“The Rest of the Story:” Understanding Trust and Hope in Hard Times
The Pause Before the Go: Finding the Presence and Faithfulness of God in Hard Times
Lesson 10: “The Rest of the Story:” Understanding Trust and Hope in Hard Times
“Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God’? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow weary tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:27-31
Read Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 40; and 1 Corinthians 13 for this lesson.
Questions for Thought:
1. Have you ever had a serious “misunderstanding” with someone? What happened? What was the cause? How did you feel while it was happening? How did you rectify the situation?
2. According to these scriptures what is to be the relationship between our trust and our understanding?
3. What does it mean to “Hope in the LORD?” Why is it so difficult to Hope and trust in God during hard times? What obstacles have hindered your trust and hope over the last few months and how are you overcoming them?
Have you ever walked into the middle of an argument and been demanded to render a judgment and opinion? It’s impossible to give clear and helpful advice in such a situation because you weren’t there at the beginning- you have a limited reference; but that won’t stop the arguers from dragging you in (that’s why as a parent I’m careful to pray before I walk through my front door because you NEVER know what you might be coming home to! Whatever my opinion- I’m sure I’ll be wrong!) Paul Harvey made quite a name for himself when he would start his radio listeners in the middle of a story and through the continued telling of it answer all their questions, ending with: “I’m Paul Harvey and now you know… THE REST OF THE STORY!” Like Harvey’s listeners, as Believers we want to know the rest of the story! We have questions, we want answers, we want God to justify Himself to us before we put our whole-hearted belief, trust and hope in Him! There is so much we don’t understand; there are so many unanswered questions… IF God loves and cares for us why does He allow such suffering like COVID-19 in the World? Just this year a prominent Christian Pastor and a famous Christian Recording Artist have renounced their Faith because they couldn’t rectify the goodness and righteousness of God with the evil and fallen circumstances of the World they see around them… Heartbreaking and breaking the Heart of God!
Theologians, philosophers, and apologist give us all sorts of arguments for why God allows suffering, and make all kinds of justifications for God’s goodness in the face of evil and hard times- and they are good arguments! Today, however let’s look at the Biblical frame of reference for “the rest of the story”. Whose story is it? And what’s God’s perspective, and what is and can be ours? I believe when we look at the Biblical frame of reference of our lives, God and the spiritual saga of human history and events through His Word it will strengthen and not degrade our Faith, it will give us a proper frame of reference for suffering, evil and difficult circumstances, and it will bring us the trust, the hope, the comfort, and the understanding we need today to run and not grow weary; to walk and not be faint in our faith and service to Him.
Reading Isaiah 40 and onward in the Old Testament book is like walking into a middle of an argument! Through a literary device called “Prophetic Foreshortening” Isaiah foretells future events without ever giving us a sequential time or seasonal reference; we simply know two thousand plus years later that they have come to pass (through the sacred history of the Bible we know the rest of the story) but for the Israelites of Isaiah’s time they had no “rest of the story” to put these future predictions into. The only frame of reference they had was God’s past actions, and promises (Torah- the Book of the Law), and their past and current failures… Isaiah wants them to examine if that would and should be enough for them to put their trust and hope in God to find the perseverance and comfort they need to grow in their faith and not walk away from it. Isaiah does this by examining the people’s inferior and partial frame of reference and God’s all knowing frame of reference… Paul does the same thing with the Corinthian Church where in 13 he contrasts “the Greatest of these” God’s love against the imperfections and limited frames of reference of human religious works, knowledge, and self-sufficiency. Let’s look at this more in-depth through Proverbs 3:5-6 and the verses of Isaiah 40.
We’ve talked about Proverbs 3:5-6 in other lessons, but what I would like us to do here is to look at the corollary (the opposite of these verses); to do that remove “not” and take out “Lord, Him, and He” and replace with “yourself/you”. You come up with this unholy statement: “Trust in yourself with all your heart and lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge yourself and you/yourself will make your paths straight.” Please put the right and proper words back… Put the LORD where he needs to be back in these verses (and in your life) and take you/yourself out of it right now! What a horrid statement! We can easily see what a stupid, foolish, arrogant, and untrue statement it is when we replace God with ourselves as the subject and exalt our own understanding or search thereof without and at the expense of His! But sadly this is what so many of us do when we allow the questions about and the valid concerns over our circumstances and suffering to become hardened solid judgments on the character, providence, plan and goodness and love of God (who suffered in our place). We “could be” justified in our judgments if we were all knowing, all present, all loving, all powerful, completely holy, and could see every possibility and every angle, if we had created all things, and could bring our own selves up out of the mire of our fallenness by our own efforts. But are we and can we?
Of course not, we are not God, gods, demigods, or really even that smart; but we are created in His image an image that right now reflects only darkly what God has in store for us (so Paul tells us in 1Corinthians 13). You see trust and understanding are critical to our Faith, to our hope and to our love but the Bible shows us that they have to be in the right order. The World tells us that your own understanding will bring about and should justify and be the only criteria for your trust in anything. But the Bible tells us to Trust in the LORD first and lean not on our own understanding! Christianity is just the opposite of the World’s mantras; our trust in God is what brings about our understanding of His goodness, love, and mercy in relationship with Him while growing us in our Faith. We cut a straight path to God when we trust Him, even and especially when the roads of our own understanding of difficult circumstances, sufferings, and hard times is nothing but a bunch of twisted corkscrews of our current reality. Always start with God, trust Him and His greatness, goodness, Truth and love first because our knowledge and understanding is so imperfect, and our frame of reference is so limited.
Understanding takes time and comes in time as we walk with Jesus, trusting Him and His future plans for us (remember that old song… We will understand it better by and by?) Understanding is developed through PATIENCE, the hearing of God’s Word, the Holy Spirit and outside revelation from the God that loved us enough to send His Son to die and rise again for us- through trust in and dependence upon Him alone! So many people never come to a saving knowledge of Christ because they allow their own understanding to be the sole judge of whether or not they will trust Him- there is no room for humility, sorrow, or realization of poverty of spirit and their own need. There is no trust in spite of and beyond their doubts in His saving and eternal provision over and above the problem of evil! The Bible tells us we can’t come to God as all-knowing adults, but as little trusting children hugging and clinging to Him in relationship. Why does God allow suffering and evil? I don’t know, but I trust Him and I walk with Him and try to obey His commands and depend upon His promises because I believe Him, I know His love, and over time my frame of reference of understanding His goodness at work in my life by His hand and plan despite and in the midst of difficult and evil circumstances by His present grace allows me to trust Him more and my understanding grows! Now let’s look at understanding in Isaiah 40.
Coming back to Isaiah’s inquiry of whether the Israelites would trust and put their hope in the LORD because of His superior and perfect frame of reference; we must not forget that the everlasting God was WITH them. The biggest obstacle and danger we face as we deal with difficult circumstances and hard times is not just our poor limited frame of reference (not knowing clearly where we are in God’s epic story) but allowing our doubts to so occupy our mind and heart that we forget that God’s presence is with us and with us forever- His plans never failing. Yes, we can move away from God to our own detriment, but He never moves away from us… He is close!
Verse 27 speaks of Jacob/Israel and it is interesting that Isaiah uses both of his names… The old name “Jacob” (he grasps the heel) and his new name “Israel” (he struggles with God) you see Jacob was a fighter, a man of stubborn will and resiliency who desired blessing and he wasn’t going to stop till he got it! Whether it be conniving his brother and own family out of a birthright, or straight-arming the Angel of the LORD- Jacob’s own blessing was at the center of his universe until he had sons, until God expanded his frame of reference and yoked him back to the promises of Abraham and moved his vision upward to the heavens, to the blessing of all nations and people through God’s plan of blessing not Jacob’s limited definition of it. When Jacob let go of his own interests and TRUSTED God for bigger things, for His bigger plan of salvation and eternal blessing that is when he found the strength to persevere and to SOAR!
There are so many passages and stories in scripture where God’s plan, His will for the redemption of His Creation which He loves so dearly seems to fail because of evil circumstances, hardened hearts, dull minds, and the sinful arrogant twisted ambitions of human will which will bow falsely and dimwittedly to anything but God. Are the promises of God in jeopardy? Is His redemption of us (of all who believe in His Name) in question? NEVER! Yes, evil and suffering are a real problem (for us), but they are nothing our Sovereign God cannot handle, they are capable of separating our presence from Him if we naively let them but never able to separate His presence from us and they are temporary. Sin won’t last forever but the payment for it will! Let the judgment and the punishment, the condemnation and the death, the redemption and the eternal life, the blessing, mercy and grace of such a statement because of Jesus and His Gospel take root in your soul. Will we trust in Him or depend upon our own understanding and limited frame of reference? Will we obey Him and grow in our understanding as we trust Him? Can we look at our circumstances and problems as temporary, as a part of the rest of the story that we know well but don’t know where we are in it or what the next scene will bring? We will weather this storm. We will weather COVID-19. God can and will strengthen us if we place our trust and hope in Him first above and beyond our own understanding (doubts and expectations included) His promises and Word are eternal just as He is! I hope you are being encouraged by God’s Word this week! Hang in there! Know I am praying for you and we will be together soon! My email address is dray@wyliebaptist.org if you want to reach out!
Love in Christ,
Darrin.