Suffering Is Never For Nothing: 7-Day DevotionalSample

Day 3

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.” Romans 8:18-9 CSB

There was nothing unusual about gunshots in that particular clearing of the jungle. We were surrounded by Indians who hunted with guns that they had bought from the white man. And there were white people also in that clearing who hunted as well. So we often heard gunshots.

But these particular gunshots were followed by yelling and screaming and horses galloping and people running and general pandemonium. So I rushed outside to hear that my friend, Macadao, had just been murdered. 

I was faced, for the first time in my personal experience, with that awful why. Like Job, I didn’t doubt for a second that God was up there, that God knew what He was doing. But I couldn’t imagine what He could possibly have in mind. And God’s answer to my why was “Trust Me.” No explanations. Just, trust Me. That was the message.

Now if I had had a faith that was determined God had to give me a particular kind of answer to my particular prayers, that faith would have disintegrated. But my faith had to be founded on the character of God Himself. And so, what looked like a contradiction in terms: God loves me; God lets this awful thing happen to me. What looked like a contradiction in terms, I had to leave in God’s hands and say okay, Lord. I don’t understand it. I don’t like it. But I only had two choices. He is either God or He’s not. I am either held in the Everlasting Arms or I’m at the mercy of chance and I have to trust Him or deny Him. Is there any middle ground? I don’t think so. 

I thought of Daniel in the lion’s den. I remember the picture that we had on our wall at home,

a painting. When I was a child I often gazed at that painting. And Daniel is standing in the den of lions. There’s a light on his face and he stands very tall and straight with his hands behind

his back. And just very faintly in the dark you can see these glowing eyes of the hungry lions.

And I realized that the painting is telling me that here’s a man whose faith rests in the character of God. Now of course, I wouldn’t have put it in those terms as a child. But that picture spoke volumes to me. God was there in the pit. He was not making it unnecessary for Daniel to go into the pit anymore than it was unnecessary for Joseph to go into that pit where his jealous brothers threw him or to be put into prison, as were Paul and Silas and Peter and many other people in Scripture, even John the Baptist who got his head chopped off.

It was necessary for Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego to go into the fiery furnace because God had a message not just for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego but also, you remember, for the king. He said “has your God, whom you serve, been able to deliver you?” And you remember his challenge before he threw them into the furnace, “Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” (Dan. 3:15 kjv). And, then come those ringing words of faith, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up” (Dan. 3:17–18 kjv).

But if not . . .And that is the lesson that has to come to all of us in some point in our lives. Every one of us, I’m sure, sooner or later, has to face up to that painful question. Why? And God is saying, trust Me. If your prayers don’t get answered the way you thought they were supposed to be, what happens to your faith? The world says God doesn’t love you. The Scriptures tell me something very different. God comes to you and me in our

sorrow. And He says, “Trust Me.” “Walk with Me.”