LOOKING BACK, FORWARD OR UP?

‘Looking back, it is easy to see how God has been working, but it is much  harder to

look to the future.’ It was my husband who said that, and I think it is true.

We believe God’s word, that he makes all things work together for the good of those who believe in him. But there are many tragedies in life. Has good come from them?

I think of the terrible suffering of the Israelites under the cruel taskmasters of Egypt. How could that be for good? But then I came to understand that if they had continued in their life of ease they might never have become a nation, ready to enter the Promised land.

Years later, their exile in Babylon is another example. Looking backward, history shows us a people who, during those seventy years, at last forsook  their idolatry and heathen ways, but learned to treasure their holy manuscripts; to gather to worship in their synagogues, realising that God was still with them, even in a strange land.

Yes, it is easy, looking back, but it is not easy when you are going through it. Yet, doubtless referring to their fierce suffering in Egypt that God said, ‘In all your affliction I am afflicted and the angel of my presence saves.’ (Isa. 63:9)

It was in the humiliation of being captives in Babylon that the three Hebrew lads in employ of the king were threatened with the fiery furnace. ‘We will not bow down. Our God is able to save us, but if not….’ God did not save them from being thrown into the furnace, but it was in the fire that Jesus came to walk with them and made himself known to a heathen king.

There was terrible persecution in China not so m any years ago when they tried to wipe out any knowledge of Christianity, yet today the Christian church is growing and prospering daily. Was it through their suffering?

Yes, it is easy to look back and know that God has been active in all the suffering of his people, turning it to good. But even so, it isn’t easy to believe in our present situation. Apart from our present trials of coronavirus, we have brothers and sisters also grievously persecuted for their faith, even amid other trials of warfare, floods and famine.

I remember when in Ghana a car crash left me without transport for some months. It had seemed so wrong, yet looking back I know God gave me opportunity to become fluent in the language, and make good contacts in my village.

 Yes, we can look back and sometimes we may understand, but still when we are in the midst of trouble we want to shout out, ‘Where are you God?’ How can any good come out of all the suffering caused by this present pandemic?

For many months I have prayed with a friend threatened with the return of mouth cancer. I was so thankful, thinking no news was good news, when the axe fell. It seems she has to go through very invasive surgery.

We understand how Mary and Martha felt when their brother Lazarus died.

‘Lord, if only you had come, then he would not have died.’ But Jesus had stayed away on purpose in order to do a greater miracle.

Instead of self-pity, my friend had begun her newsletter with the verse from Jeremiah 29,

‘I know the thoughts that I have toward you; thoughts to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope.’ Not seeing the answer we had hoped for, she is believing and trusting.

Yes, we may look back as much as we like and see God at work, but still it is hard looking forward seeing no light at the end of the tunnel. Yet we can always look up and see Jesus.

‘Now we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus…’(Heb.2:9)