Ah-ha Moments - Expect Suffering

Tom Shrader addresses the reality that suffering is a normal part of the Christian life, not an exception. Drawing from John 16:33 where Jesus promises tribulation, and James 1:2-4 on considering trials as joy, he explains that hardships serve as spiritual aerobics to build endurance and reveal God's character. Rather than questioning God's goodness during difficulties, believers should trust His sovereignty and find Him present in the midst of pain.

“I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Ah-ha Moments (2016)

Recorded: 2016 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 49 min

Themes: suffering, trials, hardship, pain, endurance, trust, sovereignty, perseverance, facing illness, experiencing loss, going through hardship, questioning god, new believer, struggling with pain, dealing with trials, seeking comfort

Scripture: John 16:33, James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 4:12, Job 13:15, Romans 8:28, Psalm 51, John 9, 2 Corinthians 1, Psalm 46:10, Ecclesiastes 7:14

Theological Themes: theodicy, gods goodness, sanctification, spiritual growth, divine sovereignty, gods will, tribulation, christian maturity

Full Transcript

Well, good evening. Great to see you. Hope you had a great day. How was the parade? Isn't that awesome? I just love it.

The parade today, I got one piece of the candy I like and it was Kelsey who got it. Threw it across the street to me. I whacked this little kid out of the way and I got my caramel. I love that parade. It's so cool and it's such a great time. And then tonight for the fireworks, if you're going to the fireworks, good luck. God bless you. And I'm with Patrick. Keep it down when you come in and don't wake the rest of us.

It was a great day and continues to be. Hopefully, as I talk to you, we can feel that. Hopefully, the sessions building, coming together. So, session five, you got your notes when you came in. They were back on the podium or you got your app, your Canobie app. And we'll follow along.

A Surprising Topic

Here's the catchy title for tonight's talk: Expect Suffering. Yeah, I always like to end on an upbeat deal. So, expect suffering. And I give you the Webster's definition here. Suffering, a noun, pain caused by injury, illness, loss, physical, mental, emotional.

What I love about the Christian faith, real, genuine Christian faith, is that it's real and authentic. You can fake it, but the Bible certainly doesn't gloss over it. We sang a line from one of the songs, "Lord, we want to experience you." Lord, you come here. He is most in us, it seems to me, when we're in the midst of suffering. It sounds almost counterintuitive.

Here we are. We claim, and the Bible tells us, in right relationship with God through Christ. And we would think, boy, all of a sudden, now it's going to be smooth and easy. In my mind, I could say, "Hey God, you know what, if you were going to get me, you should have done that before 1980. Because you had a lot of reasons to, but you know what, I'm a pretty good guy now. Surely, now the suffering will go away."

The Biblical Reality

And the scripture is not unclear in terms of saying, maybe it'll happen. It's crystal clear. You will suffer. You'll have hardships caused by injury, illness, loss, physical, mental, emotional. I started writing job loss, rejection of somebody you love, sickness, accident, economic hardship, and then I just wrote, the list goes on and on. That's the reality of the Christian life.

I know the Bible's true, and for sure, this lines up with my personal experience. I've talked to you about my hero, Larry Wright, and Larry was so physically affected that the rheumatoid arthritis was so strong that gravity just pulled his hands out. He would have loved today where you push a button and it unlocks the car. We didn't have that then. We took his keys and put it on a stick about six inches long, so he put the key in the car door, and that stick gave him enough leverage to open the door. He couldn't do it otherwise.

I had coffee with him, probably at least every other week, and almost every week, and one week I'm meeting, and you can see his neck swelling, and I said, "Doc, what is this?" He said, "I don't know, I should have it checked out." I said, "You think?" I mean, his shirt size went to 25-32, you need to get this checked out, and he went in, and they said it was cancer.

I was teaching down in Tucson, and I drove back up, it was a Wednesday, went right to St. Joe's Hospital, and they said to me, they got in there, and it was cancer, and they had to take all of this out, and I just sat, and cried, and cried, and cried. And I came out, and he said, "He's awake, he wants to see you," and I went in, and it's those moments where you say the dumbest things in the world. They said, "Does it hurt?" And they had stapled him back up, and he said, and you can't lie at a moment like this. You still got a little of the anesthesia, some of you've been there, it's almost like truth serum, and he said, "Tommy, God's grace is sufficient."

A Profound Response to Suffering

I don't know, a month later, we're out, and we ran into a lady who knew Larry, and it was like a key moment, this is Larry, and she came up, and she said, "Oh my gosh, Larry, I heard about this, haven't you suffered enough?" Here's what he said, you'd love him, he said, "Apparently not." Apparently not, God's doing something.

Well on your outline, I put one, two, three, four, five questions that I think get introduced into this whole idea of suffering, and here's the first one: is this normal? And sometimes you just need to hear this, this is a normal Christian life. The normal Christian life is not just one ongoing conference weekend. In fact, it's almost the smoothest and easiest here.

One of the hard things about a week like this, is when you leave, you leave the beachfront, or the mountaintop, and you go back into what we call what? The real world. And you want this to go on, and on, and on, and it's pretty cool. Somebody makes your bed, somebody brings your food, somebody watches your kids. This is not reality. But now I go back in, and the calls have stacked up, and the work needs to be done.

The Normal Christian Life

The normal Christian life is not our trajectory. If we were at summer camp, if I got junior hires right now, here's what I say, look up here, look up here. The normal trajectory for the Christian life is not like this. It's like this, and then down, and then lateral, and then up. It's normal to have these difficulties and hardships.

Not on your notes, you need to write, John 16:33: "These things I have spoken to you," Jesus says, "so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation." It's a promise. I hadn't been a Christian very long, and I made a first trip to a

really weird place, a Christian bookstore. It's filled with all of these books, and titles weren't very familiar to me, so I'm just sweeping books up. I'm this guy's dream. I'm cleaning out shelves. Larry had given me approved authors, so it was John MacArthur, Charles Spurgeon, Chuck Swindoll. He was big on Ray Steadman. We would read a little Major Ian Thomas.

I'm checking out, my first or second trip to the Christian bookstore, and I'm up there checking out, and there's a little stack of books called The Promises of God, Gold Leaf, Leather Bound. Well I'm thinking, I need to have one of these babies. I need to know what the promises are. Then I discovered something really interesting. I found some promises in this book that didn't make the Gold Leaf, Leather Bound book. This was one of them: "I promise you, in this world, you will have tribulation."

Jesus' Final Words to His Disciples

Jesus said this, and this is all part of John 14, 15, 16, 17. I just closed my studies. I take July and August off, and it's always a time when people come up and say, "Hey I'm looking for something, what should I study this summer?" So let me give you a tip, the one I gave him this year. Study John 14, 15, 16, 17.

If you have a red-lettered Bible, the words of Jesus in red, it's all red-lettered. It's Jesus sitting with His guys the night before He is crucified. It's that moment like you might have when the kid goes off to college, or when you know you may not see him again for a while, and you know hardship is coming. He knew, Jesus knew, that these guys were going to be thrown, tossed upside down the next day. They just spent three years with Him. They'd followed Him everywhere. They'd given up so much.

In the course of this, in John 14:16, He says, "I'll ask the Father and He'll give you a helper." It's the Holy Spirit. John 14:18, "I will not leave you as orphans." John 14:27, "My peace I leave you, my peace I give you. Not as the world gives." The world offers an illusion of peace. Buy this, get this, smoke this, snort this, rent this, touch this, and you'll have peace. Jesus said, "Yeah, for a minute."

I used to always say, sin is fun. If it's not fun, you're not doing it right, my friend. Sin is fun. What's the end of that? For a season. I can find that momentary relief, but the peace that Jesus talks about is not the absence of turmoil, it's the presence of God in my life.

John 15:18, "If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you're of the world, they'd love you. But because you're not of the world, I chose you out of the world, the world hates you." John 15:26, "The helper will come. It's the spirit of truth." John 16:13, "And when He, the spirit of truth comes, He will guide you in all truth."

The Normal Christian Life

This is the normal Christian life. It's to have this tribulation. James, again, not in your notes, so make a note, James chapter 1 verse 2: "Consider it joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials." Now that is just odd. Joy? Trials? When you encounter? Did you see that? Not if. When you encounter.

I love the paraphrases. The Phillips says this: "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your life, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends." The Message, Eugene Peterson, "Consider it a sheer gift when tests and challenges come at you from all sides."

Look at those words in James 1, 2, and 3. When—the inevitability, the promise of various trials. In the Greek, the word is literally multi-colored trials. They come in all shapes and sizes, and what might be a trial for Mark might not be a big deal for me, and vice versa.

The Subtlety of Trials

I want to show you how subtle the trials are. We're going to take ten seconds, and I'm going to give you a moment to imagine God's going to give you a trial tomorrow. Go ahead, think about it. Into your mind, because it comes real quick, into your mind comes some physical challenge.

I've had that, a ton of it, in the last four years. About a heart stent, and then open-heart surgery, and then I got lupus. I don't know if you know about lupus. It's an autoimmune disease. 90% of those with lupus are women 18 to 35. When I heard that, I thought, "I can't wait for my first support group meeting. This is going to be awesome."

So I had the lupus, and I had the kidney stones, and four months ago, prostate cancer, and I had the surgery. I have eight grandkids: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. That's about right. When my youngest grandchild was born, I said to her mom, "She'll be coming out of diapers about the time I'm going into them." So every time I see her, I'm going, "How you doing on the potty training?" Because I'm keeping up my end of the bargain.

But you encounter various trials. So remember where we were? I'm saying to you, think about a trial. So you think of a physical challenge, or an economic challenge, or a relational challenge. That relationship with Sandy—to have a break there would be devastating. We think about the loss of a child, the sickness of a child.

Here you go, I'll give you a test that none of you thought of: the test of prosperity. Not the hardship of money, but what do I do with this money? Or of time, especially those of you that are older, and maybe out of working for pay. You can just waste hours, days, weeks, months, the rest of your life. The prosperity that God gives you.

Why Consider Trials Joy?

Let's get back to it. "Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials." How can this be? Because you know something. You know the testing of your faith produces endurance.

I had two people tonight at dinner ask me if Sandy was a trainer. Now I don't get why no one says to me—all right, I won't even finish it. But they said, "Is she a trainer?" No, but she works out. So she got up this morning and she ran her five or six miles on what she does. If we were home, she'd swim. Then today when I was reading, she read for a while, then she did some yoga, then she did some thrust stuff, and all of this

She pushes herself, and pushes herself, and pushes herself. And we call it aerobics. She does it because I was watching her, because some of what she's doing is what I've been doing in my therapy. And I'm watching her today, and I would be winded, and I would be shaky, and she wasn't. And it's aerobics, that aerobic activity built her up physically.

Testing is Spiritual Aerobics

Big point here, huge point. God says in His word for us, testing is spiritual aerobics. Consider it joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials. And here's the key word, circle it, mark it, yellow it: knowing. I know something. Here you go, what the Bible says: what you know trumps what you feel. It doesn't feel like it, that's why I ask the question, is it normal? Because it doesn't feel like this should be normal, but God tells me it is. See, that's what faith is.

In comes this hardship. We talked about the 23rd Psalm yesterday. They had a couple of people come up, and they're saying, but it doesn't always feel like this. I got it. Why would God do this? See, that's part of those questions.

Peter says it this way in 1 Peter 4:12, "Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeals among you, which comes upon you for testing." Don't think it's some strange thing that happened to you. Paraphrases again: don't be bewildered or surprised when you go through various fiery trials. Do not be astounded at a trial by fire is occurring to you.

Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God's not on His job. Maybe He's built in and His capacity is just 7.3 billion people, and we went past it last year, and He's lost track of me. That's not the case at all. In fact, if the promise is suffering, hardship, difficulty, then rather to cause us to go, what about God? Then suffering, difficulty, and hardship must be evidence that we're His kid on His path.

What Causes Suffering?

It's the second thing. What causes this? What causes suffering? I listed five things for you to fill in, not on your outline.

All suffering is the result of the fall of Genesis 3. In its biggest sense, God creates, we read Genesis 1, Genesis 2, God creates, and He declares, it is good, it is good, it is good. And the first incident of abnormal behavior that we have in human history is Genesis 3, when man has sinned and he hides from God. So in the broad sense, all suffering is a result of the fall.

Some of the suffering is a result of our individual sin. It's the principle of sowing and reaping. In Psalm 51, "Restore to me the joy of my salvation." My sin has separated you from God. I believe one of the great indicators of the depth of your spiritual condition is how you respond to sin. If you can just sin, and sin, and sin, then you should be afraid. But I sin, and my sin separates me from God. Why so downcast, O my soul? You literally can see, restore the joy of my salvation.

I used to say, don't do it much anymore, whenever I see a guy drop 25 or 30 pounds, he's having an affair. Almost always. Now every time I teach this, I got guys coming up going, hey man, I'm on a diet. But it's that sin that's eating him up.

Here's the third thing: man's inhumanity to man. All you got to do is turn on the news and see it. ISIS, a break-in, a robbery, somebody senselessly beats up somebody else, that's a source of suffering.

Here's the fourth thing: natural disasters. It's always slightly alarming to come to Cannon Beach and have to get a drill in tsunamis. Go up here, go over here. We see them all over. Tragedy, tornadoes, floods, and then Satan's attack. All those things can cause the suffering in our life, and it causes us to ask, where's God?

Wrestling with God's Character

In the midst of this, there's almost a conclusion that we can easily see our mind go to. If they're suffering, and I'm His kid, is that He doesn't care? Is He impotent in the midst of all this? Is He a sadistic God? Is He a God who's vengeful or irrational? Job had that. Job was wrestling as his life was unraveling around him, and he said, "Though God slay me, yet I will trust Him" (Job 13:15). His friend said, you suffer because you sin, and God didn't answer Job's question in the midst of his suffering.

There's a great time where Job's had enough of it. I'm sure you at least remember the highlights of this story. Job had enough of it, and he said to God, "God, I got a question for you," and God said, "All right, Job, just a minute, let me ask you a question. Where were you when I created? Where do we store the snow? How does the eagle..." and it goes on for three chapters, and finally He says, "All right, Job, what was it?" And Job goes, "You know what, I'm gonna email you. I'm a little overwhelmed by this."

And so at the end, the whole key to this is at the end, 42 chapters in Job. Chapter 42, verse 5, Job, after all the suffering, seeing God's grace, what you sang about, experiencing His love, Job said, "You know what, before I heard about you, now I've seen you."

Laboratory vs. Classroom

In the old science classes, we had two parts to it. We had laboratory and classroom. Our Bible study is the classroom. Suffering, hardship, real world, that's the laboratory.

Remember John 9? It's a great story. Jesus and the disciples are coming into the city, and there's the man who's been blind since birth. And the disciples said, "Whose sin caused this man's blindness?" And the traditional thinking was, either his personally or his parents, and Jesus said, "Neither. Affliction is how God shows His power." This man becomes a display case for the work of God.

You become somebody who dazzles and amazes your friends, not because you can do tricks or sleight of hand, but they look at you and say, "How can you handle this? Larry, haven't you suffered enough?" Apparently not. God's at work.

The Purpose Question

And I don't understand always, it's the third point in there, what's the purpose in all of this? Oprah. I always enjoyed Oprah. And Oprah used to say this, and it's not unique to her, you hear it all over. Everything happens, what?

For a reason. Now I'm never going to get a chance to sit down with Oprah, and if I did, it would be an honor and a privilege, and I wouldn't want to argue with her. But I'd want to say, "Oprah, if that's true—if everything happens for a reason—if that statement's true, then just that statement alone demands that somebody or something..." I saw a t-shirt the other day that said "The force be with you," and the kid with him had a t-shirt on that said "Let the metaphor be with you," which I thought was really cool. You didn't, but I did.

But in the midst of this, if truly everything works for good, or everything happens for a reason, someone or something's in control, something's coordinating. And we know that's true. Not a force, a nebulous force, but a personal God who knows me, created me, loves me.

Our Personal God

There was a song that was popular years ago. Bette Midler sang it, and it wasn't a very good song, and it was terrible theology: "Our God is a distant God." Remember that? "Our God is a distant God, He watches from a distance." Well, the Bible teaches exactly the opposite.

Our God is a personal God that I can know in a personal way. We saw it yesterday: "The Lord is my shepherd." He knows you personally. He has, according to the scripture, the very hairs on your head numbered. Job's getting a little easier for some of us, but He knows us. He's not removed. He's not sitting in heaven, watching, looking, saying, "Oh, I wish I could do something." He's not a God who's removed.

He's a God—and to me, this is comforting—He cares, and He loves you even more than you love yourself. And because He loves you, He's going to let you suffer. Not on your own—He's going to come alongside.

There's a song that we sing, "Jesus is all I need," and that's one of those songs that I find hard to sing, because I don't know, it's hard to sing it. But somebody said, "We don't know Jesus is all we need until Jesus is all we have." As long as I have plan B, as long as I have my own resources, I want to—and I know we're supposed to say it in here—that Jesus is all I need. But I'm going, "Jesus is all I need, but I still have my 401k, still have my retirement, still have my health, still have my family."

Why Does God Let Us Suffer?

What's the point in all this? Why would God let me suffer? I made a list, and I've got 22 things on it. We're not going to do that, but let me encourage you that's one of the great things about the Internet and technology now. Man, it doesn't take long to type in "what do I learn from suffering," and you're going to get a bunch of it. But let's just hit on some of them.

To produce patience in my life. I was in Tucson teaching a passage—it was the passage from 1 Peter on suffering—and I taught it, I did my suffering thing, and I needed to get out of there to get back to Phoenix to teach in church that night. So I said to the music guys, "You know, when I'm done, if it's possible, let me pray, and you close, and I'm going to"—and this sounds terrible, I hate it when a speaker does it—"I'm going to sneak out the back. I have to get back to Phoenix. I can't be late for church."

So I pray, and the band starts, and I go out the side door, and I'm going down the hall, and there's a younger lady and an older lady. The younger lady's in a wheelchair, and it's clear that she doesn't have—it's not that she's just hurt, she's immobile.

Learning Patience Through Suffering

So I come up, and she says, "Hey, I really enjoyed that." And I said, "I almost feel bad talking about suffering, and here you are." And it turned out to be her mom, and she said, "Show him, show him what you learned this week. Show him what you learned to do."

And she had a stick with a flat piece of steel on the end, with a little opening, and her mom put it in her mouth. And with that stick, she could drop that steel piece over her joystick, and she could move her wheelchair. I said, "Wow, I'm not talking about suffering, you're living it."

And she said, "I used to be the most impatient person in the world, and God has made me one of the most patient people on the planet." Suffering teaches us patience.

What Suffering Produces

It produces joy. My good, His glory, maturity. It teaches us, it purifies us, it makes us like Jesus.

Here's one of my favorite things: it reveals ourselves to ourselves. I know these guys, and they can quote, and they've memorized the book of Philippians, and they can pontificate, and along comes a smack, a bump in the road, and it just devastates them.

And other people that you look at, and you go, "So fragile." I have a friend who I used to work with, and younger than me, but he had a stroke, and then a stroke on top of a stroke. Devastating stroke. And he's married to a young gal, small gal, fragile gal, pretty quiet gal. And she has stepped in the gap, and you've seen her faith blossom as she's taken over, really, the running and the operating of her home. And that was there all the time, but the suffering revealed that.

Suffering Helps Our Prayer Life

Here you go: it helps our prayer life. I've been in the room with the oncologist for the three-month test. If he comes in, and he says, "All right, scans clear," we go, "All right, let's go eat. Where we going to eat?" But if he comes in and says, "You know, there's a spot on that lung that doesn't look good," all of a sudden, it's "Let's pray."

We become an example. It qualifies us to be counselors. That's what 2 Corinthians chapter 1 is all about. You've suffered, now you comfort those who are afflicted with the comfort with which you've been comforted.

Qualified to Comfort Others

When we first started our church, small, we had a couple hundred people, and just demographically impossible, but within six months, we had three ladies who lost babies right at or right after birth, and two totally unexpected. And when the first one—and I knew her—I was in there, and I don't know what to say. And so I've learned, when you don't know what to say, what? Don't say anything. You're going to say something stupid. But I tried, and I messed around.

When the second lady lost a baby, I was in there, and I was kind of trying to provide some

comfort the best I could, and then the door popped open, and it was the lady who lost the baby two months before, and she said something I could never say, "I know how you feel. I know how dark it is. I know those dreams are shattered. I know that you knew it was a girl, and you were dreaming about her wedding, and I know all these things, and I had those too, but let me tell you something, there's hope in the midst of all this. I can't explain it, and I don't think it's my duty to explain it. Here's what I know, God is good, God is great. Everything that happens in my life happens for a reason."

Everything that happens, and this is devastating, if I'm just a casual fan of gods and not a follower, this is how I know God gets to be God. Everything that happens in my life is caused by or allowed by God. Why? I can give you big buckets, I can narrow it down to this, and this is a, I would think 80% of the people in our church could give you this answer, for my good and His glory.

The Sovereignty of God

My last point is it shows the sovereignty of God. Romans 8:28, "and we know God causes all things to work together." That's not a universal promise, that's not a promise for everybody in the world, "and we know God causes all things to work together for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." Who's that? That's what we talked about the first night.

Those are people who aren't religious people, we're not talking about religion, we're not talking about going to church, we're not talking about being good, we're talking about coming to Christ, acknowledging my sin, and accepting Christ and Christ alone for my salvation. I love you in that. I'm not on probation with God, I'm not trying to get Him to love me, I can't make Him love me more, I can't cause Him to love me less, I'm His kid. Adopted, the book of Romans said. In that Greek culture, if I was adopted, I could never be disowned. That unbreakable union that we have with God.

How to Respond to Suffering

So here you go, on your list. How do I respond to this? Well, number one, accept the circumstances. Not trivialize it. There's a phrase, and I can't stand this phrase. Used to hear it all the time, don't hear it as much anymore. Seems like it's kind of gone away, run its course. You'll know the phrase, "It is what?" I hate that. I hate that. What comfort is that to me?

And so I started with, "It is what it is, but He is who He is." It is what it is, I got it, I can't help it, I can't change necessarily that. I need to acknowledge this, physical, mental, emotional, whatever the challenge is.

And I need to, secondly, think theologically. We're going to talk, and I don't remember if it's tomorrow morning, we're going to talk about stress. I am, I'm just powering to the finish line. But we're going to talk about stress, and how do I deal with stress? And it's revealed right here tonight, but when you look at it, I got five things, and they're all about God. But He's in control.

That's what the Bible said, Ecclesiastes 7:14, "In the day of prosperity be joyful, in the day of adversity consider God has made one as well as the other, so that man may find and not find out anything that will be after him." Think theologically, who God is. He's all-powerful, He's all-knowing.

Remember and Trust

Here you go, number three, remember what God has done. There's something about that word, remember. In our church, every Sunday, we take communion together. And it's one of those sweet moments. And it begins with this remember. Remember Christ died and rose again. Remember in your life what He's done. Again, I think it was the old song, I think we talked about it last night, count your blessings, name them one by one.

And that's the fourth thing, is to trust God. He knows. I have a friend, and we were talking about another guy, and he said he's a control freak. Here you go, you don't need to write it down. Everybody's a control freak. Some hide it better than others. I want to be in control. But I remember what God has done, and I trust Him.

I wrote this sentence, and it's way too good for it to be original with me. So I'm guessing I copied this somewhere, I don't know where. If I did, I'd tell you. But I wrote this, "God has structured and organized our lives to include problems and suffering. My mission is not to stop the suffering, but to find Him in the midst of the hurt and pain." Not to be absorbed in the pain, and try to find a way out of it.

Now I'm not sadistic, but Martin Luther said, "Until a person experiences suffering, he cannot know what it means to hope." I can't possibly know what hope is, until I don't have any.

Faith for Living

There's a word we use, and it'd be fun for me, and I should, I'll take it upon myself. This is of no benefit to you, because I'll do it when I get home. But there's a word that we use, and I don't know if we've always used it this way, but it's the word faith. We tend to talk about faith as saving faith, that moment in time.

So for those of us as biblical Christians, we might use the term evangelical, but biblical Christians, we would talk about that moment in time where we came to Christ in repentance and faith, where we made a decision for Christ. We use all sorts of language, but you know what I'm talking about. And my fear is, we talk about faith at that moment, but we don't talk about the faith it takes for living.

And my faith is not that I'll always know all the answers, my faith is I know the one who does know all the answers. It's not that I'll have it all figured out. I trust Him. I don't, and I know for some, because I've been doing this a long time, for some of you, you're about to write it off as anti-intellectual, or a crutch.

In my office, and again it's commercial real estate, and it's almost hard to describe it unless you're in it. It's brutal. It's so competitive. It's so hard. Empirical data for the fallenness of man, every phone call. It's brutal. And so when God saved me, my life changed radically. And I had a guy that I used to, he was a football player, played in the pack, and played

with the Cowboys a little, and with the Cardinals a little. And I drove him nuts. He used to say, he's a huge guy, and he used to say, "Schrade, you're like a chihuahua, you're just bugging me, you're just always on me." And I was telling him, "Listen buddy, you need Jesus badly." And he would talk about all about it, and he said, "Look, it's Jesus." And here's what he used to say: "Your faith is a crutch." And he meant it as a criticism, until I looked it up in the dictionary, and it describes a crutch as a piece that you lean on to support you in the midst of walking. And that's not a weakness, that is what my faith is. My faith is a crutch. My faith holds me up, not in a weird, weak sense. I don't have to understand all of this.

Don't Become a Martyr

Don't become a martyr. Don't suffer needlessly. Larry Wright, here you go, this is a hard one to write down, but man, this is a home run: I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.

I remember calling Larry. I'm listening to a tape, so I'll tell you how long ago it was. I'm listening to a tape, and Larry's saying that. I said, "I've never heard this," and I write it down, and I called him. I said, "Larry, listen to this: I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering." He said, "Wow, that is good, who said it?" And I said, "Buddy, that's you."

Remember, no matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime. I always loved these anonymous things.

A Civil War Soldier's Prayer

This is a prayer that, it seems to me, ties this together. It's attributed to a soldier from the Civil War. Here's the prayer:

"I ask God for strength that I might achieve. He made me weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things."

Here's his conclusion: "I got nothing I asked for, but everything I hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am among all men most richly blessed."

Suffering does that. It allows that to go in.

The Eye Doctor Illustration

My eyes are failing, so part of what I do is go to the doctor, and he'll do the eye test, and then he'll go, "Which is better, this or this?" And I get really anal about this, and I want to get it right. I'm going, "Can you do that again?" He'll go, "This or this?" His name is Gerald Ford. My urologist is Ronald Reagan. That's not true, but my eye doctor is Gerald Ford. And I'll go, "I'm not sure." And he'll go, "This or this?" And I'll go, "I'm not sure." And he said, "Then it doesn't matter. Stop!"

Here's what suffering does. Suffering comes along, and I said, "I don't know if I see clear," and God drops in that suffering, and BAM! I got nothing I prayed for, but everything I hoped for. I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, because my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.

Let Go and Know God

I put on the bottom of your outline Psalm 46 verse 10. You know it best as, "Be still and know I'm God." In one of the versions it's, "Cease striving." And the footnote, how great is this? "Let go, relax." Let go, relax, and know I'm God.

In our house, our master bedroom and our bath are connected. You'd expect that. And when you come out of the bath, you walk into bookcases. It's probably, I don't know, half this length, maybe a little wider. And on it are books, and then Sandy's placed pictures. It's one of my favorite pictures of my dad. He's sound asleep on the porch. And there's a little framed piece that somebody sent me, and I see it every morning as I walk out of the bathroom and get ready to go out into the world. It said, "Tom, I have everything under control. Jesus."

That's what suffering does. I let go. I don't give up. I trust Him. Well, that still produces stress in our life. We're going to look at that tomorrow morning.

Let me pray, and then, Mark, are you coming to close us? Yeah.

Father, thank you for that truth. I never get tired of the topic, because it's as fresh as today. It's what we live with in our life. God, we know that these will come, these hardships. And our comfort is not that we're strong, but that You are. Our comfort is not that we know what to do and how to respond, but You do. Our comfort is You are greater than anything that comes into our life. It takes us some time for us to recalibrate and remember that, but God, thank you for allowing us to see things clearly from Your perspective.

Father, help us accept our circumstance and think theologically, not naturally. Think supernaturally. God, help us remember how faithful You've been in our life, and then let us simply do, like the old song says, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than trust and obey. God, thank you for that truth. We pray in Christ's name, amen.