Q&R: What does “trusting God” mean in our suffering? Bradley Jersak
Question:
Can you help me understand what it means to trust in God? I trust that at the end of this life, God will save me from the consequences of sin. Is it about happiness? fulfillment? meaning? And how does trust relate to those, like me, who experience the suffering of chronic illness?
Response:
That is such an important question, and I can see serious answers already embedded in your question. I can also see how you’re asking warns against speaking of trust in platitudes.
Let’s just start with the assurance that in and after death, God will raise us and heal us and receive us in the End… that assurance will have an enormous impact on our trust in THIS life, particularly when fear of death and of the afterlife are driven out by divine love.
But beyond that, you’re question is about the meaning of daily trust NOW, especially in the context of chronic suffering (whether it’s an illness, chronic poverty, a lifetime of persecution, or the life-changing grief that comes with the loss of a child or spouse). I don’t think it is shallow to ask (indeed, to cry out as in Psalm 6 or 13) for deliverance from those kinds of afflictions. And yet you are right: what does active trust look like when the suffering doesn’t budge or even worsens?
I begin with two essential “nots” – God wants us to trust that in our affliction, (1) God is NOT punishing us, and (2) God is NOT abandoning us. God will never leave us or forsake us.
Said positively, I want to learn the trust that knows in my heart that our heavenly Father continues to be with me, to care for me, and even to co-suffer this affliction with me. But if it’s true that God is my ever-present companion, even in affliction, what does God’s CARE look like? It can’t just be a feeling of care that God has for me as he passively watches what I experience. No. Care must somehow be CARE-GIVING. It must look like something real in this life… I need to trust that God’s care is MORE than hoping God feels care for me. It means recognizing and trusting and experiencing God’s active CARE-GIVING wherever it appears… in me and for me, mediated in a thousand mysterious ways.
God, today, help me see your care-giving today. I trust you to bring it, to show it.
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