Daniel Waheli, with his wife and children, was serving as a missionary in a predominantly Muslim country in Africa. One night, six men came. Four of them had guns. They took him and put him in a small cell with a thin mattress.
He had been questioned by authorities before. He would tell them that he loved their country and he had started a successful business there. Then he noticed the writing on the wall of the cell: "Oh God, it has been more than five months. Please, help me to get out of here." He realised this might take longer than he had thought.
Work had kept him busy. Here, he had time to listen to God's voice. He prayed for hours at a time. God began to speak to his heart. He could barely keep up with all the things God told him. After they gave him his Bible back, he pulled strings from the mattress to serve as bookmarks. He looked at the places he had marked each day to remember the things God had told him. Eventually, he had more than 120 bookmarks.
He was released after almost three months. The presence and the voice of Jesus were clearer to him than ever they had been before.
Waheli says God taught him five principles about suffering that every follower of Jesus should remember:
1. Be ready for persecution. Suffering is promised for every person who seeks to live a holy life before God, regardless of calling (2 Tim 3:12).
2. Rejoice in your sufferings. Suffering can help us develop character which can lead to a hope that does not disappoint (Rom 5;3 - 5).
3. You are blessed by God in your suffering (1 Pet 4:14; Matt 5:11).
4. Seek to "bless those who persecute you" (Rom 12:14). The power of love and forgiveness in action helps suffering Christians to bless their persecutors. Pray that God gives you eyes to see your persecutors as people who know not what they are doing and who deeply need Jesus.
5. Suffering will help you comfort others. God often allows something to happen to you so that you can learn and "be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Cor 1:4).
God intends to build our character to help us better serve Him in love and perseverance. Waheli says his suffering induced indescribable peace, joy and hope in God and in His promises that with and through Him, we will lack nothing.
May we endure hardship with joy and perseverance.
Some months before I found Christ - many years ago now - I heard Paul Robeson sing an old negro spiritual.
"There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul."
The phrase "sin-sick soul" spoke to my heart. There is only One who can provide healing here. A psychiatrist might shed some light on the need. A psychotherapist might give some idea of its effects. But only Jesus can dispense a cure.
It's like a nasty sports injury. It's painful, and you long for a balm to ease away the pain. Unlike a sports injury, it's not a physical pain. "Come unto Me," says Jesus, "all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
"Come," he says. Don't think it over. Don't philosophise about it. Do it.
What's the worth of a human life? If it's my life, can I do what I want with it? Do I have the right to end it when I feel like it?
Listen to John Wyatt, emeritus professor of ethics and perinatology at University College, London, writing in the current issue of Catalyst, published by CARE:
Many insist that we are like chimpanzees with extra brain, just one more species on the planet. Others believe we are basically machines, with brains like computers made of flesh instead of silicon and wires.
Another common attitude is narcissism or the elevation of the self, which is a form of idolatry. 'Everything that improves my life is great. Anything that diminishes it is negative. I have the right to choose how to live my life and also when it should end.' This mindset sees suffering as something to avoid, dismissing the idea that it could ever be of positive value. We see young people caught up in addictions that deaden the pain in and around them.
In secular thinking, human beings can be 'categorised' according to their value with high achievers and celebrities at the top all the way down to those who are totally unproductive and burdensome. Just think where this leads. 'Provided I am independent and able to choose, life is worth living but once I become frail, vulnerable, limited, I become less valuable - putting me out of my misery might be doing me a favour.'
Genesis 1 is clear that every human life is made in God's image. Psalm 139 describes us as 'knit together in our mother's womb. . . fearfully and wonderfully made.' Ephesians 2:10 says 'we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.' Jesus became human like us, choosing to be vulnerable, experiencing human fragility.
God chooses for us to live in a web of dependency on Him and others. We did not choose the circumstances of our birth and arrived completely helpless. As we grow, others may rely on us, and later we might need looking after again. In love, God calls us into existence by name; His plan for us reaches beyond the grave. For someone with dementia, this is crucial. They may forget who they are, but God knows, and remembers, holding their identity safe.
Christians should be particularly concerned about protecting the most vulnerable! The brain-damaged, the disabled baby, someone severely harmed by life's circumstances, a frail older person - are they not made in God's image - all equal, special beings?. . .
Palliative care is about living, helping to maximise someone's final days positively. I know of many who have 'died well' - finding time to restore relationships, say goodbye and let go as they focused on meeting God, many receiving Christ as saviour. Vulnerably ill people sometimes express suicidal thoughts but skilled and compassionate caring support transforms the situation. Dying can, by God's grace, be a great adventure and an opportunity, right up to the end, for a person to find purpose in their life.
I don't watch much television these days, but the television happened to be switched on and it happened to be tuned to a Christian television station. It was broadcasting an hour-long interview with a well known Christian, whose name I won't mention in case my recollection of what he said is less than perfect.
He was talking about God, about worship, and about the lessons God had taught him. He recalled that the Bible verse that speaks of knowing the power of Christ's resurrection also speaks of knowing the fellowship of His sufferings.
He had five children, highly intelligent youngsters - apart from one, who was born with a disability. He remembered the lessons that God had taught him through that disabled daughter. Sometimes, he said, as Christians we look for perfection; and sometimes God allows imperfection, not only to teach us, but to demonstrate His perfection.
I have to confess that that spoke to my heart.
Life is not all jam butties, and Christians are not exempt from the trials and difficulties that come along in life. But Christians do have two tremendous advantages.
First, God is a master at bringing good out of bad situations. As the Bible puts it, all things work together for good to those who love God. In fact, God will not allow anything to happen to a Christian unless He can bring good out of it. He is working in Christians' lives. He can use what is after all a short time of suffering to work something good in us that will last for all eternity.
Second, God is with us in it. There is nothing you can suffer that He hasn't suffered already. Selwyn Hughes tells of a Christian woman whose husband was killed in the Twin Towers tragedy in New York. "When the news broke that my husband had been killed," she said, "a terrible darkness descended on me. But a hand reached out to me in the darkness. It was rough with work at a carpenter's bench, and pierced with an ancient wound."
When tragedy strikes and suffering comes, you may be tempted to wonder if God cares. If you are, look at the cross of Christ. He had no need of Himself to suffer all of that. He did it willingly for you and for me, out of the greatest love that this world has ever known. Keep the cross in view, and you won't need to doubt God's love.
