Introduction
“Why do the righteous suffer?” was the burning question in the heart of the Psalmist whose enquiry blessed us with Psalms 73. This is a question that has not escaped the mind of many sincere hearts, generations over. It has been the silent consideration of many since times when it was not yet evident that tribulation was a gateway to assessing the kingdom of God Acts 12:22.
Contrary to the current-day empty, disappointing promises of prosperity and the cheap falsehood that encourages the use of godliness as a means of material enrichment, one cannot but ask questions. Does God have anything better for our weak bones in His word? This article thus attempts, faintly, to provide probable answers to the question. So that whilst making straight paths for our feet, the lame amongst God’s flock may find their foot steadied other than being made to stumble and to go adrift off the course of this new and living way Hebrews 12:13.
“For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. Psalm 50:10.
“If God possesses cattle on a thousand hills, why is He stingy with them?” one may ask. “Why would He have them waste away while I rot in lack?” “Has he so much power to make the boisterous red sea wall up with mere breath from His nostrils? What does it cost Him to still the storms of life always flickering in and out of my life? Why not make everything easy so that men may come to you through that?”
God’s position in our poverty
Observe God’s verdict through prophet Jeremiah. “Moab has been at ease since her youth; He has also been peaceful, like wine on its dregs, and he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone on exile. Therefore, he retains his flavour, and his aroma has not changed."
God’s experience with the Moabites, in comparison with the Israelites, teaches a compelling lesson. It takes a troubled nation made up of men poured out like wine from vessel to vessel to produce saints whose life oozes sweet-smelling savour to God. Israel, for example, moved from Canaan to Egypt and back within a space of 500 years. The result is patriarchs whom we have as trailblazers today experiences rely on for encouragement on our pilgrimage. God also discovered that Moab was well-settled, and his sediments of impurity settled with him since she was not poured out. They could not call God their refuge since they reside in scapes so lushly positioned, while Israel meandered in and out of famines and wars, mostly to realign them. We may well say the beloved of the Lord is His chastened. Only the distressed can find his way back to God – the last resort – typically the first point of call. Only the cracks in man’s broken heart can cause him to consider his life’s track differently. And by a suitable retrospective and futuristic thought, consider God as an option. God has always had His way of separating His beloved on the earth by suffering and specific deprivation. None of the patriarchs could boast of normality in everyday life. Should we be alien to the acquaintance of this tribe of men and claim their identity?
Jeremiah, one of the most penitent sufferers of ages, concluded that God does not willingly afflict His children. Going by the spiritually unfruitful convenience of the Moabites and the saint-producing inconveniences of Israel. God has no option but to bring many sons to glory through Him who was perfected through suffering. God has found no other veritable tool for shading the man in a walk with Him from contamination by the world but by jealously subjecting such to needful denials. So that in His wants, He may find the Lord as a shepherd, so that in his valleys of fears and despair, he may experience God’s use of rod and staff, unknown to others. Such will hunger and by this dire need know the value of green pastures when the Lord so supply it. The rivers of living water would restore the soul of a man if he were thirsty. God never causes his children needles tears. A servant is not greater than his Master. Said, Jesus. Thus, it is thus only valid that the stamp of His life – trouble – may mark our way that the rewards He obtained as an overcomer may also be shared by us.
Furthermore, God’s ownership of cattle on a thousand hills holds out a significance. It connotes that there has arisen no such need in all of humanity yet that can gulp up the wealth of God’s material resources. He has a buffer should mankind’s need out-surge its normal levels. But He that sent Jesus from heaven towering far millions of miles above the topmost hills on which these resources are sited. He sent the sinless to die for the sin-soiled. Shouldn’t He have flooded the earth with resources to quell neediness in man instead? Does this not hint at His knowledge of man’s inherent problem and tells of His sense of value for man? For if He did not withhold His only Son from us, how irreplaceable are we among the creatures! If He did not spare Him from death for us, how endless are the solutions made available to mankind’s problems in that singular act! One will only wonder how God would be so generous with his costliest and be frugal with meeting our needs – this is blackmail.
Making gains of spiritual needs
Faith or Riches
“So that the proof of your faith being much more precious than gold which perishes though tested may be found to result in praise, glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
The object being proved here is our faith hence its superiority to all imaginable perishable Gold’s worth. When Jesus shall appear, our faith is comparable to pearls that will adorn His crown. Therefore, He will not neglect the littlest faith as every pearl – little or large – complementarily embellish or beautify Noble’s crown.
Furthermore, in the establishment of faith’s worth, one other issue stares us in the face. When Peter was penning this letter, Gold was a central measure of wealth within kingdoms with validity for financial transactions that mimics the dollar of nowadays. It then holds that the verse under consideration compares faith to riches. Or immateriality to materiality. Or seen to the unseen. Brother Peter places faith and money on the same scale and argues in favour of faith over riches. An argument in favour of confidence in God is its durability. Whereas Gold may perish on a sea voyage due to boisterous billows, faith rises man and walks Him on the same sea – the writer is a testimony to this. Gold may also be lost to earthquakes, but trust in God will assure a man in whom it resides so that he replies, saying, “Even if the earth be removed beneath me, I shall not be moved.” When faith is interposed in the circumstances, we can be assured that God would is so joyful. He is pleased because men will usually scuttle and scheme to show their wits in a complicated matter. But in us, there exists this calmness that reposes in God, demonstrating that He is in control of the circumstances. Money and Gold have an inherent downward pull towards what they are made of while faith is constantly shooting up, dissociating us from the earth while casting our gaze in the heavenly.
Riches or Poverty
Philippians 4:19 “God will meet your need according to the riches in glory in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:19 and 1 Pet 1:7 share a projection in common. One stresses that faith is glory-breeding and the former show that God meeting our needs also glorifies God. Therefore, we may imagine that God’s intention to provide our material needs measure on a glory weight scale. As our needs arise and we cast them where they belong, that is, on Jesus, He considers his options. Jesus assesses His alternatives by checking which of them works weightier glory Supplying our current needs to the spite of the devil? Or delaying their supply so that our faith may be deepened? Although God retains the right of choice, faith is required to access God with our needs and wait on Him while He sustains our demands.
It is God’s utmost pleasure to damn the devil with every act of ours. Thus, it’s God’s to determine which option deals a heavier blow to him. As a loving Father, God is happy to delay or meet our needs in the interest of our spiritual growth. Understanding this, we see how we can make spiritual gains from our needs.
Who has God chosen to be rich in faith? Is it not the spiritually and/or materially poor? In other words, God enriches our precious lives lived in faith through scarcity, delay, or denial. Israel as a nation, for instance, only brought faith to bear when in dire need or in desperate desire for help. Israel’s oppression by the Midianites met by Gideon’s conquest with lamps and torches, not spears nor torches, is a classic example. No wonder many in the class of Gideon died, yet their acts speak to us to date with highly challenging pitches.
More than being eventually needy, the fear of people’s impression of us being in need is deep-cutting. Especially the image likely perceived by the recipients of our witnesses. Would they grant an audience to a popper? Perhaps, because persistent poverty preceded a permanent pronounced position of penury. And it will not be long before we are addressed by our states.
Nevertheless, it is encouraging to know that God will supply our needs according to the riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Connoting our lack is best met in how they glorify Christ the most: immediate or delayed. Additionally, a calculated delay is a good booster of investment performance, primarily when investing parties hold adherence to their investing terms in high regard. Gainfully though painful is it when we like the Psalmist can say, through needful delay and poverty, “It is good that I was afflicted. Because the end product – who we shall become character-wise, compared to what we are now – shall be distinctively better. For a character is a thing whose end can be “better than its beginning…" And through this guided withdrawal of some earthly highly coveted benefits, can our proud spirit become patient (Eccl. 7:8).
Will the knowledge of our states skip the understanding of men? No, so I believe.
- Men may take up songs of reproach against you, yet you will find so great a solace which you wouldn’t have known if not for the current lack.
- Your former fetching friends may sever their ties with you. Nearer to God is a man in solitarily forsaken.
- Many around you may fear the future and having their forestalling measures, wonder about your perceived passiveness, and ultimately take it for foolishness. Fear of the unknown effaces in the presence of God’s guided lack. “For He who is on the ground,” says John Bunyan, “need fear no fall.” What a glorious way our needs pave into God’s rest (See Hebrews 4:11)
- Men may withhold their possessions from you. You will find God using animals – the insignificant – to fend for His.
- Men may pity you. You will, in turn, find inspiration for compassion for their lack of repentance. Since losing one’s soul is a cordial neighbour of gaining the whole world – if it could be possible gained.
- You will lose friends and gain a Brother and His siblings born for these days of adversity.
- You will find God belittling boisterous billows in ordinary issues of life that cause men to despair by speaking to them softly.
Therefore, embrace riches when they come. In lack, do not grumble, for you need a sight as God’s to see the potential embedded in drought and the enrichment its experience affords the believer. When our view begins to be transformed to seeing as He sees, we will no longer call the bread of guided delay a stone nor His fish presented as lack a scorpion. Indeed, if the wicked fathers of this world give good gifts to their children, would they be righteous more than God? No, suffering is another means well-meant to deliver to us the best of all spiritual riches.
