my crisis. Assuring you, as only one who has experience, has a relationship with God, can. God is for you, beloved. He is right where you are, right now. He sees you and knows your fears and feels your pain. He once felt it all Himself. Remember, He is fully God, but Jesus when He walked this earth was also fully man. “He knows our pain all too well. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” –Hebrews 2:14-18.

Fear not beloved, all things, even those we label as, feel are, the worst possible things; our parents or children or loved ones becoming ill, must pass through the Sovereign hands of our loving, kind, just and mercy-full Father. And, know this: if He permits a thing, even some bitter thing, some circumstance or illness to touch our lives, their life, it is this same God who also holds your life, their life, in His hands. Whatever may come your way, God’s got you. Nothing. No-thing, no sickness, trial nor adversity can ever, nor ever will, separate you from God’s love for you. Ever. He has promised that to each of His children. If you are His today, then this promise is surely yours. You say, “I feel so dead and cold, I have not the spiritual vivacity and warmth and life that I used to possess. I used to come up to the Tabernacle and feel such joy and rejoicing in worshipping on God’s Holy Day, but now I feel flat and dull.” Oh, but do not be tempted to get away from Christ because of this! Who runs away from the fire because he is cold? Who, in summer, runs away from the cooling rook because he is hot? Should not my deadness be the reason why I should come to Jesus Christ?” – Charles Spurgeon.

Friend, if you or a loved one is experiencing a time of fiery affliction and you don’t have a relationship with Jesus, please, do not let today pass you by without asking Him to come into your heart as Lord and Savior. Invite Him into the middle of your pain-filled, messy circumstance, and then watch God do what only He can!

A Living Hope! 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.

April 21, 2019 /

“Blessed [gratefully praised and adored] be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts and encourages us in every trouble so that we will be able to comfort and encourage those who are in any kind of trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Despondency and hopelessness have been their constant companions—shame too, since their Master was unjustly dragged away in chains; since they’d abandoned Him in fear of losing their own lives. While Jesus stood before a mock jury of viper’s intent on seeing Him dead, as He was ushered off in the wee hours, brought before Pilot, a ruthless man, whose bloody rule was marked by merciless brutality. Then, flogged to near death and rendered unrecognizable, crowned with thorns, and spat upon. Condemned and left standing before those He had been born to save. All the while “crucify Him, crucify Him” rang out in place of the, “Hosanna in the Highest” that had filled His ears mere days before. His Cross let fall on His bloodied shoulder—as heavy as the weight of the sins of the world. Those He carried now, within. He holds His Cross tightly to Himself, as one holds a precious lover, Gods mercy towards us demonstrated in this embrace. Determined to save us, Jesus starts off for Golgotha, and all that awaits Him there…

How can we give what we do not possess? Demonstrate what we do not know ourselves? Is it any wonder than that Paul wants us to know these life-sustaining attributes of The Father who sent His only Son, this same Jesus, to die in our place? That He wants us to fully take in as our own that, not only does He show us mercy—He is the Father of mercies—that means every mercy. That means every type of mercy you and I have ever, or will ever be shown—forever!

Every time we might have died, and didn’t. Every time we should have felt the sting of our poor choices but instead, mercy showed up. When our child came home safely. When the test results came back clean. When our hearts were breaking, and that one word we so needed to hear was spoken. And, more, in our every moment of pain, of suffering, heart-break, and disappointment. In that life-shattering diagnosis, the death of that child, in the heart-break of witnessing a loved one in the throes of addiction—or rebellion; He is the God of all comfort. The One who comes along side us, just as He walked along-side Jesus on His exacting journey towards Golgotha, comforting and encouraging us, too. Whispering to the very marrow of our bones that there is a purpose in our pain. Some marvelous life that will be birthed from this death that is trying to ravage us. And only then, only armed with His strength, His comfort and mercy, with His assurance, can we walk toward what looks like certain death fixed in our faith. Resolute. Knowing  there is a purpose in it all…

Love does not guarantee we will escape trials and pain and losses, in fact, in love, Jesus told us to expect these things for as long as we live in this fallen world. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” –John 16:33. Our hope, our comfort and strength, our ability to move forward after these things take our very legs out from under us, rob us of our breath, is found in the Truth of Sunday morning. Just as it was for our brothers before us.

Life—new life, will come out of all this pain. We will live. We will love—again!

So, then, imagine their great joy when this same Jesus appears to them alive once more! Imagine for a moment the great comfort, the renewed reassurance they experienced! Peter, and all those that ran when they had pledged to follow Him always; that shame-filled, terror filled day. The death of their every hope and dream restored now! All of the hope that had died in them, in His dying, resurrected now, as He is resurrected! How can this be! Their hope restored once more! Their very lives restored!

This is the heart of our resurrection story: A heart once dead in its sin and shame, pain, brought to life once again by the sacrifice of One who was born to die that they, and you, and I, might live! To forgive our sins. To wash us clean in the very Blood He’d just shed. This blessed hope is what every believer has then been commanded to go, and share with a lost, hurting, and broken world. A world in need of the love, mercy, and compassion of God. In need of being re-minded that hope truly is alive! Now. This day! And, to help with instructing the world around us as to just who this great hope is, Jesus Christ, the One and only God. The Hope of Glory!

This is a message of mercy is the essence of the comfort Paul is speaking to us about. The mercy and comfort that restores life and hope and strength where only moments ago the heavy weight of loss or betrayal or despondency rested, where the weight of our sins had all but done us in. This comfort is the Lightness of His Mercy replacing, with great Love, the heavy garment of our sin and shame. If, we’ll but accept it, wearing it as our own. This is what happens in the human heart—in the very soul of the one who experiences the dawn of Sunday morning—the hope of His Resurrection! Those who experience the mercy and comfort and encouragement that our brother Paul is speaking of. We are comforted by God that we might intimately know His great Love and mercy within; then go and share that same comfort and mercy and encouragement given us, with another. Just as Jesus did, as all those in the faith that have gone before us have. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins” –Isaiah 40:1-2.

There is no grave, no stone weighty enough to hold back the love, the mercy, the unfathomable compassion that has burst forth from them both! “God so loved” us, that He sacrificed, poured every ounce of His Mercy and Compassion out for us, in the Person of His only Son so that He might have us in Himself—restored, cleansed, made new. This same God whom Paul informs is the Father of these same mercies, the God of all comfort, who displayed the depth of His love, His heart towards us, in Christ Jesus. Freely His love was lavished upon us, poured out for us, spent on our behalf, freely then, we must lavish, pour out, spend our lives loving others…

This Resurrection morning exists, this hope we have is surely alive solely because of this God who is the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. … For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16.

Be encouraged this hour, my brother. Be refreshed! Your strength renewed by the same power that raised Jesus from His grave!

And dear friend, the Father has allowed me to share His message of Love once again. You are loved by God—whether you believe that, or not. In fact, His love for you is so great that if you were the only soul to be found on this planet—Jesus would have died solely for you. The Truth is—He did. Won’t you ask Him into your heart and life now, today? There’s no guarantee we’ll meet again next year…

© 2024 Sonsofthesea.org

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑