Nov 22nd 17 Posted by Natalie Nichols in Christian Living, Overcoming Adversity

Thanksgiving in the Midst of Your Suffering (Part One)

Suffering is “having what you don’t want and wanting what you don’t have.” Defined by these terms, everyone is suffering in some way. Even you. Therefore, you might find it very hard to be thankful today. But it is possible for your suffering to be an occasion for gratitude and thanksgiving. (Tweet this)

Several years ago, I wrote two posts about finding thanksgiving and contentment in our sufferings. Thanksgiving season is a perfect time to share excerpts from them. The following is from Finding Contentment and Thanksgiving in Suffering, Part One:

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Suffering can be an occasion for gratitude. Without the eyes of faith, this may seem insane. But looking through God’s eyes of eternity, it is not only possible, it’s logical.

Greatest Gift

The time I was the most content and the most thankful in my life was the season in which I experienced the most suffering.

It happened in the middle of my captivity of sorts. All total, I spent ten years in a wheelchair, seven years confined to bed and three years in severe mental torture. As the Lyme bacteria affected my brain, I began to feel electrocuted or burned alive … but where one feels thoughts. It was excruciating—more excruciating than the sum total of bodily pain and sickness I had endured over the years thus far! I had been confined to wheelchair and to bed, but it was nothing compared to this.

When the neurological torture began in July 1995, I thought it would be an absolute miracle of God if He helped me make it an entire week to my next doctor appointment, where I presumed (wrongly) I would be cured. Yet … three years later, I remained in the exact same shape. I wailed and screamed bloody murder from the physical agony for those three years, living much of the time on the floor, near baseboards, in dark closets.

If ever I thought I was in an “I can’t take it” scenario, this was it. And I let God know! I wanted out. I didn’t want to wake up, didn’t want to be alive, didn’t want to endure any more torture. It wasn’t that I necessarily wanted to die; I just wanted relief. There was no known medical treatment that would help. For three years my family exhausted all the United States and other countries had to offer … all to no avail.

But you know what? Looking back, those three years of seemingly unbearable moments taught me where true joy resides. God taught me that I had something valuable to be thankful for. In fact, it was the most invaluable gift a person could ever receive. And I had it not in spite of my suffering … but because of it.

The Address Where Joy Lives

I discovered where true joy resides. It doesn’t reside in real estate, or a bank account, or bodily abilities and comfort. True joy is found only one place:

“You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at
your right hand” (Psalm 16:11).

True joy, true pleasure, is found only in God’s presence—not in material possessions, not in health, not in a good-paying job, not in a spouse, and not in the success of your children.

Only in Christ and the experience of His life living for us can we find true happiness. Suffering should escort us to the foot of the cross where we exchange our life for His resurrection power. When we suffer, we become one with Christ in His sufferings. He takes on our flesh and we take on His holiness (see Hebrews 12:5-11). This is the great exchange! We die so that he might live through us. (Tweet this)

The riches of Jesus Christ that we receive in return for our old self far exceed the spiritual poverty in which we lived before. Once we ever experience them, we’re changed. We’ll follow Jesus anywhere—even to the cross—if it means that more of His Resurrected Life will inhabit us.

Better is One Day

When our suffering ushers into God’s presence and we experience deep joy and pleasure, we realize nothing on earth compares.

“My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God…. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Psalm 84:2,10).

Better is one day in His courts than a thousand elsewhere! It’s better to be in His presence—with whatever suffering or adversity ushers us there—than to be without Him in a life of ease.

Nothing compares to knowing Jesus and experiencing Him! (See Philippians 3:8). Like Job, we are satisfied in our suffering by seeing and experiencing God.

No matter what is going on in our circumstances, pure joy is available… in His presence.

Christ Alone

About halfway through those three years of agony I described above, God began speaking to me through Psalm 62:

⁵”My soul, wait only upon God and silently submit to Him; for my hope and expectation are from Him. ⁶He only is my Rock and my Salvation; He is my Defense and my Fortress, I shall not be moved. ⁷With God rests my salvation
and my glory; He is my Rock of unyielding strength and impenetrable
hardness and my refuge is in God!

Psalm 62:5-7, AMPC

Wait only upon God: Through this passage, God began helping me wait only upon Him, putting my hope and expectation in Him—not in a doctor, a cure, a plan, a spouse or a family member. By the grace and inner working of God, this passage became real in me. I began to see, not just intellectually but experientially, that Christ and Christ alone was my Rock and Salvation, my defense and my fortress. Living by His life in me, I would not be moved or affected by my affliction.

With God rests my salvation: I began to see that my salvation and my glory rested with God. In other words, God saw my way out of that torturous season. It rested with Him. He saw the day I  would be sitting here at my desk—out of a wheelchair, out of bed, free of mental anguish—writing to you. He wasn’t having to fret and finagle and figure out how He was going to deliver me. No, He saw it. The future was past tense with Him. It was done. If He wasn’t fretting and worrying and finagling (and He was the only one who could do anything about the it anyway), why in the world would I fret and worry and try to finagle a way out?

Unyielding strength: There are many passages that speak of Christ as our rock, but I love the way the Amplified Bible words this verse. “He is my Rock of unyielding strength and impenetrable hardness.” Consider this phrase in light of Philippians 4:13.

 “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me: I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].”

Philippians 4:13

When we placed our faith in Jesus Christ and received Him as Savior and Lord of our lives, He made His dwelling in our heart. With His life living in us, we have His strength available to us.

If the very strength of Christ is infused into you and me, and according to Psalm 62:7, Christ’s strength is unyielding and impenetrable, then so is your strength and my strength. It is unyielding and impenetrable. I can never say, “I can’t.”

Are you weak today? Maybe not in physical strength, but in perseverance and endurance? Then let Christ be your strength. He is your Rock, your hope and expectation! A spouse does not hold your answer. A business deal does not hold the key to your hope and future. More finagling and strategizing won’t map your way out. Your expectation is not in a correct diagnosis or a medical cure. Your hope and expectation are in Christ alone. Him alone.

I have never been more content than when the Holy Spirit first began to conform my heart to these verses of scripture. I was confined to bed, still screaming bloody murder night and day, not able to drive, talk or pass the time, but I have never been happier, more at peace and more satisfied in all my life. I was satisfied because Christ was my EVERYTHING! My strength, my thoughts, my endurance, my joy, my hope, my expectation, my today, my tomorrow, my protection, my perspective … my life!

I finally let go of everything else but Christ. My hope and expectation were in Him alone, not in a spouse, a doctor, a diagnosis or a cure. Not even in medical relief of some sort. In fact, I was so content I told God, “It doesn’t matter if anything ever changes or improves. This experience of Christ’s life in me, living for me, is more valuable to me than anything. I’d rather experience Jesus like this than have my health any day.”

Not only could I be at peace, totally content, I had tons to be thankful for! I had the most priceless treasure man can ever receive.

Suffering Exposes What You’ve Been Clinging to
More Tightly Than God

Suffering exposes what you’ve been clinging to more tightly than God:

“Suffering itself does not rob you of joy; idolatry does. If you’re suffering and you’re angry and you’re bitter and you’re joyless, it means that you’ve idolized whatever it is you’re losing. Joylessness and bitterness in the crucible of suffering happens when we lose something we’ve held onto more tightly than God. How is your present disappointment, discouragement, or grief a window on what has actually captured your heart? [1]

. . . .

We Have Everything in Christ. He Alone is Enough.

Exercising contentment releases spiritual power. Paul and Silas actually had Thanksgiving—they sang praises to God—after being beaten and imprisoned in Philippi for preaching Christ (see Acts 16:25). As a result, they were released, and the jailer and his entire family were saved. The city experienced the power of God’s love.

Imprisoned in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote:

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4: 11-13).

What is the secret of being content in any and every situation? It’s seeing every event in our lives—whether it brings pleasure or pain—in the light of eternity. To be fully content, we must see everything in light of God’s ultimate gift of salvation. (Tweet this)

Paul learned this secret. It wasn’t something he naturally possessed. Nor was it something everyone knew. It was learned … and it was a secret. Paul had to acquire skills – he had to learn to make choices in order to practice contentment and gratitude of heart.

In The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs says that the New Testament word rendered “contentment” in English Bibles carries the idea of sufficiency. Paul used the same Greek root in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul’s secret was learning to receive God’s enabling, His grace, to impart eternity’s value system—the value that Christ alone is enough. He alone is sufficient for me—for every need, for every desire, for every situation.

In A Christless Pentecost, David Wilkerson spoke of the sufficiency of Christ:

We no longer want Christ as much as we want what He can do for us. We want an escape from pain and suffering. We want our troubles to vanish. And we are so caught up in our escape from pain, we lose the true meaning of the Cross. We refuse crosses and losses—no Gethsemane for us! No nights of agony! We don’t even know this suffering, bleeding, resurrected Christ!

We want His healing power. We want His promises of prosperity. We want His protection. We want more of this earth’s goods. We want His happiness. But we really don’t want Him alone!

The Church once confessed its sins—now it confesses its rights.

How many of us would serve Him if He offered nothing but Himself? No healing. No success. No prosperity. No worldly blessings. No miracles, signs, or wonders. What if—once again we had to take joyfully the spoiling of our goods? What if—instead of clear sailing and problem-free living, we faced shipwreck, fears within and fightings without? What if —instead of painless living, we suffered cruel mockings, stoning, bloodshed—being sawn asunder? What if—instead of our beautiful homes and cars, we had to wander about in deserts in sheepskins, hiding in dens and caves? What if—instead of prosperity, we were destitute, afflicted, and tormented? And the only better thing provided for us was Christ? (Tweet this)

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