Falling into the flames
After three years of having his medical condition under control, my precious young loved one might be experiencing another flare-up. After three years of knowing that he wasn’t in treatment, that he might never have to deal with it again, that God had spared his life (at least temporarily), my defenses are down. I’ve forgotten how to do the daily walking-with-this-weight-on-my-shoulders thing.
I try not to fall apart when I get the news that a routine lab test shows a potential problem. Scans will be done next week to determine what’s happening. I pray for God’s strength in me. But I fall asleep that night feeling more numb than strong.
I wake up in the morning with a sense of terror, of pain, of being too weak to go through all this again.
Oh God, please heal him. Please let the tests show that he’s okay. Please take away every last trace of this condition. Please, please, please. Praying. Begging. Pleading. Over and over again. Agonizing.
Getting up and getting ready for the day. Doing a brief reading from Timothy Keller’s Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering. The message from the section “Three in the Furnace” in chapter 11: God is with us in the fire.
And my whole perspective changes.
God’s presence in the fire
It’s not just that He is with me in the fire, as if He’s abstractly within me or beside me as I go through the flames (as I’ve apparently always visualized it), but He is in the fire with me.
God is in the fire. It burns Him. He feels the pain, not just indirectly as He sees it hurting me, but directly, on His own skin (so to speak). It’s scorching Him, too.
And He’s not just in my fire. God is in every fire with every believer in the entire world every minute of every day and night. The fire of every Christian martyr being tortured and beheaded for their faith right now. The fire of every Christian whose family has been crippled by yet another mass shooting. The fire of every Christian victim of injustice. The fire of every Christian who’s simply struggling to cope with everyday life. The God of the Bible is a God of constant pain.
(I’ve said that He’s with every Christian because, biblically, I know that to be true. Is He also ever with unbelievers? I can’t answer that with certainty by citing a specific passage from the Bible. But because of His nature and character as revealed in His Word, I imagine He often is. He loved me while I was still an unsaved sinner. That means He loves the unsaved sinners around me. Why wouldn’t He be with those He loves?)
And He’s taken all this on voluntarily, by His own free choice.
God’s power over pain
I can almost picture Him saying, “You think you’ve got troubles? Quit your complaining and consider what I’m going through.” And yet, of course, He doesn’t.
There’s a sense (beyond my understanding) in which God actually hurts. Not because He couldn’t prevent it if He chose to do so. He allows Himself to feel the sting just as His Son allowed the Romans to crucify Him. Because of that, He understands our pain more deeply and completely than we can ever imagine.
But at the same time, He has power over all pain. As much power as He has over everything else. Pain cannot change His innate character, as it will change mine for better or for worse. It cannot harm Him. No matter how great it is (like bearing every wound of every believer every minute of every day and night), in a sense it’s just a speck of dust compared to His eternal Being. He can handle it without flinching or complaining.
My life is like a finite jug of water. If you keep dripping the black ink of suffering into it, it will alter the color of the water. It will change me.
God is more like an infinite barrel of bleach. No matter how much black ink you pour into it, the bleach will quickly absorb it and transform it until it’s no longer visible. That’s sort of like what He does with the very real pain that he feels. Rather than letting it change Him, He transforms it.
When I’m in Christ, He can absorb and transform my suffering, as if my jug is now immersed in His barrel. His bleach seeps in, often slowly, over time. But as I read and reflect on Keller’s comments, it rushes in all at once. I’m suddenly and miraculously released from the agony that I’m feeling. My heart is lighter and my day is brighter. I don’t seem to have the capacity to worry and fret and grieve over the news of the threat to my loved one’s health.
My response
Is this the “victorious Christian life” that I hear so much about? Should we expect to be such super Christians that we can take every complaint to God and be instantly relieved of it? Should I be walking around with a cheerful smile on my face every moment, in spite of the very real possibility of losing this loved one?
I don’t think so.
Much of the time God allows us to continue hurting in order to fulfill His greater purposes. How can I minister to others who are suffering if I feel no ongoing pain? How can I do as He does and walk through the fire with them? I need to be scorched, I need to blister and peel, or I won’t be able to relate to those who are being consumed by the flames. When I’m in the fire with them, God can use me to strengthen them and maybe even pull them out.
So why did God provide this instantaneous relief for me at this particular time? I have to wonder if it was His sign that my loved one is going to be okay. Further analysis shows no indication that the illness has returned. The initial test result was alarmingly high, while all the others are in the normal range. The doctor can’t explain the discrepancy, but says he isn’t worried.
The Old Testament mentions many times when God gave someone a sign to confirm in advance something that He had promised would happen soon. I’m not sure how often He does anything like that today. Not very often in my experience. I can remember one other example more than forty years ago. But I’m thinking maybe this was one of those rare occasions.
I treasure this moment of healing from a wound I didn’t think I could bear. I hope I’ll always remember it and respond to God with thanksgiving and joy and awe.
But the greater treasure isn’t my restored well-being. It’s my deepened understanding of who God is. The opening of my eyes to see Him in the fire with me, feeling the heat and the pain just as much as I do.
