a greater wisdom
I recognise that sometimes I'm in danger of talking around the same topics over and over; also, I try to make this space personal enough that you get the real me, not too much sharing because I don't need the internet to know all the details of my life or my heart. Between those two caveats, lately I've been pondering a particular thought that crops up in Keller's Pain and Suffering book : that in the midst of whatever difficulties life may bring, we think "Oh, I can't possibly see a reason why God would allow this to happen! Therefore God can't possibly have one". To which the response is, "Why would you think that because you can't think of a reason, God couldn't have one?"
If we stand assured that it's not because God doesn't love us, and the cross teaches us that, then whatever sorrow or suffering we undergo we can learn to say, "God has his reasons, even if I do not know them, and it's because whatever he has planned is better than what I think is best". Yes, I think it's best if X, Y, Z were fixed. I think it's best if I achieved outcomes A, B, C in my life or my career or my family or my relationships or whatever. But I do not have the wisdom of God. I do not know what would actually be best: for myself, for others, for the course of history, for human beings in fifty or five-hundred years' time.
Such a thought is humbling, and requires a trust. A trust that God is both good, supremely good, and wise, utterly wise. One way we see that is to reflect upon the stories of Scripture, of course. There we see stories like that of Job - Job never knew even at the end how his suffering was part of God's good and wise plan for him. He never knew that he was being tested to see if he loved God for God himself or for his stuff. But that very testing brought him to a place where he in fact did love God for God himself. Or stories like Joseph's, in which Joseph for twenty years prayed without seeing answers. And though he twice rose to high station in Egypt, he bore the long years of imprisonment, as well as the betrayal of his family, until finally he saw how God meant it for good. Twenty years. Not all of us will wait so long. Some of us may need to wait longer.
Recently I experienced a minor disappointment. Something I thought would work out didn't. Google, in its helpful way, reminded me "1 year ago..." that I had faced a similar disappointment. At that time I was more upset, more angry and more bitter about it. I struggle(d) with feelings of worth, esteem, value and validation. This time I am far less upset. Yes, there is disappointment. There is the wondering, "why not?" But there's also the lessons being learnt from greater sorrows in my life. Please don't think that I have arrived at some sage-like tranquillity about all such things, but I do see within myself a far greater trust in God's wisdom, that in both the smaller things and the greater things I can trust that he has far more wisdom about what is best for me and for others than whatever I think is best.
And so this post is a little testimony. There's plenty of things in my life that have not turned out how I thought. There's quite a few things that I still don't understand why they are the way there are. There are still some significant things causing me sorrow. But in all of these I am learning to love God more, pursue him more, delight in him more, trust him more, and endure more. And I trust in his good and wise sovereignty in all things, and his profound compassion and grace in the cross.
Everything is necessary that he sends. Nothing can be necessary that he withholds.
John Newton