This afternoon I received my second infusion of chemo-therapy and had the portable IV pump attached which I will now wear for the next 46 hours. I have all sorts of weird side effects that are mostly annoying. The doc says they pulled out the big guns for fighting nausea. Hopefully they work. I'll know by the end of tomorrow. I preached for the first time in 8 weeks yesterday. I love God's word and being with God's people and teaching God's word!
I asked our congregation to pray for me that God would keep the nausea from immobilizing me in accord with his will for me. However, the main thing I asked them to pray for me was God's enabling power to obey his command in 1 Peter 4:19, "So then, those who suffer according to the will of God should entrust their souls to a faithful Creator and continue to do good." This is what I want as I suffer whatever God has ordained for me this week and in the coming months. (If you are having a hard time with this language: "God has willed suffering for me as his child and I am asking God to take away the suffering"--I would encourage you to read my previous blog entries. You could also read Psalm 38, which I read today in which the Psalmist is suffering from both physical illness sent by God and persecution sent by God and yet he asks God to remove both.)
Anyway, back to the point. God's will for his suffering children is that we entrust our souls to him, our faithful Creator, and we continue to do good. I would say that most of the prayers we pray for those who are sick or suffering are at best incomplete and often not even close to what God wants us to pray. This is God's will and our Lord Jesus taught us that at the top of the list of things that God wants to do for us and what he wants us to ask of him is: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Thus we can take every command of God to his people and turn it into a prayer that you can know with absolute certainty that God will say yes to it. God wants us to pray for healing and the relief of suffering but we do not know exactly what God's will might be in any particular case. However we do know with certainty that God wants me and all of his other suffering children to entrust their souls to him while they do good.
What does it mean to entrust your soul to your faithful Creator? The verb is used by Jesus when he is hanging on the cross and he cries out, quoting Psalm 31:5, "'Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit!' And having said this he breathed his last." I don't think there is any question that Peter is using this verb to remind us of this cry of Jesus on the cross. (My certainty arises from Peter's statement earlier in this letter where he says to Christians who are suffering unjustly at the hands of their employers: "To this you were called because Jesus suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow in his steps.") We are to do what our Savior did, he willingly endured the suffering knowing that at the end God would preserve him. He knew that he was going to be raised from the dead. He knew he was safe and could not be harmed even as he died on that cross. Thus, we entrust our souls to our faithful creator by trusting his promises to preserve us and bring us safely into his heavenly kingdom (2 Timothy 4:17) not matter what might happen to us while we live on this earth. So I would ask that you pray for me, for my family and for every suffering Christian that you know that God enables to do what our Savior did and entrust our souls into the loving and powerful hands of our faithful creator.
Clearly, "while we continue to do good" also has reference to our Lord Jesus. For when he was suffering and dying on that cross he was doing the best good thing that could be done for any human being. He was suffering the wrath of God against the sins of everyone who will in Christ. It was the ultimate good that he performed. Thus we continue to do good by holding fast to Christ and showing the love of God to others in the midst of suffering which includes telling others about this ultimate good which Jesus performed for all who will believe. It is important for suffering Christians to help their families and those around them see the beauty and wonder and greatness of being a forgiven, loved child of God. It is infinitely superior to living a pain free life on this perishing planet.
Please do not misunderstand me. It is not "suffering with a smile" that is being commanded here. Peter acknowledges earlier in this letter that those who suffer grieve (1 Peter 1:6). It is right to weep and to groan over the various afflictions God sends to us. However, grieving is not the same as grumbling. We do not do what the Israelites in the wilderness are famous for doing in the midst of their sufferings. They continually grumbled against God even though God had saved them from slavery and had promised to give them the land of Canaan (see Numbers 13 & 14, 16:11, 17:6, etc.).
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