Job, in the Old Testament, is a classic example of the struggle between suffering and hope after he lost his wealth, his children, and his health.
Job’s “friends” blamed it on his sin, but Job responded with faith and integrity. Then God restored everything many times over and confirmed his — and our — hope in God’s ultimate justice.
Paul writes in Romans.
“I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
— Romans 8: 18
Hope reminds us that suffering is temporary and eternal glory awaits.
Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, who sold him into slavery in Egypt where his faith in a loving God raised him to a place second only to the reigning Pharaoh of his time. Then, he used that position to save the brothers who’d betrayed him as well as the rest of the world from famine.
Paul adds in Romans:
“We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose.”
— Romans 8: 28
A purpose assures us God is at work in all things for good. It gives us a direction and a path to follow.
Corrie ten Boom in her book, “The Hiding Place,” tells the story of her family’s attempts to protect Jews from the Nazi holocaust during World War II. They were eventually discovered, arrested, and sent to concentration camps where her sister Betsy died and she endured horrific conditions and witnessed unimaginable suffering as an expression of pure evil.
But Corrie survived to tell her story in a book and a speaking tour of the world. It was never a message of suffering, but and reconciliation.
And finally, Paul adds in Romans:
“For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below-there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
— Romans 8: 38, 39
Love confirms our hope, our faith, and our purpose, and God’s eternal love for us.
Another holocaust survivor, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, wrote the book “Man’s Search for Meaning” as the story of his experience in a concentration camp. As a trained observer of others, he’d noticed the prisoners who found a sense of purpose were far more likely to survive in the midst of horrific and unimaginable suffering.
Those who remembered what it meant to be human were more likely to find hope and meaning even in the most dehumanizing circumstances.
That’s one of the messages we experience at Easter. If you can remember “who you are,” “whose you are,” and “why you are” you can not only survive, but thrive.
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga. With wife, Mary Ella, they are missionaries to the Navajo Reservation.
