How Firm A Foundation

Yesterday, to close our worship service, we sang the old hymn “How Firm a Foundation” to encourage us to look at God and his word in the testings of life. I post it here for your meditation as you face whatever God has brought or is bringing into your life.

Remember the form of this hymn. The first verse is a call to Christians—the saints of the Lord—to take hope in the sufficient (“what more can he say”) Word of God to us. The remaining verses are all God speaking to us, and encouraging us with his promises.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

“Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.”

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.”

“When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

“Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.”

“The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

For those interested in helpful meditation on these truths, David Powlinson has an excellent and helpful chapter in the book Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. The chapter is entitled “God’s Grace and Your Sufferings” and it begins on p. 145. You can buy the book here or download a free PDF here.

I encourage you to find Powlinson’s chapter and read it. It will be worth your time.

The Cross and Suffering

In our time of deepest affliction, none of us find comfort by endlessly focusing on that suffering. There’s an element of mystery in all our suffering, and in this life we can’t fully understand it, yet we face a subtle temptation to relive and review our suffering. That’s an exercise that will never bring rest and release. What will bring rest and release is spending more time meditating on the cross and the God of the cross (C. J. Mahaney, Living the Cross-Centered Life, p. 98).

I disagree. Mahaney is wrong.

There is nothing subtle about the temptation to relive and review our suffering. It is an in-your-face temptation that screams loudly because it addresses you at your greatest point—the self-pity that drives you to focus on how your are unjustly suffering.

Other than that, Mahaney is dead on.

You will never relieve suffering by reliving suffering.

Reliving it brings some strange perverted sense of comfort. Why? I have no idea, other than the face that it allows us to focus on the most important thing in our lives—us. But I know that in the midst of suffering (spiritual, emotional, or physical), there is comfort in dwelling on it, reliving it, and talking about it.

But it doesn’t really help.

Focusing on the cross puts our suffering in perspective. Whatever you are suffering is nothing compared to what Jesus suffered on the cross. And whatever you are suffering will not separate you from the love of God. Furthermore, whatever you are suffering is part of God’s plan to mature you and prepare you for his service, both now and in eternity.

So in the midst of suffering, think about the cross. Remind yourself that God loves you and sent his Son for you, and having sent his Son, he will not now abandon you, neither to a life of ease or a life of suffering.

He who did not spare His own Son,
but delivered Him over for us all,
how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Romans 8:32

Everything That Is Not God

1 Peter has an overriding theme of suffering. In both 1 Peter 1:6 and 1 Peter 4:12, Peter refers to suffering in terms of a fire. I imagine that this is a common metaphor in cultures throughout time, all the way was back to OT times.

Just as fire burns away perishable stuff, so testing in our lives strips away everything about our faith that is not God.

When circumstances take our money and we get upset, we find that our satisfaction was not God alone. It was God plus money.

When our physical health declines and we get upset, we learn that God was not enough for us. We believed in God plus physical health.

When our marriages suffer, or our family goes astray, we find that God was not enough. It was God plus …

And when, in the midst of suffering, we turn away from God, we are demonstrating that the gospel we believe is really a prosperity gospel—a gospel that says, “I will trust God because he gives me comfort/money/health/good marriage/insert your own.” We think Jesus died to make us comfortable/rich/healthy/satisfied in marriage.

Thus, suffering is often God’s way of showing us what we really believe. It shows us how much more than God we think we must have.

In the fire of suffering, God is burning up everything that is not God in order to create a more genuine faith that is satisfied in God alone.

The truth is that we can live with a lot less than we have. But we cannot live without God.

So when God takes it, it’s okay, because it wasn’t yours anyway (he gave it to you), and you don’t need it (he is enough for you).