what I'm reading: God's wisdom in our suffering

Do you have a copy of  Knowing God? Is it gathering dust? Is the picture of a sunset on the cover a little faded?

Why not get it off the shelf and read chapter 9, on the wisdom of God? Or read it online here.

It's a little gem I haven't noticed before.

Last week I learned how, even if I never know the cause of suffering, I can always know something of God's purpose.

This week I opened Knowing God and discovered part of God's purpose in suffering.

In chapter 9 Packer talks about Abraham and Jacob and Joseph. He shows how every trial was individually chosen by God to make them into the people he wanted them to be. I read this through twice, I found it so encouraging!

If it's true for them, it's true for me. Packer says,

These things are written for our learning, for the same wisdom orders the Christian's life today.

We should not be taken aback when unexpected and upsetting and discouraging things happen to us now.

What do they mean? Simply that God in his wisdom means to make something of us which we have not attained yet, and he is dealing with us accordingly.

Perhaps he means to strengthen us in patience, good humor, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice in exercising these graces under especially difficult conditions.

Perhaps he has new lessons in self-denial and self-distrust to teach us.

Perhaps he wishes to break us of complacency, or unreality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit.

Perhaps his purpose is simply to draw us closer to himself in conscious communion with him; for it is often the case, as all the saints know, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest.

Or perhaps God is preparing us for forms of service of which at present we have no inkling.

"He knows the way he taketh", even if for the moment we do not.

We may be frankly bewildered at things that happen to us, but God knows exactly what he is doing, and what he is after, in his handling of our affairs.

Always, and in everything, he is wise: we shall see that hereafter (Job in heaven knows the full reason why he was afflicted, though he never knew it in this life).

Meanwhile, we ought not to hesitate to trust his wisdom, even when he leaves us in the dark.

Whatever further purpose a Christian's troubles may or may not have in equipping him for future service, they will always have at least that purpose which Paul's thorn in the flesh had (2 Cor 5:7-9).

They will have been sent us to make and keep us humble, and to give us a new opportunity of showing forth the power of Christ in our mortal lives.

And do we ever need to know any more about them than that? 

Once Paul saw that his trouble was sent him to enable him to glorify Christ, he accepted it as wisely appointed and even rejoiced in it.

God give us grace, in all our own troubles, to go and do likewise.

what I'm reading: yes, I can trust him

Maybe you struggle with worry. Maybe you can see it's not getting you anywhere. Maybe you really want to trust God.

Maybe you pray, "Okay, I give up. I can't do it any more. I entrust the future to you."

Maybe you do this unwillingly, with gritted teeth.

You know he's sovereign. You know he's good. You know you're supposed to trust him. And so, knowing but not yet feeling, you give the future into his hands.

Then you read something. Or hear something. Or someone says

something. And suddenly it's okay.

Because now you know that the God who is in control actually cares for you. You knew it before, but now you really know it.

(Of course, you'll have to learn it again. Feelings come and go, but the truth stays the same.)

Here are some words that spoke to me recently. The bits in bold are the bits that jumped straight into my heart.

The King is extravagant. That is the good news for fearful people. Most fears link to our doubts about God's generosity and attention to detail. In response, God freely gives what is costly. And, as the true expert craftsman, he attends to every last detail. (Running Scared 108-9)

The reason we are called to lay up our treasures in heaven [rather than worrying about and pursuing treasures on earth] is because we are his treasures. When you are confident that you are the Father's treasured possession, you are also confident that his loving care will continue forever. (134)

God has not abandoned us any more than he abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom he has set his love; nor does Christ, the good shepherd, ever lost track of his sheep. It is as false as it is irreverent to accuse God of forgetting, or overlooking, or losing interest in, the state and needs of his own people. If you have been resigning yourself to the thought that God has left you high and dry, seem grace to be ashamed of yourself. Such unbelieving pessimism deeply dishonours our great God and Saviour. (Knowing God 98)

what I'm (re)reading: the first, wonderful chapters of Knowing God - and a cure for worry

My friend told me that her friend told her to start Knowing God half way through.

Don't!

Or at least take time to read the first 3 chapters. Here's why I love them:

• chapter 1 taught me to meditate on God's word: to preach it to myself until it makes an impact on my heart and mind (see my quote here)
• chapter 2 taught me to hunger after true knowledge of God - not just head knowledge but heart knowledge
• chapter 3 is about the fact that God knows us, which ... well, read on ...

My mind has been a bit "pressed out of shape" by anxiety lately. These words gave me perspective:

Absurdist tapeworms and Antoinette’s fever are ills from which, in the nature of the case, Christians are immune, except for occasional spells of derangement when the power of temptation presses their mind out of shape - and these, by God’s mercy, do not last.

And these words reminded me that there really is no reason to worry, because God knows me intimately and cares for every detail. Read it s-l-o-w-l-y and let the words wash over you.

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that he knows me.

I am graven on the palms of his hands (Isa. 49:16). I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me.

He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.

This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort—the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates—in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good.

There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me.

There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that He sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow-men do not see (and am I glad!), and that He sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which in all conscience, is enough).

There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, He wants me as His friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given His Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.

Magnificent, isn't it? I read that bit 3 times through the other day, just so I wouldn't forget it.


the quote is from Knowing God p 45-46