A. As I meditated on suffering and struggles this week, these ideas came forth in my mind:
Suffering is paradoxical.
Suffering is bad and good.
Suffering is painful and helpful.
Suffering is confusing and enlightening.
Suffering isolates and builds community.
Suffering may lead to death or to life.
Suffering is no joke, but can spawn joy.
B. Martin and Gracia Burnham married with mission work in their hearts.
1. For 17 years they served God in the Philippines.
a. With 3 children born on the mission field and valuable skills in the ministry’s aviation program, they were acclimated and essential to the mission.
b. Martin was single-minded, and Gracia was gracious and supportive.
2. Then why didn’t God block the bullets?
a. Why did God allow Gracia to be shot and allow Martin to die?
3. On May 27, 2001, while celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary at a beachside resort, Martin and Gracia were taken hostage by a militant terrorist organization with ties to Osama bin Laden.
a. The captors chained the couple to guards, marched them through the jungles, and rationed their food.
b. For more than a year, they endured 17 firefights and were either running for their lives or were bored to death.
c. Their health deteriorated, but their faith remained sturdy.
d. Martin said to his wife, “We might not leave this jungle alive, but at least we can leave this world serving the Lord with gladness.”
4. A premonition led Martin to write a farewell letter to his children, and the premonition proved accurate.
a. On June 7, 2002, the 17th and final gun battle the Burnhams would experience began.
b. Philippine Rangers attacked the terrorist camp and Martin and Gracia were caught in the cross-fire.
c. When the guns were silenced, Gracia was freed, but Martin had been killed.
d. One bullet had entered her leg, and another took his life.
e. Gracia was left a widow, and we are left to wonder why.
C. How do we understand and explain such a tragedy and such suffering?
1. And as we are thinking of theirs, many of us wonder how do we explain ours?
2. There is so much struggle and suffering around us that we find hard to understand.
3. Conflicts in the world and conflicts in our homes.
4. So many demands at work or so little work opportunity.
5. The pile of bills on our desks or the diseases in our bodies.
6. We haven’t been taken hostage, but we are suffering and we wonder why God isn’t doing something or why He is so silent.
7. God knows and sees what we are facing, yet how do we understand it and explain it?
D. Some people look at all the struggles and suffering of life and conclude there is no God.
1. This certainly gets God off the hook, but is not an especially encouraging conclusion.
2. If there is no God, then there is no real rhyme or reason for life or for suffering.
3. If you or I have a soft landing and end up with a trouble free and prosperous life, then we have hit it big on the wheel of fortune – we’re lucky.
4. But if, on the other hand, our life is filled with struggle and suffering, then we just got unlucky!
5. If there is no God, then not only is there no divine reason, there is also no divine assistance, we are on our own and are without help or hope.
E. Many people don’t choose the “there is no God” approach to life, but rather think that when it comes to suffering and struggles that God has either messed up or is powerless to do something about it.
1. Maybe God doesn’t like the suffering He sees, but He lacks the power to change things.
2. Or maybe cancer cells crept into your body when God wasn’t looking.
3. Or maybe God was so occupied with the tornado in Kansas that He forgot about the famine in Uganda.
4. Is that the kind of God you imagine or believe in?
a. Is your God a bumbling Creator or an absent-minded Maker?
b. Does Scripture support such a view of God?
c. Does the creation around us offer that kind of evidence about God?
5. Isaiah declares this about God: Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding. (Isaiah 40:28)
6. With this in mind shouldn’t we conclude that the Maker of heaven and earth can keep our travels safe and our bodies healthy?
a. Of course He can, then why doesn’t He?
F. Some people believe that God can, but doesn’t, because He is mad at us and is punishing us.
1. Some think that we have so exhausted God’s mercy bank account that our prayers for help bounce like a bad check.
a. Has humanity gotten so far from God that He is now just giving us what we deserve?
2. Such an argument carries a nugget of truth in it.
a. At times God does leave us to the consequences of our bad decisions.
b. Case in point: consider the Egyptian soldiers chasing God’s people into the Red Sea, or God’s people being taken into Babylonian captivity, or Peter weeping at the sound of a crowing rooster.
c. If we jump off a cliff, do we expect God to catch us?
d. If we bang our head against the wall, do we expect God will keep us from getting a headache?
e. And so, at times, God does allow us to endure the fruit of our foolishness and sin.
3. But we should never conclude that God is uncompassionate or uncaring, because the Bible declares the opposite: The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. He will not always accuse us or be angry forever. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust. (Psalm 103:8-14)
a. This beautiful and powerful passage reminds us that God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love – and aren’t we all thankful our God is this way?
b. The passage also reminds us that God forgives, which means we don’t often get the punishment that we deserve because of God’s grace and mercy.
4. So in the end, we shouldn’t blame the suffering in the world on the anger of God.
a. God’s not mad and God didn’t mess up.
G. So how should those who believe in God, understand and explain our struggles and suffering?
1. The people of God can rest in and stand on the truth that our God is sovereign and that our struggles and suffering have a purpose.
2. Our problems and struggles, and our heartaches and hassles cooperate toward one end – the glory of God.
3. Psalm 50:15 says: “Call on me in a day of trouble; I will rescue you, and you will honor me.”
4. The English Standard Version translates that verse: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Ps. 50:15)
5. Enduring the day of trouble or a lifetime of trouble is not an easy assignment, even if it brings glory to God.
6. It’s not easy for you; it’s not easy for me, and it wasn’t easy for the blind man of John 9.
H. Do you remember Jesus’ encounter with blind man in John chapter 9?
1. Jesus and his disciples were passing him by, when the disciples had a question for Jesus.
2. The Bible says: As he was passing by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus answered. “This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.” (John 9:1-3)
3. Those of us who have enjoyed a lifetime of vision can’t imagine a lifetime of blindness.
a. This man had never seen his mother’s face or enjoyed a spectacular sunset.
b. The disciples expressed a common misunderstanding – they wanted to know who’s fault it was that this had happened to this man.
c. Someone must have messed up and someone must be blamed for this tragic situation.
d. God must be mad at somebody.
4. But Jesus had a different explanation.
a. Jesus told them not to search the family tree for an indiscretion.
b. Jesus told them not to look for the man’s rap sheet at the police department.
c. The reason for this man’s blindness was a call from God.
d. Why was this man sightless? “So that God’s works might be displayed in him.”
5. Do you think this blind man might have preferred a different role in God’s story?
a. Do you think this blind man might have preferred John’s assignment when Jesus told John to take Jesus’ mother as his own?
b. Do you think this blind man might have preferred Peter’s assignment to preach the first gospel sermon on the Day of Pentecost?
c. Do you think this blind man might have preferred Matthew’s assignment to write the Gospel that is the first in the New Testament?
d. This blind man, if he had the choice might have preferred most assignments over the one he received: “You will be blind for My glory.”
6. Of course, it might have been easier for the blind man if God had explained that too him from the beginning of his life.
a. What if God had come to him in the womb or in his childhood and said, “I have a special assignment for you, you will be blind for My glory.”
b. “I will be blind for your glory, Lord?” “Yes you will”
c. “Lord, I don’t understand.” “Later you will see and understand.”
I. The man born blind wasn’t the only person in Scripture who wondered why their assignment included suffering.
1. Consider the case of Martha and Mary and Lazarus.
a. They were personal friends of Jesus.
b. Jesus had stayed at their house and had eaten at their table.
2. And when Lazarus, became sick, Martha and Mary sent a message to Jesus asking for his help, their message included these words: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
a. They must have thought: “Jesus had healed so many people, so surely he will heal Lazarus, the friend he loves.”
b. But they were sorely disappointed when that didn’t happen.
3. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, He said to His disciples: “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (Jn. 11:4)
a. Look carefully at Jesus’ words.
b. Why was Lazarus sick? Was it because he ate too much junk food, drank too much, or didn’t guard his health?
c. No, Lazarus was sick for the sake of God - in order to bring glory to God.
4. So what did Jesus do when he heard the news about Lazarus?
a. We would expect to read that Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus so much that He immediately rushed over to their house and healed him.
b. But surprisingly, just the opposite occurred.
c. The Bible says: Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. (Jn. 11:5-6)
d. Jesus loved these three so much that he lingered where he was until Lazarus died.
e. Why did Jesus do such a thing?
J. Max Lucado offers a helpful illustration for this question: Max wrote: Blindness displays the works of Christ? Death glorifies the power of Christ? How can this be? I’m looking around my office for an answer. A frame displays my favorite picture of Denalyn. A metal stand displays an antique pot. My brother gave me a stained glass window from a country church. It is displayed by virtue of two wires and two hooks. Picture frames and metal stands, wires and hooks – different tools, same job. They display treasures.
What these do for artifacts, the blind man did for Christ. He was the frame in which Jesus’ power was seen, the stand upon which Jesus’ miracle was placed. Born sightless to display heaven’s strength. Do you suppose the sight of his sight showcased the work of Christ?
And the fading pulse and final breath of Lazarus? You think the news of a three-days-dead man walking out of a tomb amplified God’s power?
K. People are the frames and stands, and the wires and hooks for displaying God’s handiwork.
1. Now here is where the “rubber meets the road,” and here is where it gets a bit sticky: And what about you and me?
2. Is there any chance, and any possibility, that we have been selected to struggle for God’s glory?
3. Have you and have I “been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake”? (Philippians 1:29)
L. How might we discover that God is using our struggle and suffering for higher purposes?
1. One clue is that our prayers for relief and removal of the struggle aren’t being answered.
2. When what we request doesn’t match up with what we receive, we must not conclude that God isn’t listening, but that God has a different purpose.
3. That’s what Paul discovered about his “thorn in the flesh.”
4. Paul wrote: Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:7b-10)
5. There are times when God’s power is on display more clearly, not through healing and relief, but through enduring and sustaining.
M Another clue that God is using our struggle and suffering for higher purposes is that other people are being strengthened by our struggles.
1. Paul could see this clearly through his imprisonment and he wrote: Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly. (Phil. 1:12-14)
2. Paul wasn’t getting the relief and release from prison as he might have wanted, yet God was working in that situation to bring faith to some, and inspiration and boldness to others.
N. Max Lucado writes about a friend of his whose cancer was consuming more than his body; it was eating away at his faith.
1. Unanswered petitions perplexed him. Well-meaning Christians were confusing him by saying “If you have faith, then you will be healed.”
2. But no healing came – the only thing that came was more chemo, more nausea, and more questions.
3. The cancer patient assumed that the fault was his small faith.
4. But Max suggested a different reason, he told his friend: “It’s not about you. Your hospital room is a showcase for your Maker. Your faith in the face of suffering cranks up the volume of God’s song.”
4. Max says that you could have seen the relief on his friend’s face.
5. To know that he hadn’t failed God and that God hadn’t failed him made all the difference.
6. Seeing his sickness in the scope of God’s sovereign plan gave his condition a sense of dignity and purpose.
7. His friend accepted his cancer as an assignment from heaven – to be a missionary to the cancer ward.
8. One week later when Max visited his friend, his friend smiled and said: “I reflected God to the nurses, the doctors, and my friends. Who knows who needed to see God, but I did my best to make him seen.”
O. Those of us who knew our dear brother, Charlie Vrooman, saw God displaying His glory through Charlie’s struggles and suffering.
1. Charlie went on to be with the Lord back in 2009 at 90 years of age.
2. Charlie had a hard, but blessed life.
3. Having had Cerebral Palsy from birth, and Polio since his youth, he could hardly walk, was not able to live with his family for much of his life, and had to live in orphanages and a nursing home for most of his life.
4. Yet, in spite of those challenges, a love for God and gratitude toward God came shining through Charlie Vrooman!
5. He was one of the most positive persons I have ever known and he loved to express God’s love.
6. He regularly asked people: “Has anyone told you today that they love you?”
a. Most people would answer, “No one has told me that today.”
b. Then Charlie would say: “I love you and God loves you.”
7. Charlie allowed God’s glory to be on display through his struggles and suffering.
P. Truth be told: God will use whatever He wants to display His glory.
1. God uses the heavens and the earth, and nations and history, and people and problems.
2. God used a man born blind, a dead man named Lazarus, and the apostle Paul.
3. God used that kidnapped couple in the Philippines.
4. After that horrific year of captivity and the death of Martin, Gracia returned home to Kansas and was reunited with her children.
a. Over 2,500 people, including two congressmen and the Philippines ambassador, attended Martin’s funeral.
b. In the years since her captivity, Gracia has spoken extensively about her ordeal and wrote two books: “In the Presence of My Enemies” and “To Fly Again.”
5. An interviewer once asked her this poignant question: “While you were in the jungle, countless churches, families and schools were praying for your safe release. Yet Martin didn’t return home. How have you wrestled through trusting God when your life circumstances aren’t what you hoped for?”
a. That’s a very good question that needs a good answer.
b. Here’s Gracia’s excellent answer: “We love to tell God what to do. We have a wonderful plan for our lives that doesn’t involve hardship and pain. I love how Christ sits at the right hand of God praying for us. We pray as we think we ought, but sometimes we don’t even know how to pray. But Jesus — He knows how to pray! And he prays for us. So when we get “no” for an answer to a fervent prayer, we know that God hasn’t made a mistake and that He is working despite everything. And as we see His hand in our lives and we learn to trust Him more, we grow. I watched everyone in our family go through that struggle when our prayers weren’t answered the way we wanted them to be. If we know the answer — if we can see how things are supposed to be — it wouldn’t be faith. We walk by faith in a faithful God.”
Q. I am not suggesting that any of this is easy.
1. But when we find ourselves in the midst of struggle and suffering, I want to encourage us not to begrudge what we are going through, but to explore and ponder how to use it to God’s glory.
2. That’s what Martin and Gracia did.
a. During their captivity, they not only spoke of Jesus, they lived Jesus.
b. They didn’t complain, but they did what they were told and volunteered for more work.
c. Chained every night to a guard, Martin always wished his captors a good night and told them about Jesus and His love.
3. The Burnhams allowed God to use their suffering for His glory.
a. Their story and the witness of their faith was heard by millions of people around the world as every major network gave priceless minutes to the story of a man who loved Christ more than life.
b. Through the Burnham’s struggle, God was seen.
c. Through Martin’s death, God was seen.
4. And I pray that God may be seen through your problems and mine.
a. Whether it is health struggles, or family struggles, or employment and financial struggles, or whether it is persecution because of our faith, God can use them all to His glory.
b. But God and His glory won’t be seen through our struggles, unless we allow our struggles to be all about God, and not about us.
c. To God be the glory!
Resources:
• It’s Not About Me, Max Lucado, Thomas Nelson, 2004.
