what I'm reading: when the earth's shoes don't fit

One of the hardest things about suffering is that it's difficult to get any perspective.

Suffering befuddles your brain. It strips away the things you once thought you knew. You can't think clearly.

In the middle of this, the Bible invites you to look at things from a new perspective - from the future. Not easy when you're swallowed up by pain!

But these words from Joni Eareckson's When God Weeps invited me to do just that. They made me smile through my tears. 

Time is slippery stuff ... When we recall pain in the past, we do so with a perspective we simply didn't have when going through it ...

When looking back on heartache, the pain fades like a hazy memory. The trauma has dulled like an old photograph. Only the results survive, the things of lasting importance ...

When we come "through the valley of the shadow of death", we are different people. Better, stronger, and wiser ...

The Bible constantly tries to get us to look at life this way. It steadfastly tries to implant the perspective of the future into our present ... It's a view that separates what is lasting from what will fall by the wayside, ... always underscoring the final results - the heart settled, the soul rejoicing. ...

Human nature gags on such a perspective. It tries to rivet you to the pain of the present, blinding you to the realities of the future. Human nature would rather lick its wounds and sneer, "That's pie in the sky. The future doesn't count."

But it does count. So much so that

everything else, no matter how real it seems to us, is treated as insubstantial, hardly world a snort ... That is why Scripture can seem at times so blithely and irritatingly out of touch with reality, brushing past huge philosophical problems and personal agony. That is just how life is when you are looking from the end. Perspective changes everything. What seemed so important at the time has no significance at all.*

The Bible blatantly tells us to "rejoice in suffering" and "welcome trials as friends" because God wants us to step into the reality he has in mind for us, the only reality that ultimately counts ... God wants his people aflame with his hope. ...

It doesn't happen without suffering. Affliction is what fuels the furnace of this heaven-hearted hope ... Suffering...turns our hearts toward the future ...

Earth's pain keeps crushing our hopes, reminding us this world can never satisfy; only heaven can. And every time we begin to nestle too comfortably on this planet, God cracks open the locks of the dam to allow an ice-cold splash of suffering to wake us from our spiritual slumber ...

Suffering keeps swelling our feet so that earth's shoes won't fit.

*Tim Stafford

When God Weeps - part 3 - the "how" of suffering

I have a friend who suffers from chronic pain. She's had it most of her life, since an accident as a teenager. Of all the books she's read on suffering, the one she loves most is Joni Eareckson Tada and Stephen Estes' When God Weeps.

There's no higher recommendation than that!

Now that I've finished, what do I think of When God Weeps? I can't imagine a better book to give those who are in the middle of suffering, once they have reached a point where they are able to reflect on things again.

My friend and I agree that the best thing about When God Weeps is the way it moves between the theological and the experiential. It helps that it's written by Joni, deeply experienced in long-term suffering; and Stephen Estes, a capable theologian. Both write with great sympathy and with a colourful, lively style, and Estes writes with clear logic.

I don't agree with every sentence. I'm a bit hesitant about statements like this - "God may not initiate all our trials - but by the time they reach us, they are his will for us" (does this really express God's absolute sovereignty in all things?) - but I appreciate the tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility that Estes is trying to uphold. And he does say, "No trial reaches us apart from God's explicit decree". So my hesitations are slight.

It was an absolute treat reading the third and final section. It's called "How can I hang on?", and it's about how to suffer well. There are four chapters, sometimes surprising in their content:

• Cry of the soul - Wise words about anger at God, how it can lead to bitterness, and where it really belongs: in honest expression to God, so that it moves us, not away from him, but towards him. Here we may not find answers, but we will find his comforting arms.
• Gaining contentment - I like Joni's "arithmetic of contentment": when we suffer, we subtract our wants so our desires equal our circumstances, and gain what is of far greater value: Christ's sufficiency in our need, the joy of knowing God, and the advancement of his kingdom.
• Suffering gone malignant - I wasn't expecting a chapter on hell in a book on suffering, yet it really does belong here. Estes reminds us why hell is necessary, because it's God's answer to both terrible injustice and the evil at the heart of "good" people. It also explains why Christians suffer, because "hell's splashover" prepares us for eternity and moves us to reach out to others.
• Suffering Gone - This was perhaps the highlight of the book for me. Every word spoke to my need. In suffering we need a future perspective (so hard when pain is present!). We need to remember that heaven is a Person, not just a place, that it is so much more than we can imagine, and that the way we bear suffering now will win us a rich reward in eternity. 

By the end of When God Weeps I was in tears. A bit embarrassing since I was in public at the time!

We will all suffer, so we all need books like When God Weeps. I recommend it highly, both for those who haven't suffered greatly yet and for those who are suffering.

what I'm reading: When God Weeps - part 2 - the "why" of suffering

Last time I wrote about Joni Eareckson Tada's When God Weeps, I was very enthusiastic!

I'd just finished the first section, about God's character - his joy, his suffering, his sovereignty - and how these relate to the horror of suffering. I loved this, with only a slight qualification: the language about God's sovereignty isn't always as strong as the Bible demands.

I've now finished the second section, about the "why" of suffering. It took me a little longer to get my head around it. Joni's strong, emotional language is both a strength and weakness: it moves and shocks and comforts, but at times clouds logic and touches on the mystical. But I read and re-read and re-re-read it, and ultimately found it a very helpful summary of some of the "why"s of suffering.*

What are the "why"s of suffering? I like the way Joni divides her answer into 3 parts:

• Suffering is for others. The answer to "Why does God still want me here?" is "For the sake of others" (Phil 1:22-24). As others watch us trust God through suffering, they are inspired to endure patiently, challenged to take God seriously, and moved to love those who suffer. Our suffering also brings glory to God as we praise him in the midst of pain (I would have liked to hear more about this one!).
• Suffering is for me, to grow my character. Just as Jesus "learned obedience" through suffering and was fitted to be our Saviour (Heb 2:10; 5:8), so God uses suffering, individually tailored to me, to chisel away sin and pride and to make me holy. I can bemoan or boast or bitterly resign myself to suffering, or I can submit to the Sculptor's hand as he remakes me into the beautiful image of his Son.

But knowing these things is not enough. A list of answers may help when you're not suffering, but in the midst of suffering, you don't just want answers: you want a Someone. And so Joni comes to her third reason:

• Suffering increases our intimacy with God. As we share in Christ's suffering, we experience fellowship with him and come to know him more deeply (Phil 3:8-10). Suffering brings us to the foot of the cross. It helps us die to self. It strips us of sin and ambition and pride. It empties us of ourselves, that we may be filled with Christ. "The greatest good suffering can do for me is to increase my capacity for God." Like Joni, I wouldn't swap this for anything!

I'd love to bring you a quote that makes this last point better than I can, but this post is long enough, so I'll leave that for next week.

In the meantime, I encourage you to read When God Weeps if you have questions about suffering.

* With a few cautious qualifications over Joni's discussion of angels and demons, and the mysticism of some of her language about union with God.

what I'm reading: When God Weeps - part 1 - God's character in suffering

I am reading the most wonderful book - Joni Eareckson Tada and Stephen Estes' When God Weeps - and wondering why no one recommended it to me sooner.

Maybe God was saving it for this time. I'm so glad he did!

When I suffer, I need someone to weep with me. I need, at least at some level, to understand. I don't need evasions and empty words, but comfort and true hope.

So far (I've only read the first section) this book gives me these in abundance:

• It's beautifully written in colourful, fresh prose that surprises and moves me with God's truth (you'll love this retelling of Jesus' death).
• It's honest about just how bad suffering can be. It doesn't pretend things are better than they are, but weeps with those who weep.
• It's full of true, tested comfort because it's written by someone deeply experienced in suffering: quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada.
• It's thoughtful and biblical. Co-author Stephen Estes handles the difficult doctrine of God's loving and sovereign purpose in suffering with clarity and accuracy.

Here's a quote I read, and knew immediately I would post. Every word spoke deep into my need.

First, despite Christ's compassionate death for our sins, God's plan - not plan B or C or D, but his plan - calls for all Christians to suffer, sometimes intensely. To encourage us, he may write some light moments into the script of our lives - he may include adventure or romance. An amusing situation will get us chuckling, and an occasional twist of plot may delight us to tears, for God loves to give. But without fail, some scenes are going to break your heart, some of your favourite characters will die, and the movie may end earlier than you wish.

Second, God's plan is specific ... He screens the trials that come to each of us - allowing only those that accomplish his good plan, because he takes no joy in human agony. These trials aren't evenly distributed from person to person. This can discourage us, for we aren't privy to his reasons. But in God's wisdom and love, every trial in a Christian's life is ordained from eternity past, custom-made for that believer's eternal good, even when it doesn't seem like it. Nothing happens by accident... not even tragedy... not even sins committed against us.

Third, the core of his plan is to rescue us from our sins ... God cares most - not about making us comfortable - but about teaching us to hate our sins, grow spiritually, and love him. To do this, he gives us salvation's benefits only gradually, sometimes painfully gradually. In other words, he lets us continue to feel much of sin's sting while we are headed for heaven. This constantly reminds us of what we're being delivered from, exposing sin for the poison it is. Thus evil (suffering) is turned on it's head to defeat evil (sin) - all to the praise of God's wisdom.

Last, every sorrow we taste will one day prove to be the best possible thing that could have happened. We will thank God endlessly in heaven for the trials he sent us here. This is not Disneyland - it is truth.

Quote is from Joni Eareckson Tada and Stephen Estes' When God Weeps p. 56, emphases in bold mine.