A hope that crushes

Over the last couple of years I've seen a few friends of mine really struggle with health, in ways that are quite gut-wrenching. Your heart just goes out to them.

What I find quite paradoxical is that a lot of the suffering inflicted is actually due to the advances we've made in modern medicine. We are offered hope in what would have been totally hopeless situations a few hundred years ago. But sometimes it's just a flicker of hope, a percentage, a chance. You have to fight, battle and strive. And then cope with the crushing disappointment if it doesn't happen, or the problem is never truly overcome.

Sometimes there's no end, no final resolution, no way of moving on. Because treatment still offers some hope, the battle is never over.

Modern science and medicine is amazing though. But you really have to take the good with the bad. Last month, an emergency c-section probably stopped my wife from dying in childbirth. Incredible. Open heart surgery saved my brothers life. But cancer still claimed my Granddad when he was 58. Some situations work out really well. Others open you up to the torture of hope, met with failed treatment. Sometimes that flicker of hope seems to loom slightly out of reach and never delivers.

God, we need you!

Twelve Long Years

"And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
Mark 5:25-34

There are some really interesting points in this story. Some that are just remarkable and stand-out. I imagine Jesus performed a multitude of miracles and only a selection were included in the four gospels. As John says at the end of his account:

"Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
John 21:25

We might concluded that there were a fair number of miracles to choose from for the gospel writers. I imagine each one was carefully picked for the particular way they shine a light on the nature of Jesus, of faith, healings and miracles.

What's interesting about this story is the woman's level of faith, especially after twelve years of suffering and exhausting every avenue for her healing. I imagine she prayed a lot. I imagine she probably thought God could heal her at any time if he chose. She probably saw those doctors and physicians as channels of God's grace and healing. And yet she suffered, for twelve years, with no answer to prayer, and totally depleted her bank account in the process.

I imagine that most of us would be pretty disheartened at that point. Especially as her disease made her a social outcast. No support group, probably not much community at all. How easy it would be to feel overlooked by God and utterly depressed. Like you had been hung out to dry. When a new preacher rolled into town with a healing ministry, she might well have been tempted to think 'oh no, not again'. More prayers, elevated hope, and yet more disappointments to come.

But her faith is exactly the opposite of what you might expect. Her faith levels were exceedingly high.

"If I touch even his garments, I will be made well."

Unbelievable. Where did that faith come from? And the nature of it. I'm pretty sure that there's nowhere in Scripture that says you have to touch Jesus to get healed. There's plenty of examples where it doesn't happen that way. Not to mention that he was surrounded by a crowd where loads of people were pressing into him. Presumably without getting healed.

Even though her theology probably wasn't spot-on, her faith was off the scale. There isn't even a hint of doubt in her. I'm pretty sure she had taken a massive risk as well. Ceremonially unclean, yet amongst the people, rubbing up and touching them, risking total public humiliation if she was exposed. She hadn't done this as a whim. It was deliberated, planned, premeditated and must have taken a lot of guts.

What's of particular interest is the way she receives her healing from Jesus. She was completely healed by Jesus without him even knowing it until after the event. She hadn't presented her request, spoken, looked him in the eye... nothing. Faith was the key ingredient. And you might say, the only ingredient, in this story.

I can't think of another story where Jesus heals unknowingly. Every other case sees him presented with a sick person before healing. This story really hones in on the power of faith as it literally is the only thing that healed this woman.

All through the four gospels (and the book of Acts) you see faith and healing go hand-in-hand. You seem to hear the same phrase from Jesus over and over, "Your faith has made you well", "Your faith has healed you" and "In accordance to your faith...". In his home town Jesus was unable to do any mighty miracles because of their lack of faith (Mark 6:4-6). Jesus was unable.

It's tempting to steer away from the subject because our unanswered prayer might be diagnosed as a lack of faith. Which is like rubbing salt into the wound of a difficult situation. But let's not forget that this woman struggled for twelve years and had a remarkable faith. Twelve years. That's a long old time. Perhaps her greatest act of faith was continuing to believe, to press on, hope and take new opportunities and risks after twelve long years of suffering. That's pretty impressive.

More Trials, More Joys

"More trials, more joys; more temptations, more triumphs; more prayers, more answers; more toils, more strength; more fights, more victories; and then come sickness, old age, disease, death. Is it over now? No! there is more yet-awakening in Jesus' likeness, thrones, harps, songs, psalms, white raiment, the face of Jesus, the society of saints, the glory of God, the fulness of eternity, the infinity of bliss. O be of good courage, believer."
Spurgeon

Strength For Today

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Matt 6:34

I was thinking about Rach Pavey's contribution at church a few weeks back about 'strength for today' - that God doesn't give you strength for the year, or for a decade or a month. He gives you strength for one day at a time. Rach is experiencing this to the extreme, but I was thinking that it's an incredibly important principle to learn in general life. Hard times or not.

You see it over and over again in scripture. Manner falls from Heaven - God provides out of thin air for his people when all natural means of provision are absent. But they're commanded to gather only enough for one day. God wants our confidence set firmly in him. In the Lord's prayer Jesus gives us a template - to pray for our daily bread. Nothing more. And the Lord's prayer itself sounds like a daily prayer. Daily we ask for strength against temptation, daily we forgive, daily we seek first God's kingdom and daily we pray for deliverance from evil.

I was wondering, off the back of this, if a lot of lethargy and apathy in out struggle against sin is born out of thinking too far ahead. We think about whether we can struggle and fight week in week out, year upon year, for the rest of our lives. The task seems impossibly big and we collapse under the weight of it. We don't even try. But if you broke it down and just focused on today, the next 16 hours you're awake, suddenly it sounds okay. One day at a time. And tomorrow - we wake up and do the same.

This no doubt has a similar application in a number or other areas. Provision, health, singleness, marriage, work, relationships... pretty much anything about you life that causes worry, stress and anxiety.

A Reason For Pain And Death

"God uses suffering and impending death to unfasten us from this earth and to set our minds on what lies beyond"
Heaven, Randy Alcorn, page xix

Pain, Suffering and Sanctification

Nothing exposes your heart like pain and suffering. When you hit it, your heart is totally exposed. All the things you never realised were there are suddenly revealed. It's a very scary and sobering thing. I would guess that one of the reasons God allows pain and suffering is sanctification. It also forces you in one of two directions: anger against God, or throwing yourself into His arms. I would also guess this is one of the ways he sorts the sheep from the goats, how he brings people to salvation or forces them away.

Pain and suffering are necessary. Nobody looks for a saviour if they don't believe they need saving. Nothing reminds you of your need for salvation like pain, suffering and the presence of evil.

In all of this it's good to remind ourselves that God is totally good, and it's Satan that is evil. Like in the book of Job, God permits suffering, but it's Satan that causes it. And he can only go as far as God allows.

The Existence Of God (Part 2)

Sometimes I think that the presence of evil in the world is absolute and undeniable evidence that Satan and demons exist, and therefore God exists. The fact that we even have a concept of evil shows there is a moral law, and a God who wrote that law. We know the world is broken and we demand that it should be better.

As Matt Chandler humorously states, no one gets angry at unicorns, elves or the Tooth Fairy. No one really believes God is fictitious.

What Is Sustaining Grace?

Here's a really excellent poem by John Piper titled "What Is Sustaining Grace?":

"Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain."

I think the hardest line in the poem is "The grace that orders our trouble and pain". It would be easy to think that God is the source of that pain and trouble. But if you read the manuscript for Piper's message (found here) he states that God is actually permitting and measuring out the pain in an exact amount, which is not beyond what we can cope with. He then sustains us through this dark period. His reason for doing so? He works all things for good (Romans 8:28) and we can trust He is working out a greater end and purpose than we can see.

Hudson Taylor on sickness and suffering

"It was not until many years later, when Taylor could look back over all the way in which the Lord had led him, that he was impressed with the fact that every important advance in the development of the Mission had sprung from or been directly connected with times of sickness or suffering which had cast him in a special way upon God."

Biography of James Hudson Taylor, p337