Over the last few weeks I have been writing articles and preaching sermons with a slant towards suffering and I have been asked by several people to produce a book of these writings and sermons. This will take about four months but in the meantime I have included here the article I wrote for the Elim national magazine now called Decision. This was when I was in my late thirties, about forty years ago, at a crisis point in my life. As I wrote it Patricia came into my study, read it and said, “Finish it positively for it is full of negative moaning.” It was written about her physical condition so she had the right to state her mind. Here it is:
“Oh Lord, I’m in distress, in fact the word to describe my exact feeling is despair. I have never sunk so low and been so disillusioned over circumstances. Everything, yes literally everything seems to have gone wrong. The Working together” of Romans mocks my situation and God seems to be somewhere beyond an angry sky. I just wait for the next thunderbolt to fall, knowing that the present pain is so great that a little more will not matter. I’m crumbling inside and all the vain platitudes from fellow saints are the mouthing of cold comfort.
This adversity stretches into the distance in its vastness and my unbelief pushes it past the horizon. As I open my mouth to sigh my tongue is parched and dry. “If only” is my constant theme. I languish in pity so thick that it sticks to my feet in a morass of misery. Words hardly explain my state; they are inadequate to reveal the silent hurt that burns inside.
If I am honest, and honest I must be, I resent this thing called the will of God. I prayed for His hand to lead me into a walk that shines with love’s sweet smile, expecting in my zestful hope that he would take me to Transfigurations Mount. Instead He took me to a valley so dark and drear that even music seemed out of place. Stark trees like dead fingers are my companions and ragged rocks my cold pillow. Here I am hunched in stumbling weariness, slithering on slopes of shale, failing and fussing, moaning and groaning, bleeding and bothered and thoroughly shot through of every personal pride. I lay me down and weep until my soul is dry. Why God, oh why is this the way and not another? Must it be the dark and drear and not the bright and crystal clear? Will this poverty of joy lie like a shadow on my life much longer?
Lord, I cannot stand it. Enough is enough; turn on the lights and speak in the darkness. Change the chaos into peaceful order even if it takes six days, Lord. Begin now and do not leave it. Can I nudge your arm with my tears? Do these broken sighs mean anything to you? Won’t you stop as you did to blind Bartimeaus and speak with the voice of victory?
I understand, Lord, that you chasten those whom you love, but the pressure has been on for a long time now. There must be a difference between chastening and this. I’m bruised all over. You’ve left your mark on my heart and head and I hate to think where else you will lay the stick. Is all this necessary? For I love you, you know that, and I do try to follow you, you know that also. Then why this way which is so alien to all my inclinations and desires?
At this point my wife intervened and I added this last paragraph:
The Psalmist got the victory, so please teach me, Lord. He said “I will praise the Lord no matter what happens” [NEB 34:1], yet I don’t think that I can. Anyhow, it would take a superhuman effort, and I feel so terribly human at the moment. I’ve been down twice and the third time is coming up and the straws are fast disappearing: but perhaps that may be the answer. I’ve clutched at too many straws in the past and not at you. Hanging on to the hay can be pretty precarious. I think that I may be getting it at last, Lord. My grip has been on the transient things that have no substance outside time. It has been all vision and not faith. Because I could not a see way out I thought there wasn’t one. You’re getting all the straws sorted out and burning them one by one. It’s the heat from the fire that’s causing the all the pain. I’m too near the stubble and I’ve been reaching into the fire. The sunlight will succeed the shadow, the mountain the valley. While grumbling this matter over with you I failed to notice the terrain growing smoother and there is a suggestion of light on the horizon. It’s changing, lord, and I hardly recognized it.”
