When you suffer, it keeps you running to God every moment for help. Suffering is brought into your life to push you deeper into trust in Christ and his strength.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and does God think I can be trusted?
Well, that’s an interesting question. And I’ve thought about it many times, especially when friends look at me in this wheelchair, knowing what I go through every day with quadriplegia, and they’ll say, “Joni, God knows he can trust you with suffering. I mean, he knows your character. He knows you’re a strong person and that you’ll respond well to hardships.” Now, they mean it as an encouragement, and I’m grateful for that; they don’t know too many people, they say, who can smile their way through a severe disability and chronic pain. They’ll say, “Joni, God can trust you with your suffering.”
Now, I appreciate that, honestly. And I get what they’re trying to say. But the idea of God thinking that I can be trusted with suffering – with anything – well, I believe the very opposite is true. I think God entrusts me with suffering because he knows very well I cannot be trusted. I know that sounds weird, but you see, I fully accept the fact that I am the least likely candidate to handle suffering well. I know all too well how weak and stubborn I can be, how peevish, moody, irritable. I will tell the Lord, “God, I don’t want this; I can’t do this.” It is so hard. It’s hard because I am so weak and needy. And so I tell my friends, I say, “Look, I am not the strong person you think I am. I am a woman of Psalm 16, ‘I have no good apart from the Lord.’ I mean, I agree with Jesus in John 15, without him I can do nothing.” So, can I be trusted to bear this burden? No. But Jesus can be trusted. Jesus is the strong one. Jesus is the one with real character. Psalm 68 says of Jesus, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up.” And then it says, and I love these words, “God is our salvation.”
And so, this is why I run to God daily – hourly – for help! “Oh, Jesus, help me. I can’t do this. I cannot face one more day of quadriplegia. I cannot handle one more hour of this chronic, razor-sharp pain. I cannot hold on to hope while the shadow of cancer lingers!” Friend, when I go to God with that attitude, he lavishes grace upon grace on me. Why does he do it? Because he knows I do not trust in myself. I trust in him. I recognize my weakness and I reach out for a double handful of his strength.
You know, looking at the Bible, one of David’s finest moments came at an unlikely spot on the biblical map called Ziklag. At this point, he was an outlaw warrior, leading a rough and rowdy band of fugitives, rebels, malcontents. And one day, after returning from a raid, David and his men found that their own town had been rifled, raided, and burned to the ground. Worst yet, their wives and children had been kidnapped. First Samuel says that David and his men “wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” But that quickly, David’s rag-tag army turned against him, and they talked about stoning him to death. And then the text says, “But David strengthened himself in the Lord.” And then he rose from his knees with courage restored. And it’s exactly what I do in my weakness; I trust God to give me strength. I reach for a big handful of hope from heaven and my courage is restored. Friend, if you desire the favor of God today, do not trust in yourself. Be swift to appreciate how lacking you’d be apart from Christ. Trust me on this: if you want the strength of God, be faster than anyone else to realize how feeble and needy you are without Jesus. So, never trust in your own strength. Boast in your weakness and trust in Christ.
© Joni and Friends