In Christian Counselling, it is not uncommon to encounter people, Christians, who are going through extremely tough times in their life. As such, counsellors and psychologists dealing with faith based issues are all too familiar with philosophical and existential queries that deal with human suffering. Such questions are thrown to us on a daily basis: “Why is there suffering?” “Why did God allow this?” “During the peak of suffering, what are we supposed to do?” I cannot tackle the first two questions for now but I am here to address the third question. For a direct answer (mind you, this is in the context of Christian Counselling), I always point to God’s word. What did The Bible show for us to do in the midst of suffering? Or to rephrase the question, what are we to do while waiting on The Lord? The most straight forward answer is to worship Him.
This practice has been documented all throughout The Bible.
To worship The Lord amidst suffering demonstrates the total surrender to God’s sovereignty. As one can see, the physical action for this is raising both hands as if surrendering in a fight. It is the ultimate exercise of trust and faith that we are telling The Lord: “there is nothing I can do. I am at your mercy.”
The most popular ones were of course by king David where he usually finds himself surrounded and overwhelmed by his enemies and he turns to God. For your good search, examples of these are found in Psalms 13 and Psalms 102.
King Jehoshaphat (descendant of David) also demonstrated this practice, when his kingdom was surrounded by invading armies (2 Chronicles 20).
The best example of all, is of course by The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, at the peak of his abandonment and suffering when hanging on the cross, found it righteous to declare God as HOLY (Psalms 22:2-3).
Overcome The Genie Mentality
I realize that for us to worship The Lord, especially when in pain, we have a lot of unlearning to do. A huge hurdle to this task is the all dangerous idea most of us carry which I refer to as The Genie Mentality. This is a concept, a cognitive script, that entered our minds through the lies and propaganda of society which drive us to think that: for God to be good, He has to answer all our prayers. Like the mythological genie, God owes it to us to make all our wishes come true.
People pray for money, for cars, for riches and glory. I’ve met young students pray for higher marks, for positions in schools; I’ve encountered young adults praying for a sports car and condominiums; it is always about “me me me” and what I want and You, Lord, should give them to me. They say God is good and so, my life has to be “good” in the way I want it and in the way I think “good” to be. Everything has to be smooth and perfect the way I want them to be: I want a penthouse, I should have it. I haven’t worked a day in my life, but I deserve to be CEO of a huge and reputable company. All of these wishes man has placed on God as demands, as prerequisites for them to believe in Him as if saying: if you want me to believe in You, You have to prove Yourself to me. Oh the audacity of man! Or should I call it ignorance and pride?
This misconception of God or this genie lie elevates man to a master to whom which God owes His services to. That I am a good person; therefore, I should be blessed for it. Or I didn’t do anything bad, so where are my blessings? As a Christian Psychologist, I can trace these misconceptions to all the stories, narratives, and myths that all of us were subjected to as children. The bombardment of this message is so rampant that earlier I even refer to it as propaganda. It is as if the world deliberately led us to to become self-entitled materialists, worthy of nothing, amounting to nothing but accumulating meaningless sufferings and hatred towards our very own Creator.
This thinking is dangerous because it leads to false expectations of God. It even leads to deadly thoughts that “if my prayers aren’t answered (the way I want it to be) then there is no God.” For someone who declares that He is both powerful and loving, how is it then that my prayers aren’t answered?
It is simply because that The Genie Mentality is a lie. We are not God. Only God is God. It would do well for us to remember the prayer: “Your will be done and not mine.” Do we really mean that as we have said it? Or are we even aware that we are saying that phrase in our prayers? How is it then that the only way we will believe in God is when God answers our prayers the way we want it to be?
Our Father in Heaven,
Holy be Your name.
Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in Heaven.
– The Lord’s prayer
Let go of this misconception about God and who God is to us. By all means pray for healing for your love ones; however, if The Sovereign chooses not to heal (for there are still a lot who remain sick), this is His wisdom as God, this is His sovereign decision as God; and this will in no way discount His love and His goodness. God is in no way diminished when we are disappointed of Him. Whether we believe Him or not, whether we worship Him or not God is God.
Now that we have settled that huge hurdle (that Genie Mentality), I am more comfortable talking about worshipping God, even in the midst of pain and suffering.
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
-Job 13:15
Everyone knows who Job is. He is famous for being picked on by the devil (and yes, with God’s permission). His story and his attitude is one of the best examples of worshipping God through suffering – even if you think you have done nothing wrong. The character development of Job throughout the long book named after him is that he finally realized that he has no wisdom, no right, no currency, to even attempt to understand, let alone question God Almighty.
“O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from
the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.
But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods,
nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
Daniel 3:16-18
It is difficult to trust God when things don’t go according to your expectations.
We have erroneously incorporated the genie image unto Him and lowered Him to our servant who owes it to provide for us and satisfy our whims. The 3 friends of Daniel summed up the correct stance we have of The Lord: He will rescue us, but even if He doesn’t, He is still God.
The reality is that in Christ we rarely get what we wish – or should I say we rarely get EXACTLY what we pray for. That’s because what we want is always inferior to what He wills (all the time in each and every way)
Thank God things didn’t happen the way I exactly wanted to!
The Almighty God is God. Not you, not me, and not anyone else. He is not here for our approval or worship. He acts on His own independence and pleasure. He owes no one anything. He is not the genie who owes its freedom to the one who rubbed the lamp. He is not like other spirits who will promise this and that in exchange for our souls. There is simply nothing in us and of us that can increase or diminish Him. Let it sink in: He is God Almighty. He will act according to what He wants or should I say according to what He is.
James chapter 4 actually taught us the prayer phrase “God willing”. When we pray to God, it is supposed to be in a position of humility. We ask and beg God, we never demand or command – and we never ever micromanage God (as if our ways are better). This holds true for anything and anyone created.
Once we recalibrate on who God really is (and who we are compared to Him), we, like Paul, like David, and the rest of the champions in The Bible, can go through suffering with our hands raised high in worship of Him. Make no mistake, it is not a question of whether Hs is worthy or not. The real question we should ponder on is are we worthy to worship Him? (the answer is no) It is only through His grace that we worship Him and we exercise this faith by worshipping amidst our suffering.
Right now, whatever we are going through, we lift up our hands and thoughts in praise, in gratitude, in absolute awe and worship to God most High, by the grace of The Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom all glory, honor, and power belong, forever and ever. Amen.
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Hear more about David and the champions of The Bible in our attempt to complete The Fear Not! Challenge! This is our documented attempt to locate all 365 Fear Not verses of The Bible.
So, yes, God help us all!