Suffering and Our Sovereign

I sit in a hardback chair inside a frigid room.

The nurse smiles as she hands me a heated white robe, its soft warmth warding off the chill as I await my yearly appointment.

It’s deathly still here—a space lined with pocket-sized rooms, dark, heavy doors inched open. A handful of women are tapping their phones, diddling their legs—anything to distract themselves.

A snowy-haired woman passes by, hunched and weeping as she clutches a crumpled tissue and wipes her smudged glasses.

Her shoelace is untied.

I am at least twenty years her junior, and by nature not touchy, yet I have the urge to pat her arm and double-knot her laces as I once did for my children. Time, however, is a vapor and so is she, gone, her sobs echoing, lingering in the bright hallway as the office door swings and clicks shut.

Shifting in my chair, I root inside my purse for a piece of gum and unwrap it, savoring the mintiness as I chew and snap, an oddly satisfying habit. After a moment I cinch my robe tighter and mindlessly fold the wrapper as I count.

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine.

For nine years I have known that I am at a heightened risk for cancer, due to family genetics. Armed with this knowledge means that every twelve months I park in a pretty, tree-lined lot and enter a formidable brick tower filled with women waging war.

Throngs of females–young, middle-aged, old–sit trembling and tired in this central hub where disease rages and seems no respecter of age.

Although this is not a yearly appointment I relish, I have learned to grab hold of the truth tucked within every hardship:

Our Sovereign God is always working and he is always good.

The question becomes: Will I choose to trust him?

//

Suffering.

The universal condition. No one: rich or poor, young or old, is immune.

As Christians, we are called to suffer differently, bearing the Spirit’s fruit.

This might sound impossible but it is not. I have found that the only way to bear good and godly fruit amid suffering is to wholeheartedly embrace a rock-solid, God-centered theology.

Embracing is far more than knowing, nodding in agreement, or verbally repeating biblical truths. God-centered theology is a heart cry, a life centered upon adoring the Master. Embracing is grabbing hold of God and championing his absolute Sovereignty.

To put it plainly, I am not the center of my universe. My husband is not the center of my universe. My children and grandchildren are not the center of my universe.

God is.

It has taken me years to fully bow to the One who has ordained every hardship I face. Yet those very afflictions have been God’s instrument to right my soul, pointing me due North, to him.

This is not to say that suffering is easy or fun.

Of course not.

//

My greatest assurance and hope in every square inch of heartache–whether it be the knowledge of an inherited gene, a financial hardship, a relational crisis, mistreatment, the death of a loved one, the demise of a dream, the common cold, or plain old fatigue–is knowing that nothing, absolutely nothing, is given to me apart from God’s will.

Everything is sifted through my Maker’s hands.

And yet my personal response is my responsibility.

As Puritan John Flavel once said:

Affliction is a pill, which being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul.

I remember, quite vividly, my initial fear upon learning of my heightened health risk.

That fear has been replaced by the grand understanding that God is good and kind, creating me in secret; knitting me together, pulling me close. My days are in his hands, and my strength is from Him. My heart response to suffering has not changed because I figured out a clever little trick, or mindless diversion, or wrapped my head around all far-reaching possibilities.

Not at all.

My response has changed because I choose to draw near to God, immersing myself in the Bible, which prompts my affection for Christ to take deeper root. I have purposed to trust in the Lord–not potential outcomes–in every bit of personal suffering.

Quiet submission has replaced my fear of what-ifs.

Good thing, since there are absolutely no what-ifs, according to Scripture.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3)

I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. (Job 42:2).

For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose. (Isaiah 46:9–10). 

…God works all things according to the counsel of his will, (Ephesian 1:11)

the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. (Proverbs 16:33)

Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightning for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. (Psalm 135:6–7)

 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. (Matthew 10:29).

You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. (2 Chronicles 20:6).

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21:1)

No man can come to me, except the Father which sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day. (John 6:44)

Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. (Revelation 1:17-18)

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“Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding his character, in trusting in his promises, and in leaning on him and resting in him as the Sovereign who knows what he is doing and does all things well.“

-Joni Eareckson Tada