I just finished reading Elizabeth Edwards’ book Resilience. She reflects on death, cancer and marital heartache. I know a little something about all three from the past few years of my life, albeit with different details. And yesterday as I contemplated the very recent death of my sister-in-law, my cancer-free child coughing on the couch, and my distant and moody husband, it all felt very present, intense and a little overwhelming. Even a little scary.
Our family’s emotions have run the gamut in the past month, since my sister-in-law was killed. Fear, anger, sadness, disbelief. And I believe there’s a place for all of them in the framework of God’s sovereign love and power. But when does it become destructive to engage in, or dare I say indulge in, certain thoughts and emotions? Where’s the line between the natural progression of healing and obsessive? And is it too early to judge?
Having already wrestled with some hard emotional and theological issues when our son was diagnosed with cancer at age 8, my questions through this round of emotional trauma are different. I learned (through personal experience and the truth of God’s Word) over the course of Charlie’s illness and recovery that God is God. He is good no matter what. He is present and loves me perfectly. He placed the stars in the universe, the planets in orbit, and the individual blood cells in our bodies are under His control. I never asked, “Why Charlie?” when he got cancer. I knew that this world is broken and diseased and we are victims of it. The gospels tell us that rain falls on the wicked as well as the righteous. Good people get cancer and wicked people don’t. C’est la vie. Maybe it was easier to swallow because Charlie recovered and we just celebrated his 13 birthday. Some parents at Seattle Children’s Hospital didn’t go home with their children at the end of treatment. Their theological battles were probably different than mine.
This time around, I’m faced with integrating abstract theology with very personal and unpleasant life experience in a new way. If God reserved wrath and destruction and great personal suffering for His own children when they turned away from Him in the days before the captivity (Old Testament prophets, etc.), how does the grace of Jesus Christ fit now? If I believe that God is powerful enough to have stopped the attack on my sister-in-law and that He loved her perfectly, where do I go with the frustration that He didn’t stop it? Why is there unspeakable evil in the world that God seemingly ignores? And does He really want redemption for everyone, including the man that killed my sister-in-law? Does mercy always triumph over judgment?
So, as I wrestle with some of these issues, I find great comfort in resting on the ones that have already been settled for me. As I’ve been reading through Jeremiah this summer, the following verses were the first that spoke to me again in a way that felt familiar – like God quickening my heart to hear Him:
5This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
7But blessed is the man who trusts
in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
Its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
And never fails to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5-8)
The contrast in the cursed one and the blessed one is clear: trusting in God brings peace and blessing while trusting in anything else brings unrest, worry and fear. I know which I want to choose. And I reap the benefits when I follow through. I can see from life experience that this passage doesn’t mean that nothing bad will happen to those who love and trust God and that people who don’t trust Him will be consistently miserable. What I do know is that when my confidence is in God – His mercy, His sovereignty, His perfect love for me, and His strength – I can be more like the tree that bears fruit and doesn’t have fear or anxiety the way I do when I look to other things. Have you experienced that? Is it not true that when we are connected to God and trusting Him for the outcome of our circumstances and the well being of our hearts that we are less anxious and less fearful?
So how does this play out when life is just too much? What does it all mean? When life is difficult and there’s a struggle to get through – hope of relief at the end of a trying time – we wait for God’s reassurance that things will be okay. But what about when the worst possible life scenario has already happened and there’s just waiting for the present pain to subside? What can we cling to? What should we look for? How does God show up now?
I’m finding that so much of the relationship that God and I have built together over the years is the foundation upon which I’m drawing strength and comfort now. I’m not learning new things about God or myself in this season as much as I’m being reminded of what I already knew. It is true that perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). God really is source of comfort, my rock, my fortress, my hope (Psalm 71). It was true in my head; now it’s true in my life. I haven’t had to run to God for comfort so much as I’ve just been made aware that I was already connected to Him.
I can trust in the criminal justice system or my own fortitude or the possessions in my home. But to have my trust there requires that my heart turn away from God and I miss out on peace and comfort in His Presence. On the other hand, when my confidence is in Him – when I come to the full realization that His Presence is more important than the answers – then fear fades, worries evaporate, and fruit in my life blossoms and nourishes.
• Read Psalm 1. How does this psalm expand your understanding of what it means to put your confidence in God? What practical steps can you take this week toward that goal?
• Read Psalm 27:13-14. How does this confidence differ from what some people may label as “blind faith”? What kinds of things in your life lead you toward that kind of God-confidence? How can you build more into your life?
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