Or to borrow the metaphor of a friend, He carves the wood masterfully--shaving bits and pieces, and sometimes rending vast swathes at once, perhaps in seemingly rapid succession. To the very heart of the wood, He carves deeply. Masterfully, always.
Again and again, lately, I've heard people reference that He doesn't give us more than we can handle. But this just isn't so. He doesn't allow us to be tempted beyond that which we can bear, is the actual case. But allows, always, means of escape. Submitting to Him, moreover.
It's not contradictory to His love of us that He allows great suffering. We're refined by fire, by the trials of affliction (Zechariah 13:9). We're chosen in the fires of our affliction. One even wrote he had gone astray before being afflicted. We learn deeply of Him in times of trial. And we learn deeply of Him through the trials of others, too: Even as through the trials of Joseph, of Daniel, of so many who have gone before us.
Even of our own Lord, Jesus. (1 Peter 2:21)
We overcome through Him. Because He overcame. Likewise, we overcome in like manner as He overcame: He submitted to the will of the Father, even unto death. Even as serving and loving His betrayer, up to the end--washing His feet, and permitting Himself betrayed by a kiss of greeting.
So if we're to follow Him--and follow those who have followed Him as Paul called us to do, of himself also--we know we are to be counted as sheep for the slaughter, all the day long, yet while knowing that by such a course of obedience even unto death we are overcomers. Through Christ. Who has gone before us, that we may follow.
Not in our own strength. To thusly forsake self and deny self is beyond human ability, apart from God's grace and provision--to be able to surrender everything dearest to us, as unto Him and for His sake... We just can't. But He gives and He takes away. And our lot is to be concerned with following Him, whatever the cost. Counting all costs, continually surrendering everything to Him, all the while.
He requires the impossible. Because He alone can accomplish the requirements set before us, then He is our sole sufficiency. His glory is revealed through this. And as we wane, He waxes. Our incapacitation, then, is unto unfathomed depths of His provision. Salvation from the outset is impossible, why would anything subsequent differ? Like as the Galatians wanted to be able to continue the work He began in their own strength, we often want to be able to, as well. But that's not the way. Jesus is the way. Abiding in Him. He said that apart from Him we can do nothing.
Again and again, He's required the impossible. Again and again, I've naysaid and gainsaid, pleaded and begged, and lamented and grieved. And again and again, in circumstances most dear to me, He has bid me wait upon Him, has turned my heart to submission, and has led. And He has many times not answered, responded, or intervened in ways I've deeply longed for, even believing such to be in accord with His express will. But though He hasn't intervened as I've pleaded, I've experienced and seen His provision. I've experienced and seen His love made manifest. I've many times been veritably carried by Him--moment by moment--of times when I've been abjectly felled by disillusionment, grief, despair, and pain severe as to incapacitate thought, speech, observation, ability to even move so to attempt to guard my own steps by any self-aware measure. He hasn't failed me. Not even when I've so deeply decried the injustice and tragedy of particular instances as nearly crying out against Him, even...
He hasn't often provided or intervened in ways I've wanted, but He has continually given of Himself, even as intervening per such alternate, unforeseen and inconceivable means as has oft been His wont. And He has taught me of His nature. Even as to trust in His wisdom and goodness and love--no matter any devastation and loss (even like as losing self, unto death, and of losing all things familiar, all means of self-sustenance, and also of losing loved ones in so many ways grievous, shocking, devastating, and sometime unretractable). Losing all things, by turn, all my life--but gaining Christ, all the more. Ever leading then--no matter the pain lingering, the despair and grief--to still and increasingly trust Him, regardless circumstances.
Knowing with increasing and increasingly unwavering certainty that He is kind.
Yet I've multiple times mistaken His kindness to mean He'll provide what to me seems most expedient and right and good. Especially in circumstances where pain and loss and injustice and wrong understanding abounds, I've expected Him to show Himself strong on my behalf and on behalf of those whom He loves, for the sake of His love, or even for the sake of His name--as to deliver and heal and right wrongs and protect in ways which would seem obvious to me as having done so, with immediacy upon being asked.
But He usually hasn't done as I would think best, in ways I would think best, with any sort of immediacy. Instead, He has again and again allowed me to see glimpses of the provisions which He nonetheless is making and has made. Provisions which yet fall short of my immediate desires and expectations, but which constitute and evidence His active intervention, nonetheless. And this is a great kindness and grace toward me, nonetheless--even just to be permitted and given such glimpses.
Gratefully received. And sometimes past the point of submitting to His will, whatever His will is.
He has afforded those moments as a deep, unwarranted kindness. Such that rather than remaining in a mire of despair regarding circumstances (despite surrendering to His will)--sometimes feeling as though He were standing deaf to my pleas for mercy--those glimpses have afforded comforting reminders that He is still actively interceding and intervening. Even if not in the ways I ask and absolutely feel unable to survive without receiving.
He comforts despite my relative faithlessness, in other words. Despite my continual shortsightedness in expecting things could or can only be resolved one particular or immediate or apparent way in order to be well.
All in all, He continues to comprehensively reveal there is a better way. His way. He reveals this by allowing depths of insight into who and how He is: He comforts by reminding that He is perfect in wisdom and merciful in His disciplines, and by thus reminding me He doesn't allow or ordain suffering arbitrarily. This is so especially needful when confronted with any of utmost depths of suffering and injustice abounding in all this fallen, broken world which yet cries out for redemption to be made full.
In knowing Him and remembering Him, I know that I don't have to know or understand specifics of why things are the way they are. I still yearn to understand why He would permit so much grief, when His will is that everyone would be saved. But as He gives me understanding of Himself, instead, I'm quieted and sustained and preserved--comforted. Though griefs remain, His love looms larger. And though pains persist, His provision is more apparent per its requirement and consistency even just to function...when I'm otherwise felled.
Until, of such things, everything hones by incapacitation to a single point of focus. Upon Him, in the midst of all else which rages and torments. A point of abject peace, though the maelstrom rages on. Without the strength even to look to Him He yet lifts my head. Again and again. So when the battle within and without is too severe for anything except absolute loss of sanity and even despair of life, He pulls me into His arms in the midst of the fire. And recovers me.
I cannot do the things He requires. I cannot even want to do the things. But I know what He requires, as He reveals each step. And of each step, foremost requirement is thus a submission to Himself. And yet He works out every bit of this. Though, still--each to each.
He will have to guide. There's nothing else.
Whatever comes or goes.
And as much as Joseph was so many times tried--and to such lengths and by such varied means--his story is preserved as a testament to God's goodness and kindness and faithfulness, no matter the depths and seeming hopelessness of injustice even per such horrors as abject abuse, malicious rejection, unfounded suspicion, and overt malfeasance. He did not sit idly, but walked humbly with His God all the while. So his defender and justifier was ultimately God, Himself--this, not just evident during Joseph's own life, but given for all time to the edification of the saints and unto revelation of the glory of the grace of God.
That doesn't say to me that I should expect God to likewise justify me or any one of us who are His during our own lifetimes. But it does give me certainty that He can do so and sometimes does, while being reminded that even if He chose not to do so He's no less good, no less gracious, no less merciful, no less just, and no less loving--no less who He is, as my God and my Father--whether He ordains such justification unto His good purposes in the here and now or in the hereafter.
It's not His justice nor His mercy nor His justification nor His provision in which I ultimately trust, it's in God, Himself--while hoping of all which He is, trusting His wisdom and providential will as unto whichsoever circumstances and effects He ordains as best suited to needs (which are beyond my any-present knowledge, actually--but He knows our needs and is intimately concerned with them).
Alternately, I've been sorely tempted to attempt to manufacture peace and wellness of my own designs, rather than to continue to wait on Him in the midst of particular griefs. Sorely tempted, in various circumstances. And I've given in to temptations to plead my cause with others, even, numerous times--somewhat seeking justification or recompense which can only come from Him, moreover. But pain is not lessened by being acknowledged, although somehow being acknowledged as valid can allay temptations toward bitterness, so may provide comfort of another sort. Or perhaps only by being brought to light, as unto prayerful discussion and redirection to Christ.
Regardless, being allowed to grieve is a comfort--it's not necessary that anyone understand. I don't even understand at present, quite frankly--just makes for all the more difficulty in submitting to the Lord's will, somehow. A deeper need for surrender, as though if it all just made sense, then perhaps I could otherwise dismiss the pain and the difficulty rather than enduring. But, really, nothing makes sense right now...apart from remembering Christ, that is:
Remembering Him and what He did for me and experiencing what He's doing now (though that, too, I don't understand except to be comforted and led to trust Him, whatever comes). That's all I have, ultimately. It's all any of us has, realistically. And whatever bits and pieces He affords us for moments at a time: Moments of blessed fellowship and love and service and hope and joy and His peace which runs deeper, still. These, He affords at times. His Presence is so steady a balm. And He is so kind to redirect to Himself, continually, as unto His peace and love...comforts, even as to grieve.
And I wonder what it's like for brothers and sisters in places where it's veritably a mortal crime to even speak His name with reverence.
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