As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James 5:10-11 ESV)
Have you ever felt like you’ve been stuck in a situation that you didn’t want to be in? Like you really, really wanted out, immediately? The book of James addresses that life circumstance. James calls it suffering. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll call suffering any unpleasant circumstance you wish to escape, but for whatever reason, you aren’t able to.
It doesn’t take very long in life to encounter suffering. I remember being on a lengthy road trip with my wife and oldest daughter when our daughter was only about 8 months old. It was a short two-day trip to visit some family. While the length of out time away seemed short, the time in the car felt very long, especially for our daughter. She just wasn’t used to being in the car that much. Throw in unfamiliar environments and irregular eating and sleep schedules and life became very rough for her.
Our daughter slept for a lot of the trip home and we tried to stop regularly to stretch our legs, get something to eat, and break up the monotony of the car ride. She did pretty well for about 3/4 of the journey. However, as we were about 2 hours from home, she had decided she had had enough of being strapped into a car seat on what seemed like an endless highway.
At first she began to cry. Something obviously seemed to be bothering her. We tried to give her a snack, tell her to rest her eyes, give her some toys to play with. Nothing seemed to satisfy her at that point and her cries became louder and more frustrated. After trying everything we could think of to get her back to a place of peace, we realized that she was just done with the trip. She felt trapped and wanted out, and I’m sure in her mind, our feeble attempts to console her were adding to her frustration. She didn’t want toys or to sleep or a snack. She wanted us to rescue her from her trapped state, and she wanted it immediately.
Suffering is not fun, no matter how old you are. It can be a flood of overwhelming emotions feeling stuck in an unpleasant situation with no hope of escape. We have exhausted every coping mechanism we can think of and still, nothing has changed. At some point, we all naturally reach a breaking point where we just don’t want to try anymore, we just want someone to let us out of our circumstance. Our daughter was there, and her wailing cries signaled her breaking point.
As parents, at that moment, we did have a couple of options. We could have unstrapped her from her safe, 5-point harness and let her out of her car seat. We could have allowed her to crawl around on the back seat, the floor of the car, or to sit on one of our laps for the rest of the trip. Her desire to be free would have been satisfied and her enjoyment of our trip certainly would have improved.
However, had we actually done that, it wouldn’t take anyone reading this longer than a few seconds to say, “You did what?!? Your car was traveling on a crowded highway at 70 miles per hour and you let your 8-month old daughter out of her seat? Do you know how dangerous that is? What kind of loving parents are you?”
And if you thought that, you would have been correct in your assessment of us. While we may have satisfied our daughter’s desire of rescue from her situation, we would have put her in very serious danger had we ended up in an accident. As loving parents, we chose to keep her in the best place possible until we arrived at the place that was really best for her to finally be released. Home.
When I find myself in a season of life that has me at my breaking point, I often remember that trip. There are times when I have hit my limit and I ask my Heavenly Father to let me out, now! Yet, as a perfect, loving Heavenly Father, isn’t it possible that He has me where exactly where I’m at with my best interest in mind? Isn’t it also possible that letting me out of that situation could be the worst thing for me at that moment? As much as I don’t want to admit it in those moments, I believe the answer to those questions is a definite, “Yes.”
The exhortation we receive in the book of James at the top of this post tells us to consider a man named Job. Many are familiar in some way of the account of Job, but if you aren’t, or it’s been awhile since you read his story, I encourage you to check out it out here.
Considering how much Job suffered, I consider a couple of things very interesting in that passage in James.
First: Job was steadfast. The NLT translation says that Job had “endurance.” When he very much could have given up (and was even encouraged to do so by his wife and best friends), he chose not to.
Second: Job’s steadfastness wasn’t rooted in his own strength or some kind of wishful thinking that someday things might get better. His endurance came from his certainty that God had a divine purpose for his situation.
Third: God’s purpose is compassionate and merciful. Like Job, in the midst of suffering, your circumstance may seem anything but compassionate and merciful, but in the same way there was something bigger that our daughter didn’t understand that was at work in our decision to not take her out of her car seat on our trip home, our loving Father, who knows everything, past, present and future, in one act of knowing, sees that there is more at work than we can understand in our situation we find ourselves in, no matter how unpleasant.
Is it possible that God’s compassion and mercy is to have us right where we are, no matter how much we want out, because he knows what is best for us, and will deliver us from our suffering at the exact right time and place? If I choose to believe that God’s word is true (and I do), then I know the answer to that question is a definite, “Yes!”
If you find yourself in a place of suffering today, can I encourage you with this? God is a perfect, loving Heavenly Father, and His compassion and mercy means that your moments of suffering are not wasted. They are part of a purpose that is for your greater good and for His glory. So, friend, remain steadfast, surrender your circumstance to the Lord, and know that He will deliver safely to the best possible place for you.
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