Day 34 - Issue 23
Psalm 31:10 NLT
'I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within.'
How, precisely, are we to make sense of God in the face of insurmountable human suffering? I think that question is as old as time itself. As a young evangelist I had many well-crafted responses; these, I fear, mainly reassured those who wrestled with the question yet didn’t wrestle with long-term, unrelenting and debilitating pain. There are plenty of such people today for whom life is lived in continuous pain for which there is no medical remedy. So how might God be present in such lives?
I only speak as an observer; others would be able to speak with greater authority and authenticity than me, as they live with such pain. They face limitations on opportunities others take for granted and are subject to government scrutiny for circumstances they neither wished for nor cling to. The way in which society approaches its most vulnerable must reveal the level of its compassion and heart for God more than any other measure.
It’s essential that we make our complaint known to God and incumbent upon the Church to hear and acknowledge it, however theologically inconvenient it may appear. One strength of the gospel is that no one is excluded, yet I wonder for example how many people with a learning disability are supported in finding their way onto church leadership teams? They serve on health boards, why not eldership? When we don’t know how to respond, are devoid of answers and somewhat embarrassed by the lack of apparent divine intervention, we tend to pass by on the other side and ignore the glaring gap in our theological understanding.
These are situations where, once the noise of valiant intercessors, voices of anguish, complaint, cries of anger and frustration die down, there is nothing left but to wait in silence. Standing in silence alone is far more isolating and discriminatory than standing in silence together. We cannot invent satisfying answers where none exist. We simply wait in demonstration of faith and hope in God.
QUESTION: Is there anyone you know who is suffering right now?
PRAYER: Lord, would you strengthen the weak, comfort the mourning and give relief to those who are suffering today?
