Storm (The Rough Draft)

Conclusion

 

                                                                         Suffering 101

 

Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the LORD tested Joseph’s character.

Psalms 105:19 (NLT)

 

As this book comes to a close, I want to leave you with the most important inspiration of all. I strategically waited to present it last because this is one I don’t ever want you to forget. This inspiration has carried me thus far.

In life, the unexpected happens—a sudden death, a loss of a job, a child comes down with a disease, a close relative is imprisoned, etc. These events are not things that anyone sits down to plan for themselves. I once heard, if God gave each of us the pen of life, we would never write anything negative on the pages of our lives. But—the real question is why would God? What does He get from it? Is it pleasurable on His behalf? Is He really all-loving? Or has He really just lost His power to Satan and the evil world, and He doesn’t have the means to fix it?

Friends—God, the Father is only good (Psalms 73:1). When God first created the world, He had two paths already preplanned—a path of righteousness and a path of suffering. Adam and Eve would determine which path He would use to lay out the course of this world. He did this when He first tested their love for Him by simply asking them to obey His one command, not ten, not two thousand, but one command—“Do not eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” God knew that if they ate from that Tree of Knowledge, knowledge is exactly what they would get—knowledge of suffering. He could have stopped them from making the wrong choice, but he wouldn’t stop them. Likewise, He could stop us, but he doesn’t because He wanted them, as well as us, to freely choose to obey.

They chose the path of suffering not God. However, because He had already preplanned the path of suffering, just like He had the path of righteousness, He also foreknew how He was going to use suffering to reveal Himself to mankind. After all, that’s all He’s wanted to do— for us to know Him; for us to be friends with Him.

With the path of suffering, for us to know Him, He was going to have to allow suffering to take place. Why? If God only showered us with blessing and honor, we would never get to see His heart and understand the deeper things of Him like forgiveness, compassion, mercy and grace. That special revelation was going to have to be experienced. Experienced through suffering.

Therefore, He sent a Son, His one and only Son, Jesus, to endure the most heinous suffering that anyone has ever imagined (Acts 17 ). And through Jesus, He could offer to mankind promises that would give us hope and a future. Promises that we could bank on. But, you may be asking, how does all this work with my present suffering, King O’Bryan?

With each person created after Adam, God told Adam to continue to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). In other words, keep having children. With each child, God planned his or her life; “every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Psalm 139:16 NLT). He planned the blessings the person would received, but He also planned the sufferings that each person would face to help develop their character and ultimately come unto the knowledge of knowing Him fully through his Son—his forgiveness, compassion, mercy, and grace.

But most importantly, the sufferings wouldn’t last always; they would only be temporary. They would last until the time came for Him to fulfill the dreams and plans He’s foreordained at each segment of our life. He only allows the sufferings to continue up until the time of the fulfillment of His greater good in our life. He promised, “all things (cancer, imprisonment, death, job loss, divorce or separation, rape, etc.) would work out for your good” (Romans 8:28). As Randy Alcorn once said, “If he didn’t intend for whatever suffering you’re going through now to be included in this promise, he would have had to say, ‘And we know all things EXCEPT (list your suffering here)…” But—God said: “All things work out for good!” In His infinite wisdom, using this path of suffering, He knows how to make it work out for your good.

This statement has carried me through my valley experience: If God cannot use something to contribute for the ultimate good of His child, according to Romans 8:28, He will not use it or permit it to happen. There’s a Bible verse that I often find myself quoting repetitively while in a valley or storm: “When everything was hopeless, Abraham (but normally I substitute my name) believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do” (Romans 4:18 MSG).  

You don’t have to figure out how the suffering will work for your good. God already knows. You don’t even have to spend your days groping and groaning when suffering occurs because God has a for sure end date to this matter. Joel Osteen once said, “Sometimes, God will keep us from the fire, but other times, God will make us fireproof.” God isn’t insensitive. Yes, when anything initially happens, He expects us to grieve—we’re humans (Psalms 103:14). But—remember, suffering doesn’t last and it’s the path that our ancestors chose, but the path that God has also preplanned to work out for our good. He’s using everything, absolutely everything, in our lives to bring His plan for us into fruition.

Until the end date of our suffering or fulfilling-date comes, like Joseph, God will continue to test our character through means of trial or suffering. In other words, He will keep allowing and translating us into valley experiences. We’ll go from the mountaintops and descend down into the valley below; and then back up the mountaintop, and back down into the valley below. That process will continue over and over until Jesus returns.

 Character is developed through valleys and storms. Until you go through things, then and only then can you develop character. Moses, Job, and Joseph are perfect examples. These men were tested through trial after trial, but look at them in the final analysis. I once heard it like this: if you always give your child what he or she wants, they grow up to be brats and egocentric. However, children who have learned that life is not all about them and that “I can’t always get what I want” become productive citizens in the world. These men were only able to do what was right and trusted God in any situation, no matter what, because they had developed character. Gifts and talents will place you in positions, but character will maintain you in that position.

God is always looking for ways to improve our character. It makes us into the very image of his Son, Jesus. And the only way He can do that is through suffering. God doesn’t see suffering as a bad thing. He sees it as a means to an end to make us into what He wants us to be until the time of fulfilling our dreams comes. After all, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him [King Jesus]...” (2 Timothy 2:12 KJV, my insertion). But always remember what the Apostle Paul, who had been given a personal revelation of the purpose of suffering said in 2 Corinthians 4:17 (NIV):

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  

It’s going to be worth it!

~See it. Imagine it. Believe it. ~