"Chapter 13: Trusting"

Walking with God through Pain & Suffering

by Timothy Keller

Chapter 13: Trusting

• Expressing our sorrow in lament is not in conflict with an abiding trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God.
• Language of lament and language of trust are found throughout the Bible in the face of life’s suffering.
• Both sets of texts are in the Bible, and they are both important.
• We should not interpret one group in such a way that it contradicts or weakens the claims and assertions of the other.
  

Joseph’s Story

• The story of Joseph begins with a long string of terrible events that happened to him.
• Joseph probably asked God to deliver him on many occasions—but there was just silence.
• Joseph prayed for years and years for help from God—and never received a single answer.
• It was not until all of the events unfolded that Joseph could look back and understand God’s purposes.

The Hidden God

• Was God not there in all those years of difficulty and hardship in Joseph’s life?
• No, he was there, and he was working.
• He was hidden behind the scenes, but he was also in complete control.
• The number of “coincidences” that had to come together for the events to unfold as they did is astounding, and a number of those events were difficult and painful.
• But what would have happened if Joseph had never gone to Egypt?

• If Joseph had not gone to Egypt:
  • Many people would have died from starvation.
  • His own family would have been wiped out.
  • Spiritually, his family would have been a disaster.
  • Joseph corrupted by pride and his father’s favoritism
  • The brothers corrupted by anger
  • Jacob corrupted by his addictive, idolatrous love of his youngest sons

• The Joseph story shows us that even when people make choices of their own accord, even evil choices, that God is still sovereign and in complete control.
• God was working out his purposes throughout all of the events—even in the smallest details of the daily lives and schedules and choices of everyone.
• God “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” “for the good of those who love him” (Eph. 1:11; Rom. 8:28).

• How did all the events of the Joseph story unfold?
• They came about through suffering:
  • The terrible years of crushing slavery for Joseph
  • The terrible years of debilitating guilt for the brothers
  • The terrible years of grief and depression for Jacob
• All of this was God’s plan to save lives.
• After the pain, comes a “harvest of righteousness and peace” (Heb. 12:11).

Trusting the Hidden God

• It is perhaps most striking of all to realize that if God had given Joseph the things he was likely asking for in prayer, it would have been terrible for him.
• God was hearing and responding to Joseph’s prayers for deliverance, rescue, and salvation, but not in the ways or forms or times Joseph asked for it.
• During all the time in which God seemed hidden, Joseph still trusted.

• We do not always get to see how everything fit together in God’s plan like Joseph did, but we must trust God regardless.
• At Dothan, Joseph prayed for deliverance and the answer was 20 years in the making. Also at Dothan, Elisha prayed for deliverance (2 Kings 6), and the answer came immediately.
• God was just as present and active in the slow answer to Joseph as he was in the swift answer to Elisha.

• Very often God does not give us exactly what we ask for. Instead he gives us what we would have asked for if we had known everything he knows.
• We must never assume that we know enough to mistrust God’s ways or be bitter against what he has allowed.
• We must also never think we have really ruined our lives, or have ruined God’s purposes for us.
• You cannot destroy God’s good purposes for us, and you can’t break God’s love.

Everything Hangs Together

• Everything that happens is part of God’s plan, even the little things and the bad things.
• Nothing happens by accident.
• Very seldom do we glimpse even a millionth of the ways that God is working all things together for good for those who love God, but you can be assured he will not abandon you.
• “Everything is needful that he sends; nothing can be needful that he withholds” – John Newton

The Ultimate Joseph

• Joseph was a forerunner of Jesus.
• Like Joseph, the Lord Jesus
  • Sold for silver coins
  • Denied and betrayed by his brethren
  • Unjustly put into chains and sentenced to death
  • Prayed for deliverance from God
  • Accepted the suffering as God’s will
  • Forgives his tormentors
  • Knew God intended good from evil
  • Promoted to power and intercedes for us

• Looking at the cross, not knowing the whole story, we would have said: “I don’t see how God could bring any good out of this.”
• But what we would have been looking at is the greatest, most brilliant thing God could ever do for the human race.
• On the cross, both justice and love are being satisfied—evil, sin, and death are being defeated.
• Don’t turn from God when we can’t fit events into our limited understanding.

• We must trust God, even in the darkest times, because God is sovereign and good.
• Even though we cannot know all the particular reasons for our crosses, we can look at the cross and know God is working things out for our good.
• God accomplishes his salvation through weakness, not strength. Jesus triumphs over death by dying, winning by losing.
• The grace of God grows more through our difficulties than our triumphs.