Suffering, joy, and the infinite wisdom of God

Yesterday I was sitting upstairs in my favorite spot (old green rocking chair by the window and bookcase) and had an unexpected moment of sweet reflection on the events of the past 12 months and their significance in my life. I don’t know how well I can articulate these thoughts, but I’m going to try, so bear with me.

I was sitting there trying to journal (a habit with which I am NOT good at keeping up), and found myself staring off into space (which is typical) in the direction of my bookcase, and my eyes landed on my big, clunky anxiety book—the one Katharine had me buy last summer when I was trying to get a grip on my anxiety issues and begin the long, painful process of digging into some of the crappy root issues and find some healing. Given the difficult circumstances surrounding my acquisition and use of this book, one might expect there to be an unpleasant association attached to it….perhaps even that looking at it might spark an uncomfortable reaction, an involuntary, internal wince or recoil…perhaps it might carry reminder of weakness, and would therefore be distasteful.

But the very weird thing is that I felt none of these things. In fact, my involuntary reaction was quite the opposite—to call it “peace” is understating it. It was almost like a feeling of unexpected joy. Like when you’re craving ice cream, thinking “man, I wish I had some ice cream, but I’m too lazy to go to the store right now,” and then you realize that you already HAVE ice cream in the freezer. That feeling, like, “Oh! Bonus! Sweet!!” That’s kind of what I felt. Part of me wanted to laugh, breathe a sigh of contentment, and dance all at the same time.

Sounds totally crazy, doesn’t it? I thought so, too, once I sat back and considered it. How completely counterintuitive. Why would I instinctively respond that way to an object that reminds me of such a painful, broken, confusing time in my life? Well, it might be that I really am crazy. Or, maybe it’s something else—something deeper.

During that time, last spring and summer (into early fall), I experienced many very dark moments. I faced fears and insecurities I hadn’t known were there, and had to deal with the hard, dawning realization that they held me in a tight grip, controlling my life in ways I didn’t know how to change. I had never felt so powerless, so vulnerable, or so completely clueless about how to fix the problem. There were days I questioned my sanity.

During one of the most unstable-feeling periods of my adult life, I clung to the only stable thing I knew. I clung to God. I clung to His word. I clung to Christ. That experience taught me (in perhaps a way that no comfortable, painless, happy experience ever could) just how totally, unquestionably, completely, fully, incomparably faithful God is. I experienced the solidness, the firmness, the unshakeable-ness of God when He was absolutely the only thing I was standing on. It’s very difficult to describe in words.

Out of that time, I remember that the one thing I longed for was peace. In the grips of great anxiety, I was experiencing the opposite of peace, and yet the scriptures I read seemed to point to a promise of peace that was foreign to me. I remember reading Romans and coming across Romans 15:13 (inspiration for my blog address J). It says “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” I read that and wondered about the source of Paul’s assurance of peace…how in the world could someone like Paul, who experienced all manner of hardships, speak like that? Near-death beatings, imprisonment, shipwrecks, you name it. And yet his letters in the New Testament are flooded with words like “hope,” “peace,” “joy.” It dawned on me—he must be finding peace in something other than his circumstances. Perhaps there’s something to this…hmmm…

The more I read of Paul, the more I noticed that whenever he talked about hope and peace, he was also talking about Christ. If he wasn’t looking to his circumstances…could it be that he was looking to Christ? Ah-ha! Suddenly, I noticed it everywhere I read! It was even there, buried in that little Romans verse I had been rereading daily and holding to like a security blanket…”…as you trust in Him…” Wow! What does it look like to trust in Christ instead of my circumstances? That’s a big question, the answer to which I only began to discover during that time, and have been discovering more and more ever since. Paul put all his chips on Christ—trusting Him for his identity, his approval, his purpose, everything. Inch by inch, I began to practice doing the same, and little by little, I began to experience freedom from the fears that had been crippling me. I realized that trusting in Christ and trusting in God’s promises was an act of faith, not just a feeling of trust. It required action on my part. When I came up against situations that pitted my feelings against some truth that God promised me, I had a choice about which one I would act on. If I was afraid to speak up about something, out of fear I’d lose someone’s approval, I had a choice—hold back, putting my chips on that fear, or speak up anyway, trusting that God’s approval of me is real and secure and matters more than someone else’s opinion. As I began to more and more put my chips on God, my fears began to fade and my confidence in God began to grow. (a previous blog lists some specific verses that were particularly impactful to me during that time.)

Maybe it’s a little bit like learning to ride a bike. At first, you look at that unstable-looking machine and think, “There’s no way in hell that thing is going to hold me up. No freaking way am I ever getting on it.” And as long as you’re sitting still on it, it won’t. Well, that’s an imperfect analogy, because God is faithful even when we don’t trust him, but the feeling of actually riding the bike is what it’s like to actually experience God’s faithfulness by acting on it, instead of just knowing about it intellectually.

Anyway, this has gotten very long, but it’s hard to explain how something hard and painful can be remembered with a sense of joy and hope without talking about Christ and the inexplicable sense of security and rest that comes from trusting Him instead of trusting myself and my circumstances.

So anyway, back to the beginning…I sat there for I don’t know how long, looking at that book and talking to God, marveling over his wisdom. He promises to work all things for the good of those who love him…that can sound very trite and very mean when you’re in the midst of suffering. But afterward, on the other side, it’s clear that it’s beautifully true. That anxiety book is a reminder of the closeness I felt to God during that time. It was an intimacy like I had never experienced with him, and which I’ve experienced to a much lesser degree since. Why the decline? Part of it is probably just my laziness—when things are going well, it’s so easy to go back to just functioning and maintaining.

But I wonder if another part of it is just human nature—maybe we will really only turn to God once everything else has failed us. Maybe this is one of the reasons that God allows suffering…because in his wisdom he knows that it’s one of the only ways that we will ever turn our whole hearts to him, and subsequently one of the only ways that we will ever be able to experience the sweetness of deep intimacy with him….or experience the solidness of his faithfulness…or experience him deeply at all.

That’s food for thought. It made me shut my mouth in awe yesterday, reveling in the beauty of God’s wisdom that is so much deeper than mine.