Food for Thought

"....Who can compare sufferings? They are unique as each sufferer is unique. 'The heart knows its own bitterness' (Prov. 14:10, NEB). We respond according to our temperments. Some cast about for solutions, stew, fret, rage, deny the facts. Some sink into an oblivion of self-recrimination or pity. Some chalk it all up to somebody else's fault. Some pray. But all of us may be tempted sometimes to conclude that because God doesn't fix it He doesn't love us.

There are many things that God does not fix precisely because He loves us. Instead of extracating us from the problem, He calls us. In our sorrow or loneliness or pain He calls -- 'This is a necessary part of the journey. Even if it is the roughest part, it is only a part, and it will not last the whole long way. Remember where I am leading you. Remember what you will find at the end -- a home and a heaven.'

Courage for the rugged part comes with looking ahead -- as the prospectors did in the Gold Rush days. The heroes of the world's great legends let themselves in for all kinds of fearome troubles because of the promise of a great reward -- the favor of the king, a pot of gold, marriage to a princess. Because there was a shining goal, they entered in with a heart and will to participate in the as-yet unseen and unknown hazards of the dreadful journey. Their heroism lay in acceptance -- a wholehearted acceptance of conditions other men would avoid at all cost -- and in endurance. The dark caves, tunnels, and labyrinths were not problems to be solved but hazards to be traversed, the storms and heavy seas were to be braved, the giants and monsters to be slain. All were accepted and endured in view of the prize.

It is possible both to accept and to endure loneliness without bitterness when there is a vision of glory beyond. This is a very different thing from the sigh of resignation or defeat, the hopeless abandonment to a malevolent fate which merely 'sits there and takes it.' In circumstances for which there is no final answer in the world, we have two choices: accept them as God's wise and loving choice for our blessing (this is called faith), or resent them as proof of His indifference, His carelessness, even His nonexistence (this is unbelief).

....Our lonliness cannot always be fixed, but it can always be accepted as the very will of God for now, and that turns it into something beautiful. Perhaps it is like the field wherein lies the valuable treasure. We must buy the field. It is no sun-drenched meadow embroidered with wild flowers. It is a bleak and empty place, but once we know it contains a jewel the whole picture changes. The empty scrap of forgotten land suddenly teems with possibilities. Here is something we can not only accept, but something worth selling everything to buy."

Elisabeth Elliot
"The Path of Lonliness: Finding your way through the wilderness to God"
p. 107-109