What a year. A year of upheaval, turmoil, frustration and heartache. The dominant note sounded through this symphony of trouble has been the pandemic. But accompanying the pandemic have been the normal heartaches and travails of life. The normal aches and pains, sickness and frustrations of everyday life. All amplified by the virus. The normal financial struggles with the added strains of shutdowns, layoffs and reduced hours take their toll. Isolation and loneliness have made the burden unbearable for some. The death of a loved one is hard enough to bear but when restricted to how, when, where and how many can attend a memorial we all feel cheated and slighted in our grief. As followers of Christ we know that our Lord warns us that we will face many trials and sorrows in this life (John 16:33). Some of you cry out with the Psalmist,
Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
my eye is wasted from grief;
my soul and my body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
and my bones waste away. (Psalm 31:9-10)
Sorrows seldom come as single soldiers, rather they come in battalions! When faced with sorrow upon sorrow, life becomes more than you can bear. Mark Talbot’s little book on suffering takes its title from a line in the book of Acts. The apostle Paul is on his way to Rome when a violent storm erupts. The ship’s cargo is jettisoned, the crew and passengers despair of surviving the ordeal. Luke, the inspired narrator, describes their condition, When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned (Acts 27:20).
Have you been there? Are you there now? The sun and stars were the means of navigation. They were lost, no sense of direction. Nothing made sense. Been there? Of course, they did survive. They were protected. They made it to shore. Everyone was safe. Then Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake! Yet, God was gracious and Paul survived and made it all the way to Rome…eventually to be executed. Now, aren’t you glad you kept reading? In this life we will have trials and tribulation. Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble (Job 14:1). My point is that when you pass through those times when life’s storms block out the sun and stars, you must remember that our God remains firmly in control of all things. Even when we lose hope. The promise of our Sovereign God is not that you will be trouble free but that He will get you home. Home, to be with Him for all eternity. Home to be loved and cared for. If nothing else, the last 10 months have caused me to loosen my grip on this sin-cursed world and caused me to long for the world to come. I’m finding it a whole lot easier to pray, “Even so, come Lord Jesus!”
I hope to see you Sunday.
Rod