The Next Great Move Toward Him

Why do we not congratulate people who have suffered affliction or loss?

Why do we not praise God for the hand that takes instead of giving?

To do so, of course, would seem insensitive to say the least. It would even seem heartless. Affliction is painful. Loss hurts. When a brother or sister is frightened or agonizing, the sympathetic heart can do little except to look into those worrying eyes and say, “This isn’t right. God doesn’t want this for you. He wants to show you that he loves you by making this situation go away.”

Indeed, we want that sentiment to be true for our personal sakes as well. A little of our own fear enters into someone else’s sadness, because we know how readily our own circumstances might change. Tomorrow, it might be you or me who is weeping for relief from the affliction.

Yet this expectation that only pleasantness flows into our life out of God’s hand is, at best, questionable. The belief that the sources of pain in our lives are all errors that cry out for correction seems inconsistent with what we, the students and followers of Jesus, claim to believe.

God is a creator. He alone knows what each of us can become. He is the creator, along with each of us, of our own particular lives. God is the challenging and uplifting creator who calls each of us to a personal destiny that is profoundly greater than what we would otherwise accept for ourselves.

Jesus does make it clear: You will have trouble within this finite world (John 16:33).

He makes it clear: You will be pruned so that you can be more fruitful (John 15:2).

He makes it clear: He disciplines the ones he loves (Revelation 3:19).

For the sake of being left to have an unruffled life, would you rather be unfruitful? Would you rather not be loved by God?

Jesus also makes it clear that his way is the way of joy. But joy is eternal. Therefore, it cannot be that joy is linked to our material comfort, because everything about this current material world is going away. Indeed, the most basic choice each of us is called to make—the fundamental question of faith—is whether or not we too will go the way of the world. Joy is found on the other side of this choice. The choice keeps on presenting itself. We find joy, in every case, by embracing the eternal instead of the fleeting.

The believer is exhorted to give thanks in all things (1 Thessalonians 5:18). We do this not because of the “things,” not because “all things” are fun, but instead because of us—because we are being remade. We’re being recreated, in mind and in body. Through the teaching and events that transform us, we are becoming more like his Son, the one who sees clearly how much of the world we know is simply melting from existence.

The personal transformation is often gradual. In small increments, we find we are a little freer and a little more loving year by year. But then there are the times when the next step is decisive and large, the times when God moves his hand visibly and says: You are ready now. Leave your comfort even farther behind you, as you make your great move toward me.