Chosen and Called

Suffering, as I have come to understand from God’s Word and life experience, is a large and necessary part of our spiritual journey as believers. While our redemption in Christ mercifully delivers us from bondage to sin, through God’s Word and Providence, we are reminded that we follow a suffering Savior who came to rescue us through His own death on a cross. As His beloved children, He invites us to pick up our own cross and follow Him, for the sake of our (and others) eternal good and, supremely, for the glory of God. As mysterious as this doctrine of suffering is, especially in prolonged seasons of affliction, it’s often only as we look back that we can see glimpses of God’s loving purposes in the pain he allowed. As I read accounts of women down through the ages who have held fast to God’s promises as they navigated the road of redemptive suffering, I join their voices in bearing witness to this peculiar truth: God uses suffering to reveal His unfailing love and faithfulness (to those who trust Him), and to heal us from blindness to sin, remaining rebellion, self-ambition, and love for the things of this world.  

And yet, while I have genuinely praised God for the sanctifying work that He has done in my heart though pain, loss, disappointment, grief, and sorrow over sin, one of the hardest paths of suffering he has called me to has been walking with my children as they strive to trust God through their own dark nights of the soul. Mothers often have a front row seat to witness the fight for faith their children wage during seasons of suffering. Through raw text messages, Facebook posts, tears of despair, or the unanswerable questions they ask, we are faced with both their pain and our own. Our response matters but discerning what we should or should not say or do in any given moment requires great wisdom from the Lord. And at times, because we may be wrestling with our own emotions or questions of faith, we will likely say or do the wrong thing.  

Recently, as I read through the book of Job in the light of some hard things our kids are going through, I began to ponder (if Job’s mother was still alive), how she might have responded to her son’s prolonged season of suffering. She would have grieved deeply over the loss of her seven grandchildren, the faithless response of Job’s wife, and watching Job suffer in ways that not only tested his faith, but her own.

And what about Moses’ mother, Jochebed? She would never forget how God miraculously rescued her son out of the Nile River by moving Pharaoh’s daughter with compassion to preserve his life (Exodus 2). God’s kindness in allowing her to nurse her own son was beyond what she could have imagined. How Jochebed must have prayed for God’s protection from the influence of idolatry and evil when Moses went to live as a son in Pharaoh’s house. And then, just when it seemed that God was answering her prayers, Moses’ impulsive act of murderous rage sent him fleeing into the wilderness to escape Pharaoh’s wrath. How many tears did this mother shed? How many prayers did it seem went unanswered as she faithfully cried out to God on behalf of her people and her fugitive son?

I have wondered how mothers down through the ages have prayed for the beloved children they had faithfully committed to the Lord. Did they ask God to remove their child’s suffering as I am prone to ask? Were they able to completely relinquish their children, (as Hannah did in Samuel 1-2), understanding they belonged to the Lord and had only been lent to them for a season? How did God help the faithful moms of prophets and disciples, missionaries and martyrs, to trust his good plan for their children as they watched them suffer and wrestle with deep questions of faith in the midst of God’s confusing ways?

While Scripture is silent about most of the mothers who birthed servants that God called to be part of his redemptive purposes for salvation, we are given more insight into one mother’s heart, Mary, the mother of our Savior Jesus. The gospel of Luke 2:22-38 records the time Mary and Joseph took their son to the temple to be dedicated to the Lord. God had revealed to Simeon that Jesus was the Savior Israel had been waiting for. But after blessing the new parents, Simeon spoke these prophetic words to Mary: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

Simeon was referring to the grief Mary would experience when her beloved son was crucified on a Roman cross, a death we know was for the salvation of all who put their trust in Him (including his own mother!). I am challenged by Mary’s walk of faith as that sword pierced her soul every time her son was mocked, reviled, misunderstood, betrayed, and rejected by those he came to save.

I deeply desire to have the faith of Mary, Jochebed, and the countless other mothers whom God has asked to trust Him with their children’s suffering. Through testing, tears, as well as the triumphs of parenting, God continues to show me His steadfast love and faithfulness. I am so thankful for the faithful women who have gone before me, and for the firm foundation of God’s Word that doesn’t fall away when I fall apart. By His grace, He has used the hardest suffering in my life, (and in the lives of my children) to cultivate deeper gratitude for the suffering Christ endured that He might put an end to all sin and suffering.

Perhaps you are currently walking through a painful season with a child.  Suffering takes many forms and Elisabeth Elliot helpfully defines it like this: “Suffering is having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.” Perhaps you are suffering with a child who is facing divorce, terminal illness, death of a child or spouse, singleness (with a longing to be married), a rebellious teen, marital abuse, infertility, a physically or mentally handicapped child, or an addiction. How has God’s light pierced your darkness and comforted you as you have sought to comfort your suffering daughter or son?

As I reflect on things I have learned through walking with children through suffering, I have discovered that gospel light shines brightest in darkness. Thus, as I have run to the gospel to find hope, these are a few of the deeper truths I have mined out from God’s Word.

Our greatest problem isn’t what we think it is.

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:10, 23). By nature, in our blindness to sin, we are prone to blame our problems and unhappiness on unwanted circumstances or other people, not recognizing our sins of unbelief and idolatry. While God is worthy of our wholehearted trust, devotion, and gratitude; like our first parents, Adam and Eve, we are prone to believing He is withholding what would make us truly content. But God wants us to understand that, until we learn to find our greatest joy in Him, (apart from our circumstances) we will be “like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind,” James 1:6-8.

Our children’s greatest need (like ours) is to “Love the Lord with all their hearts, with all their souls, and with all their minds” (Matthew 22:37) God knows we need healing from our love for self and the world, and to be cured of our unbelief and idolatry. In His wise providence, God uses suffering to accomplish His good purposes in us and our children.

Our circumstances are not a reliable barometer by which to measure God’s love for us.

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:31-32.

God proved his love for us by sending his own Son to take the penalty we rightly deserve for our rebellion against God. The Father poured His wrath out on His own Son so that, through faith in Christ we can have peace with God and eternal joy in His presence.  Whenever suffering tempts us to question God’s love for us, we must run back to the cross to remember what His love for us cost Him.

God graciously uses suffering and tests to reveal what we believe and where we have put our hope. (Deuteronomy 8). The more I have learned to hold my emotions, my thoughts, and beliefs up to God’s truth, the more I am able to see sin that leads me to repentance.

God’s love for our children is greater than our own.

It’s easy to think we know what is best for our children, and frankly, if I can do something to alleviate the stress and suffering of one of my children, it’s my nature to do it. But, as we consider eternal realities, we must humbly acknowledge that we aren’t always wise enough to know what our children most need. We might not see the ways besetting sin, fear of man, or worldly desires may be keeping them from receiving God’s greater gifts. God wants our children to trust Him completely, even when the bottom seems to fall out.

Likewise, we don’t know what God is preparing them for, what he’s protecting them from, or how he plans to use their lives for His kingdom purposes. Divine Wisdom is greater than the sin- tainted inclination of our own hearts. The God who created our children knows better than we how to love them for their eternal good.

Jochebed couldn’t have known that the wilderness was preparing Moses to deliver God’s people from slavery in Egypt. Job’s mother didn’t know that there was a heavenly contest going on in spiritual realms that is still being waged over our children’s lives today.  Mary didn’t understand that the cross was necessary for her, and our, salvation and the everlasting joy of God’s people. And you and I don’t know how God is using the suffering of our children to accomplish His sovereign purposes for His glory. We are not called to understand, only to trust God’s love and faithfulness.

Jesus weeps with us.

Martha and Mary’s brother Lazarus had been dead for four days when Jesus arrived at their home (John 11). He knew that he would soon raise their brother from death to life; He knew He had come to defeat death; and He knew the death and resurrection of Lazarus would reveal that Jesus was the Resurrection and the Life and yet, in that moment, He wept over the suffering and death caused by sin.

As I have wept tears of grief over the suffering of loved ones, I am comforted by the compassion Jesus extends toward His children. Psalm 56:8 assures us that He not only sees our tears, but He catches them in His bottle. Jesus wants to comfort us with the hope that our suffering is never for nothing and, one day, all tears will be wiped away for those who place their confidence in the unshakeable hope of Christ.   

The Spirit intercedes for us according to the will of God. (Romans 8:27).

As a mother, (and grandmother) I thank God often for the gift of prayer. When I feel utterly helpless, I pray to the One who rules and reigns over all things. When I see something that concerns me in a loved one, I run to the Lord for wisdom and help. But even when I don’t know how to pray, or I inadvertently pray for something that conflicts with what God is doing for the good of a child, I can rest in knowing that the Spirit purges all the dross out of my prayer and prays as I would if I knew what God knows.

Elisabeth Elliot says, “We parents suffer sometimes a hundred times more than our children suffer. Although we think that the situation is worse than it is, what we can never visualize is the way the grace of God goes to work in the person that needs it.”

As God has been faithful to us, we can trust that the Refiner of souls is wisely managing the fiery trials that are testing our children’s faith. The greatest danger we face is to rush in and try to rescue them from the very thing God may be using to show them His steadfast love and faithfulness in ways they have never known before. Jesus alone is our Savior; may we ever only be pointing those we love to Him.

For such a time as this,

Linda