C. S. Lewis writes, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.”  I can see the point that Lewis tries to make but I must also say that the fact that God shouts in our pain doesn’t make it easier for us to understand the message of pain and suffering.  Pain and suffering can be so confusing that we cannot ascertain what God is trying to say to us through it.

That explains why in Gethsemane, Our Blessed Savior struggled to accept His Father’s will for Him to die on the cross.  And that also explains why on the cross, Jesus the Son of God cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  Pain and suffering so covers our eyes and close our ears that we cannot see what God is doing and hear what He is trying to tell us.  So, this is what I usually tell those who are in pain and suffering, “Do not try to understand the message behind all this pain and suffering because you may not understand it.  Let it be.  In God’s time, He will reveal it to you.”

Even though the disciples were around Jesus Our Lord all the time and heard Him speak about His arrest and death, they still did not get it.  They finally got it later—after the fact, after Jesus Our Lord rose from the dead, after He ascended to His Heavenly Father.  But once they got it, they stayed faithful to the end.  But here is what we need to know: The key to their understanding the message of suffering was that they remained close to the heart of Jesus.

So, that is what we will also do—to remain close to the heart of God and wait—wait on Him and wait for Him.  Mrs. Charles Cowman in the Streams in the Desert explains, “When we wait on God, He is waiting till we are ready; when we wait for God, we are waiting till He is ready.”  When we are ready, He will let us know the message that comes with it.  Then we will wait for Him to get us out.

Pastor Paul