God's Best Right Now

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me; He will put to shame Him who tramples on me.
God will send out his steadfast love and His faithfulness!
My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down among fiery beasts--
the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let Your glory be over all the earth!
--Psalm 57:2-5 written by David when he fled from Saul in the cave

I recently heard someone who was going through a difficult season in their ministry say, "We all know God has His best in mind for us, but we just want to know what that best is." I understood. I often ask God to fulfill His purpose for me, to show me what it is He has me here to be and do, to show me this "best" He has in mind for me. But this time the thought occurred to me, "What if right now is His best for me?" and "What if that 'best' includes the pain I'm experiencing in the here and now?" Someone once said that sometimes our Plan B was God's Plan A all along. The fact is, right now is His best for me right now...whether I'm suffering or smiling. Why do I keep looking around the corner for God to fulfill His purpose for me in some big, flashy way when His purpose for me is to love Him with all that I am right now and to love my neighbor, whomever that happens to be right now?

David wrote about the "God who fulfills His purpose for me" while he was in the midst of persecution. God's "best" was David's "right now". Though David knew that God's purpose included a future throne (now that's big and flashy!), He accepted the "right now" of unjust persecution as God's best for him right now. But David didn't stop at stoically receiving his present circumstances as "whatever will be will be". Rather, in the deep darkness of his pain he loved God by praising His glory (Psalm 57), and he loved his enemy, Saul, by refusing to take an opportunity to kill him (1 Samuel 24:1-22).

Right now there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of my brothers and sisters all over the world who are suffering for the sake of Christ. We prayed for some of them tonight at our evening service set aside to remember the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Hidden in their homes, they live the cruciform life by worshipping God and praying for those who persecute them. Tonight, I sat comfortably in my padded pew wearing a new shirt I got for my birthday wondering, "Do I really know what it means to suffer for Jesus? Do I dare ask God for such affliction so that I might know Him more intimately? Or am I already severely afflicted by the affluence, comfort, and ease which dull my heart's desire to love God and others?"

I cry out to You, O God Most High...settle me this second in Your best!

Cruciform Love and Suffering

"Trouble and anguish have found me out,
but Your commandments are my delight."
Psalm 119:143

I've been dealing with the pain associated with a mysterious "arthritic" illness since this summer, so these words puzzled and excited me at the same time this morning. How is it that the psalmist can delight in the commandments of God in the midst of his "trouble and anquish"? How can he find joy in obeying God in the middle of suffering? Can he really focus on loving God and loving others (which are the two commandments that summarize all of God's commandments, Matthew 22:36-40) when his pain cries out for relief? When I hurt, I want to see to it that God and others love me! My pain (though it pales in comparison to most) commands me to become self-centered, not God-and-others-centered. This verse just doesn't fit the categories of the comfort-driven life that I like to lead. It's just plain odd, if I'm honest.

As I think about Jesus, though, living out cruciform love in the face of pain is not absurd at all. Jesus could have said (and may have, we don't know) these very words in the garden the night before he was handed over to suffering and death. His heart was troubled, and He sweat drops of blood in anguish over the suffering He was about to face. And yet in the midst of suffering that none of us can imagine (namely, separation from His Father), Jesus delighted in obeying His Father's commands to love Him and love others! "For the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame..." (Hebrews 12:2), and so, He said "not my will, but Yours be done." "Whatever suffering and pain may come, Father, nothing gives me more pleasure than loving You and others...even if loving You and others intensifies the pain I'm already experiencing." Can I say that?

There is one difference, though, between the psalmist and Jesus. The psalmist said that he would obey even though his suffering sought and found him. Jesus, however, chose to suffer in order to obey (John 10:17-18).

As for me, I'm a long way from the heart of either the psalmist or Jesus! In either case, whether I've chosen to suffer or suffering has chosen me, I'm desperately in need of being shaped by Jesus' cruciform love into the shape of cruciform love. Thanks be to God for using the mirror of His Word both to show me my shape and to shape me again this morning!