Seeing Through the Struggle: The Gift of Promises

You see it on graduation caps, church slogans, websites, social media profiles, favorite verses on Christian Mingle. Surely, you know exactly what verse I'm referring to without me telling you. According to Biblegateway.com, this verse is ranked second most popular in the Bible. John 3:16 is number one. It's no surprise John 3:16 is number one, since it is full of good feelings and an incredible reminder of how much God sacrificed to be in relationship with us. Number two on the list is similar to number one: a feel-good promise that demonstrates how deeply God values us. Unfortunately, the same verse that delivers good feelings to all is also misunderstood by many.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" 

When you type in Jeremiah 29:11 into Google, the eighth website to pop up is titled, "Stop Taking this Verse Out of Context!" My guess is that this verse is taken out of context quite often. Similar to those signs in the park that say, "Do not feed geese pizza." Most likely, someone fed the geese Pizza Hut and killed a couple of them. Don't get me wrong, I do believe God has plans to prosper us. God literally is love (1 John 4:16), and God being love is directly associated with his desire to prosper us like we use our legs to walk. So, when someone uses Jeremiah 29:11 to comfort a friend who is struggling, it does make sense.

The dialogue we might have with someone else about Jeremiah 29:11 is not off the mark, but it is often the default response, and sometimes, hearing a response like that doesn't automatically turn things around for that person struggling. It doesn't make the struggle magically disappear if we memorize that verse. However, if we look at Jeremiah 29:11 from a different angle, we might quickly discover a different perspective on the struggle. Whether we are the one struggling or we are helping someone through a struggle, what if Jeremiah 29:11 was presented in the context in which it was actually given and declared?

Now, let's take it a step further: what if we saw Jeremiah 29:11 was more about God's promise to community, not to the individual? Further, God's promise to prosper us and not harm us does not mean we will be without pain, suffering, and tribulation. In fact, James 1:5 instructs us to take joy in the trials! God's declaration that his plan does not include harm does not mean we will live pain-free lives because God will magically take them away. No, God is declaring that his promise to bring about hope from a hopeless situation and good from a season of sorrow still stands. Despite their horrible situation, and "though the deliverance of the church do not come in our time, it is sufficient that it will come in God’s time, and we are sure that that is the best time" (Biblestudytools.com). Why? Because his promise is to prosper us, even if it means wading through the pain first.

The Lord is never at an uncertainty (Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary), so his promises remain, even if our sin nature brings about temporary destruction. See, God does not promise we will be exempt from temporal pain (John 16:33), but he does promise his protection and guidance through a world filled with sin. Though pain may come in the night, joy and prosperity is promised for tomorrow (Psalm 30:5). Tomorrow might be 5 years from now. Breakthrough might not come until 10 years from now. Victory might not be evident until we are standing before God in the Heavenly realms, but it doesn't take anything away from God's sovereignty and ability to do exactly as he promised: configuring a plan to prosper us, to give us hope an a future.

How can we apply this to our prayer life and life in general? How can we live out Jeremiah 29:11 in the context it was written? First, don't waste time questioning why God is allowing the pain and suffering. Instead, turn mourning into praise and adoration - looking forward to his promises despite what a sinful world might do to derail you from resting on those promises.

Stop begging God to do away with the pain so you can feel better, but instead declare those promises over you and watch God transform you through the holiness he freely gives - "Be holy, because I am holy" (1 Peter 1:15-16). You are set a part, so no amount of pain and suffering you go through in this life will diminish or destroy God's promise to you and for you. You will still have a future despite your setbacks.You will have setbacks despite God's plan for you, but those setbacks will never come close to disqualifying God from acting on those promises.You still have a reason to hope for a brighter future, despite present circumstances screaming otherwise. If we tune our ears toward eternity, not just in the present downfall we're experiencing, we will quickly turn our sorrow into dancing because God does not just have eternity in store for us, his promises are eternal as well. They do not fade.

God's promise in Jeremiah 29:11 is to the Jews, who were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon during the king's reign. Talk about an unfortunate time for the Jews! They were considered exiles, yet God's plan was to not harm them but to give them prosperity and hope for a brighter future? Doesn't look like it! It looks like they're prisoners!

Maybe you are experiencing life as if you're a prisoner - no hope, just pain and suffering. During this time, it is so difficult to rely on the promises of God. Jeremiah 29:11 does not promise the problems will go away quicker than OxiClean gets the stain out, but God does promise prosperity despite the current struggle, even if prosperity doesn't reveal itself until later. And, maybe the pain you're experiencing might be one of the very aspects of your life that launches you into something greater.

So, during the struggle, wait on God. Use the struggling time in the desert to speak with him and listen to his voice. Before you know it, you will find yourself in the En Gedi of your life, sipping from the stream and thanking God for what it took to get there. Be patient, rest in his promises, and when the desert shows up, his promises will guide you to the stream of Living Water.

Personal Testimony: My Healing vs. God's Healing

I don't often find myself in an emotional battle with God. Whenever I belligerently point my finger at God, outraged by his lack of intervention in my life when I need it most, I quickly discover I am the one who loses out every time I go down that ill-advised road. I am most certainly always the one who returns the Father with an apologetic attitude. This reason alone compels me to choose who to side with and who to oppose carefully, because let's be honest, any time we transform into attack mode against God, we are opposing him and what we originally believe about him before our outburst.

For most, if not all of the population, the aspect of God that becomes the most puzzling, frustrating, and surprising is his presence, intervention, and timing when we need him most. It feels as though we have a longer list of times where God did not fix things than when he did sort things out in our favor.

"God wasn't there when I needed him most," is a phrase heard often in our world, and can be so detrimental, it can lead some to completely walking out on their belief. After all, who wants to serve, love, and believe in a God who not only abandons us when we need him most, but is nearly impossible to find in the physical realm to begin with? In the end, with this mindset, many would conclude that being a follower of Jesus is a dangerous game because most who commit to believing in God most likely will feel abandonment when they need him, even if they never were abandoned to begin with (we can be confident in God never abandoning us when we look at Hebrews 13:5).

Personally, I have felt most abandoned by God when I am physically sick. For over 14 years, I have battled migraines. In many ways, I struggled believing it was "just a migraine" because it involved so many other side effects; vertigo, numbness (typically on the left side, waist up), severe headaches. I tried everything from praising God through my pain to rebuking the pain in Jesus' name. I even took pills at the right time to get rid of the pain, drank plenty of water, etc. and it still didn't get rid of the occasional migraine. In most cases, I would pray for healing and have others pray as well, and I was never healed. Then, in July 2017, I had a mini-stroke due to a tiny blood clot finding its way through a small hole in my heart. A massive hospital bill and one year later, and I am still taking pills to take the pressure off of getting another stroke. Since July 2017, I have gotten five migraines, so I am still not completely healed.

From 2003 to 2017, the battle between God was intense. I would often ask God, "Why aren't you here for me when I need you most?" I was raised in a Christian home and never had a memorable season in my life where I was on the fence about believing in God. I always believed in God and considered him Lord of my life, but that didn't mean I never had my doubts about his ability to intervene and be the God he says he is. When your sick over and over again, viewing God is like seeing Spiderman when he first discovers he had the ability to shoot a web out of his wrist. Sometimes he used it correctly, and other times he would try to shoot it, but nothing would come out as he would plummet to the ground below, looking like a fool who promises success but fails at every jump. The problem with viewing God from this perspective is that you believe in everything else about him, but you hesitate to believe he'll follow through when he shoots his version of a web. Therefore, you don't actually believe in God entirely.

When the mini-stroke happened, my attitude was the opposite of what most would expect. I could have walked out on God, and from a worldly view, I would have been completely justified. God didn't intervene when I had migraines, and now I have a stroke and a massive hospital bill because of it. Some God you are, I could have thought. Instead, I felt a wave of blessing, because God protected me from far more than just a migraine. His saving grace protected me from long term disability, flipping my life upside down because the stroke could've flipped my health on its side. Everything I aspired to be would be incinerated by this unmerciful stroke. Yet, God protected me from a life I couldn't even imagine.

The stroke, though, wasn't the only event in my life where I had a perspective change. January 6th, 2016, I had a difficult beginning to the new year. Outside of my physical health, I was dealing with additional issues that made me question my purpose. So, I went to the show by myself to see the movie A Monster Calls. Little did I know it would be about inner healing, as the main character would learn some valuable lessons from a made-up monster about letting go during his mother's battle with cancer. The main theme in the movie was that healing often comes to the rescue in ways we least expect. The boy is belligerent when he finds out the monster is not going to save his mother, so he spends most of the film viewing the monster like a Spiderman who can't shoot his web properly.

How often do we immediately assume God bailed on us when our physical pain does not go away. Or, better yet, when our situation doesn't improve when we ask God to make it improve? How many times do we only see the circumstances around us as a litmus test for God's goodness, but fail to look internally to see what God is doing within?

One day, during Jesus' ministry in Capernaum, a paralyzed man was lowered into the house from the ceiling where Jesus was visiting. The paralyzed man was hoping to walk again, and the men lowering him on the mat were hoping for the same. Spoiler alert, Jesus did heal the man, but that's not what I want to focus on. Verses before the man is healed of his paralysis, Jesus sees their faith and says to the paralyzed man,

"My child, your sins are forgiven."

(Mark 2:5)

"Your sins are forgiven"? Not, "Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home"? If I were the paralyzed man, I would have been hysterical! What about my pain? I would question. I don't care about my sin, I want my pain to be gone! I would demand. 

Some Pharisees were in the area and witnessed what Jesus said, so they told Jesus only God can forgive sins. Jesus' response? "Why do you question this in your hearts?" (v. 8).

Jesus understood there was need of physical healing, but he is also aware of our need for heart healing as well. What Jesus saw when he was approached by the paralyzed man was a heart change. Jesus recognized what was in the man's heart and healed him from his sins. In addition, he healed the man's physical ailment as well.

Unfortunately, most people are so wrapped up in the physical circumstances that they fail to see what other forms of healing God desires to accomplish within us. In these cases, our hearts become so hardened by what appears to be God's lack of protection that we miss out on partnering with what God is doing inside of us. 

Bear in mind, I am not suggesting we just accept that God will not or cannot heal us physically because he does not want to or cannot do it. His desire is to not only heal us physically, but to do a soul work that involves a change of heart. Paul writes about physical training compared to godliness in 1 Timothy 4:8: "For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." In other words, while the physical body has importance, godliness, which comes from the heart and soul, is of greater importance for now and to come. 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, "...though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." In 1 Timothy, Paul mentions that strict physical training does "little to promote holiness...there must be a deeper work on the soul than any which can be accomplished by the mere mortification of the body" (Barnes Notes on the Bible - Commentary). In 2 Corinthians, we are encouraged that our renewal comes from inward transformation, not by the body. Therefore, what we desire in the flesh and physical is understandable, but our main focus should be on heart and soul healing, because that's what will go with us in thew present and future, afterlife.

Friends, what if we focused on trusting God through the entire process, knowing that he is in the business of healing in more ways than just physically? Jesus healed the paralyzed man of his sins first because of his faith that comes from the heart, then he healed him physically. Though inward faith and trust doesn't promise immediate outward healing of our situation on our watch, it does provide transformation in the Spirit, and God is at work in more ways than we know. If we limit God to what we expect him to heal and do with our circumstances, we will miss out on what he is actually doing through us. Let go of your expectations, let God intervene in his own way, and declare that his plan is perfect. 

He is doing far more healing in you than you will ever know in the moment. Watch and be amazed.