In his book, Hopeful Imagination, Walter Brueggemann writes that only those who know how to grieve also know how to hope. “Suffering produces… hope” (Rom.5.3-5). It’s counter-intuitive and probably not a very exciting way to start a blog. People who haven’t suffered aren’t interested in hearing about it, and the last thing people who are suffering want to hear is that it’s all for our good.
But Brueggemmann didn’t really write the book to talk about hope. He wants to talk about how the new thing that God wants to do is born. How does the grief of our suffering permit newness?
All my life I’ve been surrounded by people who landed on their feet. Life just worked for them. Want a good education? An opening at the finest private school would suddenly materialize. Thinking of marriage? No lonely nights here. The perfect lifetime partner would teleport into their life and they’d live happily ever after, smiling in their sleep. Kids would pop out as if on cue – no miscarriages, no genetic disorders, not even a bad tempered toddler. Considering a new career? A senior position in a multinational would fall from the sky. Their investments never soured, their property portfolio never shrank, and their timeshare was always available. They lived the dream.
But Brueggemann’s point is that the people who live the dream don’t know how to dream. They have no imagination. They cannot see (or desire) the need for anything to be different. They cannot see that God wants to do something new because, for them, what they have now is just fine. I’m not just talking about people who have money either. I’m talking about Christians who are content with the way things are in their lives – who have no sense of yearning or desperation for God. David Wikerson called it anguish[1]
people
who
live
the
dream
don’t
know
how
to
dream
When they hear God telling Habakkuk:
“I’m about to do something in your day that you wouldn’t believe” (Hab.1.5),
or Isaiah:
“I am doing a new thing” (Is.43.9,18)
they think God means, “the same, but more” or “the same, but better”. They have no spiritual imaginative capacity because they have never grieved. They can only think in terms of what they know.
It is grief and pain that bring us to a place of desperation in God so that all our desire is bent on hoping in him for newness. Only in our suffering can we truly learn to look expectantly to God. Without grief we grow complacent. And complacency is not a pretty word in scripture – one I will be returning to very shortly.
In Jeremiah 30, the prophet speaks of The Day of the Lord.
How awful that day will be!
No other will be like it.
It will be a time of trouble for Jacob….
– Jer.30.7
The Day of the Lord is neither a literal day nor exclusively a particular period, but a work the Lord does that includes the discipline and purging of his people, judgement on their enemies, and deliverance from their oppressors. It is when God comes in his glory to deal justice to the people of the earth. In a later post I’m going to describe to you what that looks like. For now, it is enough to know that by “justice” I don’t mean that he’s coming to hand out hot meals to the homeless.
The Day of the Lord is a strange concept to modern churchgoers. We struggle to see how God could punish anybody, even the wicked. There are reasons for that – the world doesn’t believe in sin and wickedness, and the Western Church is wondering whether that thinking might actually be right; absolute truth no longer exists, so who’s to say if someone is sinning or even truly evil, ‘It’s simply not for me to judge’; we struggle with moral dilemmas: the life of a child vs. a woman’s rights, ‘is it really murder or is that thing in the womb simply tissue?’; and the biggest one of all: ‘What about grace?’
The world no longer believes the Bible anymore; the Church isn’t far behind. And neither of them have much idea about what it says anyway. And so our concepts of right and wrong are being redefined by our world:
Any belief or action is legitimate provided it does not lead to the hurt of another. “Evil” is what leads to the hurt of another – like ISIS, or racists, or Christians or other kinds of bigots who believe in sin.
Israel believed the same kind of delusion. They were convinced that they were the good guys and everyone else was the bad guys. They honestly believed that the way they were living was acceptable to God. But Jeremiah announces over such people:
Your wound is incurable,
Your injury beyond healing.
There is no one to plead your cause,
No remedy for your sore,
No healing for you.
– Jer.30.12,13
As shocking as that message was for Judah to hear from the mouth of Jeremiah, it is even more so today. And it is about as welcome and well-received as it was back then too.
The Western Church is sick. It has a disease that it is entirely unaware of. Most unchurched Christians would probably agree. Yet they have failed to find a solution, being content to argue over the causes and symptoms of its sickness rather than try to bring healing. But those still attending Churches would choke on such a statement. And they would choke because, as Brueggemann says of Judah, they have “managed to lull [themselves] into reinterpreting symptoms of sickness as marks of health”.[2]
Our slickness, showmanship, and performance-oriented mindset, our failure to confront sin, and ignorance of God’s holiness are symptoms of our sickness. But we have deceived ourselves into reinterpreting them as marks of our health! We have convinced ourselves that these things are achievements, a sign of our progress. But in God’s eyes, our reliance on them is, in fact, a sign of our disease.
It’s not that any of these things are wrong per se. I’m not advocating the Church remain in the dark ages. But we secretly take pride in these things. And God doesn’t. The things God takes pride in (if I may wrongly apply the word) are not at all the things the Church today takes pride in. We have our values and our priorities completely out of whack. And we don’t even know it. Like Israel, we honestly believe the way we are living is acceptable to God. Of course there are Christians who sincerely love and honor God. But the gangrene of the world is spreading through the body, and the patient either needs a miracle or some surgery. I don’t think the miracle is coming first.
In addition to this, we have wrongly interpreted the genuine work of God’s discipline on others as evidence of sin in their lives. “God is dealing with them”, we say knowingly, all the while oblivious to the fact that we are as smug, self-assured, and ignorant of Gods ways as Job’s comforters were.
Conversely, we interpret our near perfect lives as a mark of God’s special favor. But we forget that those he loves, he disciplines. And if he doesn’t discipline us we aren’t his children.
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all…. God disciplines us… in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
– Heb 12:5–11.
In one of her autobiographical works, Madame Guyon talks about people who sought an audience with her after hearing of her fame. They came to see this extraordinary woman of God. But only those who themselves had been broken, who had something of the fragrance of Christ about them, only they perceived the quiet power of this woman. To all others she seemed like a simpleton. And God allowed it be so.
I’ve met people like that – weakened by God. But powerful. The Christian who has never been broken by God is baffled when they encounter such a person. They come expecting to be dazzled by great spirituality, but they find instead a fool. That’s because deep calls unto deep (Ps.42.7). And if the waves and breakers of God have not swept over us, if we have not known anguish, if God has not weakened us through grief, then there is no depth in us to call to the depth of God in someone else. We don’t recognize God’s strength in someone who has been broken for the simple reason that we ourselves are shallow.
The world doesn’t prize weakness, and neither does the Church. But God does. He looks for the man or woman he can make weak because only those ones are able to demonstrate his power. And I’m not talking about a powerful ministry; I’m talking about a powerful life. It’s not some kind of charisma. It’s an authority with God that comes, inexplicably, from being broken, often silently, excruciatingly, over enormously prolonged periods.
People who have never suffered cannot comprehend this. They don’t understand that God’s discipline makes room for all the elements of human suffering – chronic sickness, family tragedy, financial devastation, marital infidelity, divorce, rape, slander, silence from heaven. Their concept of suffering is the monthly mortgage payments or an annoying co-worker. Because they haven’t experienced being broken by the Lord they cannot recognize it when it occurs in others. They mistake that brokenness in other people for weakness or inadequacy or lack of ability, skill, or talent. They’ve never encountered someone who has been stripped by the Lord, weakened at every point, humbled before him and humiliated before others. They cannot possibly conceive that God would do such a thing. They cannot see why it would be necessary. And when you bring it up they either look at you vacantly or rail against you as if you’re invoking some dark curse upon Christendom.
I don’t think anyone knows why suffering is necessary. It’s just one of those things that is. We don’t know why but God uses it to do in us what can’t be done by any other means. He does it “in order that we may share in his holiness” and so that our lives produce “a harvest of righteousness and peace.”
Conversely, the God of people who have not suffered does no such thing. He is “loving and kind and full of grace.” Consequently these people never come to comprehend God’s holiness, and there is little of the fruits of righteousness evident in their lives.
I’m always suspicious of Christians who have never suffered. There’s a certainty, an overconfidence, a kind of cockiness about their knowledge of God. They exude a sense of “rightness” that I can only attribute to their experience of always having things go their way. For them, following God is easy.
But Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered (Heb.5:8), and so do we. This is how we fulfill the command to “be holy, as I am holy”. The sins and behaviors we cannot mortify in our own strength, the ways of God we cannot follow, the task of God we do not wish to do – these are made possible because suffering brings us to a place of obedience. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I just know that it does.
Suffering sits as one of God’s great paradoxes. Scripture is full of the paradoxes of God, and suffering is perhaps the greatest.
We cannot know the balm of God
until we are wounded.
We cannot know the life of God
until we die.
We cannot know the strength of God
until we are made weak.
We cannot know the fullness of God
until we are emptied.
We cannot know the greatness of God
until we are made small.
We cannot know the exaltation of God
until we are abased.
We cannot know the largeness of God
until we are confined.
All of these “untils” are lessons in God’s school of suffering.
On and on the paradoxes of God roll through scripture, and the one who never experiences them knows little of God. This is why churches today are largely trivial and superficial. Ask Christians to tell you who God is and they have little to say. They have truckloads of theological training but little training in godliness. There is no harvest of righteousness in their lives because they haven’t partaken of God’s holiness. And they haven’t partaken of his holiness because they haven’t allowed themselves to be chastened by God.
There’s an argument today about that passage of scripture. The word for “chastens” in verse 6 comes from a Greek word which is related to scourging or whipping. Some people say it’s a mistake in the text because a loving father would never whip his own children. Firstly, let’s be clear: it is a metaphor. I know that’s obvious to all of you, but just in case someone was thinking God actually comes down with a big whip and gives us what for, I’ll make it plain.
More importantly, and without going into an in-depth discussion of the use of the Greek, I think what the writer of Hebrews is trying to convey here is the severe nature of the suffering. Again, people who haven’t suffered cannot comprehend this. But just think of what a great man the apostle Paul was, how magnificent his writings, how, great his missionary work, how immeasurable his impact on the Church for all time. Now listen to why that was:
[I have] been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
– 2 Cor.11.23-29
As if that isn’t enough, he gets through that enviable list and then goes on to talk of how he was then given a thorn in the flesh – “a messenger of Satan, [sent] to torment me”
Now, we read all of that and think, Well, that’s just par for the course. What else should he expect doing that kind of work? We don’t see the maturing of the man, the growth in wisdom, the increase in authority and power as he experiences a corresponding increase in opposition, rejection, and humiliation. We never equate the two. We love to quote that little John the Baptist ditty: he must increase, I must decrease, but we have no concept of how that comes about. And people who claim that God doesn’t discipline us, or allow an agony of suffering in our lives, they don’t understand the power of God (1 Cor.2:3), and consequently, their harvest of righteousness isn’t what it could have been.
Jacob was a man who was full of his own ability. Strong, clever, scheming, always planning how he could take advantage of opportunities to better himself. But such ability is not needed by God in his plan. And so Jacob’s life is lesson after lesson of being weakened. He becomes exiled from his homeland, and his beloved mother dies in his absence. He is forced to work for 21 years for a man every bit as crafty as himself who tricks him out of his bride and forces him into a marriage he didn’t want. He is physically weakened in a confrontation with the Angel of God. His beloved wife dies on his journey home, his father shortly after. He favorite son he presumes is murdered. And he waits out his years in obscurity and sorrow.
It is the story of a man who could have made himself anything in the world, stripped and crushed till he is made nothing at all, so that he can be made something in God. His immense ability is a hindrance not a help to God’s purposes. So the story of Jacob is the tale of a man being weakened time after time until he finally becomes of use to God.
And over and over through history, the story is repeated in the lives of men and women. But not all of them.
Only those who know how to grieve.
End – Part One
- The complete version of Wilkerson’s incredible sermon is here: David Wilkerson: A Call to Anguish ↑
- Walter Brueggemann, Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 36, (emphasis added). ↑
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