Hope (Even When Life Sucks)

—Stephen Carradini

[The following is a guest post by Chris’ longtime friend, Stephen Carradini. If you enjoy the post, drop by his author page to check out his bio and some of his other writing. Stephen will probably be a semi-regular voice on Pillar on the days ahead, so make sure you give him a warm reception in the comments.]

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In part one of my series on suffering, I concluded, “Trusting in God, even in the face of brutal circumstances, directly produces joy.”

But for what do we trust God? Do we hope that he will end our suffering, or do we rest only in the eschatological hope of the life to come?

The answer is yes—to both.

Our firmest foundation should be the confidence that we will one day see Christ face to face and know him intimately in a world beyond this one. Jesus stated the facts of the situation best in John 14:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
(John 14:1-3, NIV)

That’s why we’re Christians.

Put in another light:

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
(1 Corinthians 13:12, NIV)

The author of Hebrews says that this unswerving drive to see the “better country” of God is what sets apart those he counts as examples of faith:

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. … But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
(Hebrews 11:13, 16, NIV)

This is the rock-solid, absolutely irrevocable promise for every Christian: seeing Jesus face-to-face in his own country. At the wedding feast of the Lamb, we will finally know without any hindrance him whom we have been seeking through sins and struggles. We must never forget this.

But, thanks to modern medicine, the average human can expect to live a long time. It’s difficult for Joe Christian, a physically healthy but emotionally struggling thirty-year-old, to take heart at the call to heaven. All he sees is forty more years of anguish before him without a guarantee that the pain will stop between now and his death.

First, we need to help Joe grow in finding joy simply through knowing Christ. That’s how we get to look like the heroes of Hebrews 11—people who gladly accepted suffering and death rather than renounce God. Second, we should teach him to hope for God’s salvation in this life as well. God can heal the deepest wounds and deliver from the worst of situations.

David, one of the more anguished characters in the Bible, ended nearly all of his gut-wrenching psalms on notes of hope. For example, look at the beginning and end of Psalm 63:

O God, you are my God,
        earnestly I seek you;
        my soul thirsts for you,
        my body longs for you,
        in a dry and weary land
        where there is no water.
...
They who seek my life will be destroyed;
        they will go down to the depths of the earth.
They will be given over to the sword
        and become food for jackals.
But the king will rejoice in God;
        all who swear by God's name will praise him,
        while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
(Psalm 63:1, 9-11, NIV)

Now, look at the opening and closing parts of Psalm 55:

My heart is in anguish within me;
        the terrors of death assail me.
Fear and trembling have beset me;
        horror has overwhelmed me.
...
But you, O God, will bring down the wicked
        into the pit of corruption;
        bloodthirsty and deceitful men
        will not live out half their days.
        But as for me, I trust in you.
(Psalm 55:4-5,23, NIV)

While David rejoices in knowing God as his ultimate good, he also takes encouragement from the hope that God will judge his enemies. David doesn’t know whether this will happen or not; he hopes it will. It may not happen in his lifetime. It may not happen at all. That’s the way God works; he does stuff, and we follow him. Our hopes for this life can and often are confounded.

Yet, David ends many Psalms with the hope that God will fix his circumstances in this life. That hope, whether or not it comes true, is a powerful one. It is what inspires this verse:

I am still confident of this:
        I will see the goodness of the LORD
        in the land of the living.
(Psalm 27:13, NIV)

We should not dissolve all hope for this life into the great eschatological hope. Our current world is broken, certainly. But there is good in it; it bears the mark of its creator, however dim that mark may seem at times. There is good here, and there is a good God in charge of it. We will not see the perfection of our hopes until heaven, but that does not mean that we cannot see glimpses here on earth. This life is not more powerful than God; He is not at the beck and call of suffering.

Because of that power, we can legitimately pray for sufferings to end. God can do as he wills; sometimes he does offer us respite from a struggle. It happens. It is dishonest to say otherwise. It does not always happen, nor does it commonly happen when we want it to, but sufferings have been abated in this life. If God is powerful enough to stop our suffering, and we have seen it happen before, then why would we not hope and pray for it?

Our final hope must be eschatological. Where our circumstances fluctuate, our intimacy with God in the better country will not. But because circumstances fluctuate under the direction of God, we can and should hope for our circumstances to improve. It shows that we continually believe that God is stronger than our sufferings, even when life sucks.