Skip to main content

Hope in the painful times

I have never quite understood what to do - as a pastor - when people are in pain.  It is times like that when you want to come alongside, say something encouraging, pray, even see the healing occur and the pain go away.  That is what I want to have happen.  Yet that is not my experience.  For the most part I walk away feeling quite useless.  I pray...and I know that this is good to do.  But the pain still remains.

Reading through Jeremiah I find a man of God who "lived" in a place of pain.  His country was falling into ruin.  The captivity was soon coming...Jeremiah saw it on the horizon, and warned of it - only to have his fellow Jews deride him for being a traitor.  He was living in the pain of rejection while knowing that God's judgement was soon to fall...
SO, where does hope appear in times of pain and suffering?
I ran across these words in Jeremiah this morning.

Jeremiah 33:1-3 (NIV)
1 While Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him a second time:
2 "This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it--the LORD is his name:
3 'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know...'

Notice the paradox of faith...Jeremiah is "confined", imprisoned...and God's word comes to him "again".  Then God speaks of first his majesty...He formed the earth, not just Israel the nation...and then God speaks of the invitation to Jeremiah - "call to me..."  In the midst of his suffering, God reminds him of his majesty, and asks him to call out to him...it's a faith invitation.  Not an invitation to answers, or solutions, or even to collaborate with God as to what to do next.  It's simply an invitation to turn towards the only one who really knows what is going on.

A few verses later God speaks into Jeremiah's situation.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 (NIV)
14 "'The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 "'In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land.
16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.'

The answer is yet in the future for Jeremiah.  God doesn't even say Jeremiah will still be alive (he won't) when the answer will come.  The answer isn't found in a political, or military solution.  The answer is found in God's person - the righteous branch from David's line - Jesus.
The Kingdom of God is announced in Jesus' messages...the Kingdom of God is the future answer to all the pain and the suffering...and there really is no answer beyond that.

Peace

Comments

Paul said…
E, Until I experienced real pain and suffering, I did not tend to call on the Lord for my needs. I tried to lean on my own understanding about what I needed. The pain and suffering life sometimes brings gets us more in line with what he wants us to do....depend on him. Like you, I wish I could do something to take the pain away from the people I love. It is a hard reality for me to get over.
May 10, 2012 at 9:05 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday, Day 25: Christmas Eve - God Loves Us (So We Can Relax)

For Kids: There’s a lot of things we have to do each day. Get up from our sleep, Get dressed, Eat Breakfast, Get ready for School, Listen to the teacher, play with friends, eat our lunch, and after it’s all done, go back home. There’s time to play, Then we eat our supper… And eventually we have to get ready for bed and go to sleep! And then we do it all over again the next day. Sometimes there’s a vacation - like right now - and we get more time to play, to have fun and not have to do work at school. Our parents are good at helping us know what time it is and what we need to do next – even when we don’t want to move on to the next thing.  God is also good at helping us know what time it is, and what is next.  He doesn’t shout at us, or yell, or even scream…he does it peacefully, quietly.  He wants us to understand that he does it, most of all, for us. Christmas can be quite busy and there’s lots of things going on at once…but l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joy to the World - Help is On the Way

It’s the first day of Advent– while you prepare for Worship this morning at church take a minute to ask God to direct you through this season that you might be prepared to “receive your King”. In the first week of Advent we celebrate the PROMISE of His Coming. His promise is based on our need. We were made in his image, but there is emptiness in our soul that is the result of the Fallen nature of sin. But why did Jesus come? What in his coming announces God's heart? His desire for us to know and experience? 10 BUT THE ANGEL SAID TO THEM, "DO NOT BE AFRAID; FOR BEHOLD, I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY WHICH WILL BE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE; 11 FOR TODAY IN THE CITY OF DAVID THERE HAS BEEN BORN FOR YOU A SAVIOR, WHO IS CHRIST THE LORD. GREAT JOY! Did you know that God is Joyful? 1 CHRONICLES 16:23-27 (NASB) 23 SING TO THE LORD, ALL THE EARTH; PROCLAIM GOOD TIDINGS OF HIS SALVATION FROM DAY TO DAY. 24 TELL OF HIS GLORY AMONG THE NATIONS, HIS WONDERFUL DEEDS AMONG ALL THE PEOPLES....
46 comments
Read more

Wondering Out Under the Stars

A Reading: Colossians 1:9-20 (NIV) 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether th...
28 comments
Read more