By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream
had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not
run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved
more slowly. For it knew now where it
was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
—A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner
Martin Luther said,
“it’s not by reading or writing or speculating that one becomes a theologian;
it is rather living, dying, and being damned that makes one a theologian.”
I find in his words someone who understands the constant
struggle, the testing of life, the questions that come, and the relief of
knowing I’m not the only one. This is
the truth he realized when he read Psalm 22:1, later quoted by Jesus, “My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me?”
When
I struggle, I often feel as Paul did, hard pressed on every side. I read the stories of Jesus healing so many,
yet live with a husband God has chosen not to heal. And then my children—how do you read story
after story, “Jesus healed…Jesus healed…” and not feel slammed into the wall by
the daily “no” you face when your chronic illness is not healed? Do you hope God’s answer is “not yet?” Do you wish for the relief of death? Do you resignedly accept your “fate,” or do
you continue to allow yourself to be emotionally beat up by unanswered prayers,
hoping this time… What kind of hope
carries you through, carries you beyond?
Paul
wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:8, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck
down but not destroyed.” And he wrote
this only 3 chapters to the verse after proclaiming in 1:8, “ We do not want you
to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of
Asia. We were under great pressure, far
beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.”
How
did Paul go from a deeply despairing man to one who did not despair, who was
not crushed, who knew he was not abandoned, and that destruction was not his
end? He continues, “Indeed in our hearts
we felt the sentence of death. But this
happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the
dead. He has delivered us from such a
deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On
him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by
your prayers…”
Paul
had good reason to despair, who wouldn’t?
He was imprisoned, flogged, and “exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty
lashes minus one. Three times I was
beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a
night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move, I have
been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own
countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the
country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone
without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food;
I have been cold and naked. Besides
everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches…” 2 Corinthians 11:23-28.
He
despaired—and then he relied on God, gained strength to go on, and found he did
not despair. This is the comfort we pass
on one to another. When we find a God so
reliable, so trustworthy, so unmistakably loving and sovereign that we can turn
to Him in the most severe trouble, fix our eyes and our purpose on Him, and
believe Him when circumstances deny His existence, then we have found the
secret of comfort. And in our prayers
and in our love, we can carry a battle-weary brother or sister into the
presence of the God who heals us by His wounds.
The Psalmist cries out,
How
long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How
long will you hide your face from me?
How
long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?
And
Isaiah calls back,
“Why
do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God’? Do
you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator
of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his
understanding no one can fathom. He
gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young
men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they
will walk and not be faint.” —Isa 40:27-31
You
can almost feel the river growing, gaining strength as the Psalmist continues,
Look
on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give
light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my
enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and
my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But
I trust in your unfailing love;
my
heart rejoices in your salvation.
I
will sing to the LORD,
for
he has been good to me. —Psalm 13
Winter
is sometimes very long. But spring is
coming, and the love of our great and sovereign Lord is unfailing. We know where we are going. And there is no hurry when we rest beside the
quiet stream, where He restores our souls.
