Handling Suffering

It is good to have the privilege of preaching anywhere, but there's something special about being able to come back, and then about being able to come back again and again and again. And I think this is the fifth time in the last seven years that I've had the privilege of being here, and I was praying and thinking and considering what it was that I would share tonight. I just I just want to encourage the church. I wanna encourage my brothers and sisters and my friends at Kawata Baptist Church. You know, one of the things that I have seen and recognized over. The years UH that is a direct result of the rise of UH charismatic influence, the rise of Pentecostal influence, is that we've come to believe things that are not true, and it has had negative consequences. This is true in many areas, but perhaps most significantly in the area of suffering. We have come to believe, because we've heard it so frequently, that suffering is always the result of sin, and it's true that there is suffering that is the result of sin, or that suffering as a direct result of a lack of faith. We've come to believe, and we've heard so frequently that when we're suffering, that the way out of that suffering is to exercise our faith, and that if we exercise our faith properly and appropriately, that suffering will end. Because you know, we're supposed to be the head and not the tail, right, we're not supposed to be suffering. We're told that if we're suffering, it's because of the words that we use, and that we need to be careful with our words. I'm I'm told that even in the wedding ceremony, many, many in the Pentecostal and Charismatic circles have changed the vowels in the wedding ceremony because they don't want to speak worse, sicker, or poorer. So it's just better and health and richer. See, because you don't want you don't want to speak those negative words, because it's when you speak those negative words that you bring those things into your life. This is pagan theology. This is not biblical Christianity. This is pagan theology. But but sometimes sometimes when you've walked in the rain long enough, you forget what it means to be dry. And sometimes when we have walked in this world where we've heard things over and over and over and over again. We don't consciously grab onto these things, but they linger and we hold to them. And then difficulty comes and suffering comes, and we actually have to fight to respond to it in an appropriate and biblical way, and we have to fight not to respond to it in accordance with those things that we've heard again and again and again, and many Christians, many Christians, have a very difficult time doing that, especially when friends and family members come to you with some of those samee cliches. But the fact of the matter is suffering is part of the Christian life. Suffering is one of the many ways that God strengthens us as believers. God uses suffering like the bodybuilder uses weights. Your muscles will never grow unless you put them under a strain that they can almost not bear. That's the way that you make them stronger. And the same thing is true of us as believers. It is during those times when we find ourselves under a weight that we consider too much for us to bear that number one, we find out what we are really made of, and that's not always a pretty thing. Amen. And number two, we learn that God is able and that God is enough. And so as we consider this tonight. I want you to turn your bibles to the Book of Exodus. We've been preaching through Exodus at our church back in Houston, and it's been an incredible blessing in so many ways. There's a passage in Exodus chapter two. I wish I could somehow share this diagram with you, but it's not possible. I'll try to help you see it visually. But if if you look, can can you can you see here? Might be hard from the back, he could you can you kind of see this diagram? That's that's a diagram of the paragraph that we're about to read. And there's an amazing thing that happens when you look at it. That the first part is suffering from Earth's perspective, the second part is suffering from Heaven's perspective, and in the middle there's a statement in the middle of those two. And when you see this diagram and understand this passage, it's helpful, helpful if you have that visual. So listen as we read Actions chapter two, beginning of verse twenty three, and then think about that diagram, first from Earth's perspective. During those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because their slaves, because of their slavery, and cried out for help. There it is from Earth's perspective. From the perspective of Earth, the only thing they know is that the pharaoh died, and when the Pharaoh died, things got bad for them, and they groomed because of their slavery, and they cried out for help. That's the only thing they know from their perspective, and when we suffer, oftentimes this is the only thing that we know. I don't know what's going on in heaven. I don't know what God is doing, but I know that this happened, and that happened, and I'm groaning and I'm crying out because of these things that happened. The next line is that lying between Heaven and Earth, their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. That's the connection between what's going on on Earth and what's going on in heaven. The next is what's going on from Heaven's perspective. This They don't know this. You and I don't know unless we have the scriptures that tell us, and unless we've remind ourselves of this in the midst of our suffering. Here's where the lies can harm you. The lies don't allow you to hold onto these realities. This is their suffering from Heaven's perspective. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. Once you love that God heard, God remembered. God saw, and God knew. They're not aware of this, but that's what's going on from Heaven's perspective. And you and I have the benefit of looking back at this. You and I have the benefit of this being recorded in scripture, so that we can see how it is that God worked with his people during their suffering, and we can see the character of God that still relates to us in the midst of our suffering today. First noticed that God hears their groaning. This is what you need to know when you're suffering. God hears you're groaning. Who have a natural tendency when we suffer. The natural tendency is to assume that God doesn't hear ituse it goes like this, If God heard me, then he would have done something. By now, amen, he must not have heard me. I need to cry a loud. I need to cry louder, so he just hadn't heard me. Or maybe it's maybe I need some other people to cry out with me. And so let's get everybody to play the same prayer. Because God needs to hear. And so we have this idea that this idea that says somehow we need to generate enough faith, enough power, enough groaning to somehow break through Heaven so that Heaven can finally hear. It's like the children's story of Horton hears a Who, where the little people in their little town have to make enough noise to finally break through and be heard. This is the way we think about God God, that if we just make enough noise, if we just multiply enough press, then God will hear it. Listen, God hears you before you have sense enough to know what to say. Amen. In fact, in Romans chapter eight, there is this great comfort that the spirit of God intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, when we don't know what to pray. God hears. This is important for us to know because when we assume that God doesn't hear, we assume, first and foremost he doesn't care. He doesn't care. If he cared, he listened to me, and if he listened to me, of course this would be over with because God exists so that I don't have to go through things like this. Secondly, we begin to fear the worst. If God doesn't care for me, then I'm on my own, and as bad as this thing is, it could get worse worse, and more than likely it will because I'm on my own. Thirdly, we have a tendency then to turn from following God. It's amazing and I've seen the pattern in the midst of suffering in people's lives. All of a sudden, there's suffering that comes. And the first response when suffering comes is that they increase their presence. They increase their attendance at church, You increase your attendance at prayer meeting, you increase your attendance at Bible studies, you increase your fellowship with other believers. Because we're trying to get that breakthrough, we're trying to multiply the noise. So we're trying to make God see us at all the right places, and make him hear us at all the right places, and get all the right people saying something for us as well. And then after a while we grow weary and we think that God doesn't here. And then after grow going really we begin to fear the worst. And then after fearing the worst, we began to turn from following God. And now we stop showing up as much, and we stop fellowshiping as much because now we're ashamed because of our lack of faith. Finally, we shake our fists at God and we accuse God of wrongdoing. We accuse God of evil, as though he is obligated to see to it that we don't experience things like this, and he's garrelict in his duty because he has not alleviated the suffering in the manner or in the time that we thought he should. This is where suffering will take us. The Bible, however, makes it clear that God does hear us. Here in our text, it says God heard now, mind you, God heard them, and this is just the beginning. Now God's going to hear them. They hadn't been a baby in the basket yet. You remember the baby in the basket, right, The little boy moses, well, the baby's in the basket. And then the baby goes and he goes to Pharaoh's house, and then the baby is winged. When the baby leaves Israel, the baby's forty years old. When he comes back to speak to Pharaoh, he's eighty years old, which means the distance between God heard and park the waters is eighty years. Eighty years. How many of you know God's not on your timetable? But yet even oh, they didn't see anything for those eighty years. The Bible says, God heard, pastor, I've been praying for weeks. Okay, good for you, but that's not eighty years. God hears you. You have a pastor. You don't understand. I've been dealing with this for a long time. Yes, and God hears you. Psalm fifty five, seventeen evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and He hears my voice. Amen. Doesn't matter how offered. God doesn't tune you out. After a while. He hears your voice. Probably fifteen twenty nine. The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayers of the righteous. Amen. God hears you saying. God hears you. Don't you believe for a moment that He doesn't hear you. That's not the problem. Whatever the problem is is the problem is not that God does not hear you one John five, fourteen fifteen. And this is the confidence we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. He hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him. Notice the key there, we ask anything according to his will. Same one. We must also remember that it is a privilege to be heard by God. And oftentimes this is something that we forget because we think that the only privilege is for God to actually do the thing that we want done. God is upholding the universe by the power of his might, and yet he hears us. God is busy, hey man, but he hears his children every time they call. That's a privilege in and of itself, regardless of what he does with what he hears. It is a privilege that the God of the universe hears you when you call. Secondly, we are sinful, insignificant creatures in the grand scheme of things, and yet God hears us. God hears us. You know, I I am I'm I'm a a larger than average person. I don't know if you realize that or not. But I'm I'm a I'm a larger than average person and just interesting that, you know, being a a larger than average person. There are some experiences that that that I don't know, they just stick in your mind. More people who are not larger than average, they're used to walking around and people being larger than them. I'm not used to that. So when I go certain places and everybody's just larger than I am. I went to a basketball game, an NBA game. The team asked me to come in and do a chapel service before their game, and so, okay, fine, I'll do that. And I got to go do the chapel service and just preach for both teams before the game. And I walked into the locker room and I spent my whole time just like this. You know, you watch the NBA games, there are guys who look tiny on the court, right they are these guys, they look, you know, very small, and they look like they're very tiny guys. Those guys are my height, and so it's an amazing thing. But even that we as human beings, we're not even the largest things in the world. You get up close to an elephant, and all of a sudden you realize there are things that command more attention than you do. Amen. And yet when you whisper, God hears you. That's a privilege, that the God of the universe hears you. You're sinful and don't deserve to be in his presence, and he hears you. We're mistaken when we believe that God owes us a hearing. It is actually a form of arrogance to accuse God of wrongdoing because we believe that He has not given us the hearing that we deserve, because the Bible says that he does hear us. So if you say God hasn't heard me, you're actually calling God a liar and calling his word into question, and that never ends. Well, he heard you, But you know, essentially, here's what you're saying. When you say I don't believe God's hearing my prayers, what you're saying is this, if God had heard my prayers, then he would have done something differently by now. But because he hasn't done something differently by now, he hasn't heard my prayers. Who do you think you are? You think you're so significant that God can't hear you and not do what you want. Who do you think you are? He must not have heard me. That's what a parent says about a child. You call your child, son, come here, and they don't move. Oh, he must not have hurt me, because if he heard me, he would have at least turned around and looked in my direction. I'm gonna call him again, because I'm sure he didn't hear me the first time. Son, And we raise our voice as if to say, yeah, this is me, and you better turn around, because if he had heard me, he would have That's what a parent says about a child. How dare you say that about God? He must not have heard me, because if he heard me, he would have turned around, like I am his father, and he better do what I say. Fall on your face and repent. What a sinful, arrogant, self absorbed attitude to have before the God of this universe. There are things that you thought said and did on yesterday for which you should have been killed in your sleep last night. And you have the audacity, I have the audacity to say that he must not have heard me, because if he heard me, he would have done what I said. Oh, God help us, God help us. That there's a movement afoot that makes us think this way toward God. No, he heard you. He heard you, and if He doesn't do anything other than just hear you, that in itself is a privilege to be grateful for that in the midst of whatever you're going through, you can have communion with God and that you can know that He hears you. Whatever we are suffering, we have to be reminded that it is number one temporary and number two not worthy to be compared with that which awaits us. Only when we realize these truths, when we realize the great comfort that comes from knowing that God hears us. God hears me. You know what that means. God hears me, and that means I am in communion and fellowship with God. And whatever it is that I am going through, it has not, it cannot and it will not break my communion with God. Even if this thing kills me. Ultimately, the reality that remains is that I will still be in communion with God. Whatever it is. It can't break that. Not only does He hear, but God remembers, and specifically God remembers his covenant. God did not remember Israel because they were the good guys that's the tendency we have. We tend to view the Bible like a black and white Western you know, the good guys and the white hat and the bad guys and black hat. You know. This is the way we tend to read the Bible. Israel was neither innocent nor sinless. Did not owe them deliverance. This is our tendency in reading the Bible. This is our tendency in reading the Book of Exodus. And we think that Israel was a good guy and that Egypt was the bad guy, and that God is going to cross Egypt because they're the bad guys. Listen, Israel is sinful. Moses comes and they don't believe they are sinful. God did not choose Israel because they were righteous. God chose Israel, and he made them righteous. They're sinners who are redeemed by God. Then we have the idea that comes from liberation theology that says, well, God chows Israel because they were the ones who were being oppressed, and God is always on the side of the oppressed. Newsflash, Israel was not the only oppressed people in the world at this time. There is no one good but God. Consider the good things we recall when pining over God's failure to rescue us. God didn't rescue me, and I'm a good person. God didn't rescue me, and I go a charge. God didn't rescue me, and I don't really do bad things. I especially don't do things as bad as people who are not suffering what I'm suffering. But notice what God remembered. God remembered his covenant. He remembered his redemptive purpose. He remembered Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. God remembered the redemption of his elect God remembered the promise in Genesis three fifteen. I will put enmity between you and the woman, in between your offspring and her offspring. You bruises heel when he will crush your head. God remembered that this promise seed would come through a promised line, and in order to preserve this promised line, he was going to deal with Israel and deliver them and make them his own people. But this was because of the redemption of God's elect, not because they were so cute. We must bear this in mind when we pray. God does not exist to give us what we want. God exists to save his people. Amen and God doesn't have to give you whatever that is in order to save you. Saving you does not require removing suffering from you. Secondly, God orders all things according to his will and his redemptive purpose. God orders all things according to his will and his redemptive purpose. And your suffering may be exactly there's no maybe it is exactly exactly what God requires to maximize his glory in your life. It amazes me that we have the audacity to endure suffering and say that it's unfair. Here I am greig, sinful, frail, rebellious against God, and here is Jesus, spotless, sinless lamb of God. God crushed and killed his spotless, sinless son from my sin. But I don't. Deserve to suffer. Lord, have mercy. This is why me not receiving what I asked for is not an indictment of God's goodness or character as a father. My children asked me for a lot of things. I would be an irresponsible father if I gave him everyone. Why because their children and they don't know what they need, they just know what they want. Before we came on this trip, my children had to go see a doctor. And because we're going to be going you know, Kenya and then here and then you know South Africa. We had to get these yellow fever shots and all the kids had to get their yellow fever shots. And there they are, they're lining up and all of them are getting that yellow fever shots. You need to know, my kids weren't happy about sitting there and getting that yellow fever shot. And they're sitting there and they're thinking, if my parents loved me, they wouldn't make me do this. They just wouldn't. They just wouldn't. They just wouldn't. They just wouldn't. And then they get stuck with the needle, and especially the little ones that looked up. I hate it. I hate it when the little ones get a shot because you have to hold them, and then they get the shot and they look at you like, I can't believe you let them do this to me. When our first child was born or at all, Judge's twenty four and she was born and we went home and they had forgotten to do the prick on her heel for the blood and whatnot, and I to take her back up so they could do the prick in her here for the blood. I'm a first time father. I am overwhelmed. My wife is recovering. So I had to take my little girl by myself back to the hospital. Now, I was already nervous just leaving it. When we left the hospital the first time, when I first daughter, I was nervous and I was looking over my shoulder because I just knew somebody was gonna say, no, you cannot let those two leave with a baby, Okay, I just and so but we did it, and we left and they fo were going home and I'm like, they're letting us go home with this, you know. And so now I got to bring her back and they have to do the deal. And I came back and Bridget said, how did it go? I said it was okay. And she looked at me. She said, you cried, didn't You said? This is a little bit because I'm holding my little girl and she's smiling and cooling, and they prick her in the heell and her expression changes and she looks at me with that look and it's just my heart is melted. I'm says, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But she needed that. She didn't understand. All she knew was I'm in pain. They needed this shot. So that they could be with us. But all they knew was this hurts. And there are things that we endure in our Christian life that we do not and cannot understand. But every ounce of it is absolutely necessary for God's glory and our good, and we must believe this. Next, God also sees his people. The burning question is how could God see this and not act? Is this a question we always ask when some and justice happens. How could God see this and not act? Believers ask this question all the time. How could there be a God and these terrible things happen in the world. This is the question. The answer is God sees all Verses one through eight. I lift up my eyes to the hill. From where does my help come. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out, And you're coming in from this time, forth and forever more hops. When you've got that bad diagnosis, God was watching, and he wasn't surprised, and he was in control. When your heart was broken, young person, not so young person, God was watching. He was not surprised. He was in control. When your loved one died, God was watching. He was in control, and he was not surprised. We suffered at miscarriage. When he tried to get pregnant and it was negative. Again, God was watching. He was in control. He was not surprised. From the store room with a fire destroyed all you had, God was watching. He was not surprised, and he was in control. When that child went astray, God was watching. He was not surprised. He was in control. When your parents divorced, God was watching. God was not surprised. God was in control. When you lost your job. God was watching. He saw, he wasn't surprised, and he was in control. But why is there comfort in this? We go through that list and we say, okay, all those things are terrible. Why am I not comforted by the fact that when this happened, God saw it happen. In fact, that makes me mad that he saw it and he didn't do anything about it. You know why it's comforting because the alternative is unbearable. The alternative is that there are things that happen to me that God cannot control, that he does not see, that there are things in my life that catch God by surprise. That is unbearable. But do you know what I can bear? What I can bear is this hurts me. But the God who spoke the world into existence has called me to himself in Christ, and nothing can separate me from him. And whatever this is, he is doing it for his glory, and ultimately I will see that it was from a good I cannot live with the alternative. The alternative is this thing happens and God was nowhere. That means that there are other things waiting around the corner for me, and God may misdos as well. And if God cannot control my suffering, how can he control my eternal destiny. If I can't trust him with my suffering, I can't trust him with my soul. The God knows. The picture here is of love and pity. The word to know in the Old Testament is an intimate word. It is used of a husband and wife, intimacy. God knows God loves us, and he pities us. God knows which circumstances will maximize his glory. He knows this. God knows what you really need, and you do not like the father holding his child while the child is taking this painful shot. Well, when my son broke his arm and his arm had to be reset, we have a loving, heavenly father who knows us. He knows what we can endure, and he knows what will maximize his glory in our lives. He knows how much you can bear. You don't. You have no idea how much you can bear. And the only time you get a glimpse of how much you can there is after you've borne something that you thought you couldn't amen. If you've lived long enough, you've been there. If you've lived long enough, you have been in those circumstances where you said, I cannot take this. You've been in those circumstances and just say I just can't. I can't live with this. I can't live with this, not one more day, not one more day. And yet you wake up the next day and the sun rises, and the next thing you know, you're on the other side of it, and you're sitting down with a brother or sister in Christ who is in the midst of a tragedy, saying to themselves, I can't take this anymore. And in the midst of their tragedy, you may even smile, not because it's funny, but because you say to them, listen to me, Listen to me. I'd said those words, and yet here I stand. So where was God to when you're in the midst of your suffering? That's the question that people often ask. Where was he? The answer, he was in the same place he was when his son suffered for your sin. That's where he was. He was in the same place he was where the spotless, sinless Lamb of God, the second person of the Trinity, with whom the Father and the Spirit had lived throughout all eternity, passed in perfect harmony and unity and unison. When that one who had taken on a second nature, had wrapped himself in flesh, had taken upon himself the sins of those for whom the Father had sinned him, when sinful evil men beat him and scorned him and mocked him, And when that father condemned his own son to death and watched and die, That's where he was when you suffered in the exact same place. He has not moved, He will not move. So how do we wait? How do we wait? In light of these things? Remember, communion with God is its own reward. Communion with God is its own reward. You know, oftentimes we overlook this. But here's something that interesting that happens when we suffer. Believers walk around all the time and they say, Oh, I just I wish I was more disciplined. I wish I could spend more time in prayer. I wish I could spend more time reading my Bible. I wish I could spend more time you know, with with with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I just wish I could spend more time with the Lord. Do you know what happens when suffering come in your life. You spend more time in prayer, You spend more time reading your Bible, You spend more time with the Lord, you spend more time with God's people. You have greater communion with God during those acute moments of suffering than at any other time in your life. It's not the mountaintops that call you to and remind you of your communion with God. It's the valleys that do that. It's when you suffer, It's when you come to the end of yourself, when you're reminded how much you need God. This is where it happens. Secondly, remember the land for which we wait is not here. Amen, this is not your home. This is a temporary replace. We're waiting for a city who's who has found that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. We are being prepared for another place. Remember that as you suffer, because this is one of the benefits of suffering. See Suffering loosens your grip on this world. Suffering loosens your grip on this world. It reminds you that there is a place that you are going and this is not it. It reminds you that these things are temporary. It reminds you that these things were not meant to fulfill you. It reminds you that there is something that you yearn for that you will never fully experience this side of glory for Remember, God is not on your side. God's on his own side. Why is that important? Because if I say God is on my side, then that means that God is always for me, regardless of whether I'm right or I'm wrong. Regardless of whether it's true or I'm false or God. You know, God is on my side. No, no, no, no no. It's like when the Angel shows up, Joshua wants to know, are you for us or for our enemies. It has been said that the angel's response was, I didn't come to take sides. I came to take over. God's on his own side. Don't worry about God being on your side, worry about you being on God's side. Amen. You see this is why we get it all missed up. God's supposed to be on my side, which means he was supposed to do this for me. No, no, no, no no. God is on the side of his glory. And if that is your greatest desire, then you are able to embrace your suffering and to trust that God will use it number one to bring you closer to himself and number two to maximize the means by which your life brings him glory even through the way you endure and suffering by remember, God is shaping and sanctifying you. God is shaping and sanctifying you, and he uses suffering to shape you and to sanctify you. He uses suffering to show you where you are, and he uses suffering to take you from there to where He's designed for you to be. Finally, remember this, whatever it is that you're enduring, God hears you. God remembers his covenant, and he will be faithful to fulfill it. Christ did not die for you so that he could abandon you. Christ did not die for you so that the Father could then toy with you. God remembers his covenant and he will fulfill it. God sees, God sees. God sees. This is important when we suffer at the hands of others. God sees. God sees, and God will make it right. I don't need to avenge myself. God will make it right. God sees, and God knows. God knows. There is an intimacy that we have with God in the midst of our suffering that is unlike anything else we experience in the Christian life. God knows. And this is not just that God knows what you're going through. God knows you. And this through this knowing that you come to know God. I don't know what it is that you are being called to endure right now, but I know that you're being called to endure something, and I know that you are like me, and that there are those things that have attached themselves to us. They are not biblical, but we've heard them over and over and over again, and they don't sound like the truths we've heard here tonight. I want you to know something. Those things deepen your despair, These things deepen your faith. Amen went into the hospital, and then we walked into the hospital. There was a woman there in her early forties, member of our church. She had gone into the hospital cause she just wasn't quite feeling well. Some other of five, one of them about a year old, and all of a sudden she had gone septic and she was on life support, just out of nowhere. For two days, we rotated through and we visited with the family. We were there and we would read the scriptures, finally the psalms, and we would sing. And the night after that second day she was gone. I stood and I appreached the first funeral that our church ever had, a forty two year old mother of five. After the sermon, there were a number of people who came by. Some who worked in that hospital couldn't quite comprehend not that this would happened, because if you work in the hospital, this type of thing happens. Sometimes people walk in and they're carried out. But what they couldn't comprehend was how in a week's time they watched a man lose his wife, and during the entire process, and then at the culmination of it, at the funeral, he praised God. We read some of those same scriptures and sang some of those same songs. You see, here's what the Word of Faith movement doesn't have, because for them that was failure. But we understand this. Sometimes God is glorified when six saints get well, but more often than not, God is glorified when six saints die well. Because the last time I checked, the death rate was one per person. None of us is getting out of our lives. That's not the worst thing in this world. And that, my friends, is the answer. The reason that we can face and endure suffering is because we know it's not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world, you see, because everyone suffers, Christians and non Christians alike. The worst thing in the world is to suffer in this life only to be ushered into grace. You're suffering in the next. However, we know that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. We grieve, but not as those without hope, because our souls have been redeemed by and for Christ, and the one who has redeemed us will see us safely home, and so we endure. Let's pray, Oh God, Oh God. Sometimes all we can say is, Oh God, you are good. You are good when our circumstances are not. You are good. You are good when we don't believe it. You are good when we don't know it. You are good when we can't explain it. You are good when we can't see it. You are good when we cannot comprehend it. You are good. You are good. You are good. You are good because you hear, you remember, you see, and you know. Grant by your grace that we would embrace this truth as we have been embraced by it. Dis We pray in the name of our suffering Savior, our redeemer, who endured the cross, despising its shame, and the one who, because of that has been exalted to the highest place, the one in whose name every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. We ask these things in his name and for his sake. Thankful for his suffering on our back commen