New Year... Same Disappointments
If we had any doubts that this world isn’t the place where we’ll ultimately find comfort and lasting peace, the beginning of 2021 has certainly proven that to us! If you, like me, were hoping that the new year would bring a fresh perspective and a step forward out of a very challenging past year, you, like me, may have been significantly disappointed in the way we began.
Thankfully, our faithful God hasn’t left us to wonder about these seasons and years of trials and sufferings. His Word compels us to dig in to truth and wrestle with the brokenness around us, both within ourselves through our reactions, and without in the decisions and actions of those in the world. The Creator God knows the fallibility of His creatures and patiently stands with us as we walk through intense situations of pain and doubt which come about as a result of the fallen nature of our world.
In the book of Job, we see a man who was living in ultimate comfort and stability only to have everything he knew and loved taken from him in a single day. Many of us felt similarly shocked and grieved at several points in the last year. He laments and sits silently devastated for 7 days with friends who turn out to actually be suspicious accusers. Finally, after asking and crying out for chapter after chapter, the God who allowed all this suffering shows up. The shocking thing is that He doesn’t address Job’s suffering or questions directly, He actually gives Job a clear picture of His own character. It’s as if He says to Job, “I see your suffering and the pain. The answer you’re looking for is Me; I’m enough.” Mercifully, God restores Job to more than what he had in the beginning and we all breathe a collective sigh of relief at the happy ending. But, what about when it doesn’t work out that way?
Suffering is a part of the human condition and we as believers serve a God who has experienced suffering first-hand. Jesus was our Suffering Savior and His life, death, and resurrection brought Him through the most intense suffering ever known to mankind. Because of Christ’s suffering on our behalf, we have an immovable and unshakeable hope as we live lives marked with difficulty and painful seasons because we know the end of the story. We know the reason we can walk through suffering on this side of the resolution; Jesus has already made a way!
The other crazy thing about suffering is that God actually uses it to accomplish things within us that could never be accomplished under different circumstances. We read this in James 1:2-4, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
So, as you look back on what happened in your life last year, and as you consider what’s already happened in this new year, ask yourself where God’s hand has been evident; where He’s shown you that He’s enough. Consider what growth and change has been permitted, perhaps even forced, to happen. Would that have happened otherwise?
Cling to the hope offered to us in Jesus, the One who has faced more suffering and heartache than we’ll ever know. Rejoice in the fact that He willingly walked through that for your sake, knowing that you would need that hope right now, in the midst of this challenging season. You are His beloved and He is steadfastly faithful to you.