God’s provision… IN your burden… to sustain you

We all must know by now that to live this life we’re bound within the laws of this life. No railing against God for what is happening to us will change what is happening to us.

It’s futile to blame God, yet God’s got broad enough shoulders for it. And yet, still again, God knows the human condition in suffering because God knows Jesus better than anyone, and nobody will ever suffer more than Jesus.

So, where does the fact of suffering leave us in terms of benefit with God—for we’re all ‘in faith’ for the benefit, are we not? (Isn’t it an incredible, incredulous thought that we might be so sold out to God that we’d need no benefit to cajole us to our Creator? This is actually faith’s aim! But, let’s get back to the purpose of this article.)

If we take as our premise the burden of suffering, and we imagine it as the reality we cannot in a moment change (for that’s the law of life—our circumstances are never typically miraculously lifted from us!), we are left with the situation and what might be done.

We’re obviously in pain and would prefer things be decidedly different.

If we reconcile anything, it’s the need to be reconciled to peace, so our hope might endure, and joy may once again be experienced—hazard to say it, WITHIN the prevailing lamentation, if at all that were possible. So, that’s our situation and our desire.

Now this. Just ponder this:

“God doesn’t promise to deliver us out of our burden,
but God does promise to sustain us in it.”
— Carmel Wright

This wisdom is brought to us by ‘the way life works’…

This is the deeper mystery beyond a prosperity doctrine that just must insist on deliverance as its first aim; and only that as the glorification of God. But could it be that God has more purpose for us as we’re sustained through our trial? The biblical mandate is that God is glorified in the struggle itself, not just once we’re delivered from it.

If we will accept that God’s role, through our faith, is to sustain us in our burden, one day at a time, we will make it through our burden. God delivered the Israelites ultimately through daily provision of quail and manna. Jesus commanded us to pray, “Give us this day, our daily bread…”

And this is the point:

AS God sustains us, God rescues us.

~~~ DAILY… ONE DAY AT A TIME ~~~

Even in the mode of bearing a burden of suffering, even because of it and in spite of it, God, in sustaining us through it, is rescuing us because of it; because of our bearing it in a way that trusts the provision of holy sustenance.

There and there alone is the method. It is implored of us to simply practice the method. What is required is the humility of surrender, which is trust. That’s all.

In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul reminds us that we’re not comforted in our self-sufficiency, but that we’re comforted by God in our tribulation. This, of course, is a great mystery! Perhaps the greatest of all mysteries.

But we must also know this. Even as an entire passage of Scripture heralds the purpose of suffering, as does Isaiah 49 for good example, as the final verse hammers the nail home.

God sustains us a day at a time for the ultimate
in deliverance, for the Lord’s glory alone.

Image background by Ron Smith on Unsplash