Suffering Wisely and Well E-Book

Eric Ortlund

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Why Suffering Exists: God's Purpose for Pain in the Life of Job and throughout Scripture Why does God allow suffering? The pain of suffering can be overwhelmingly mysterious, but the Bible does provide answers. Throughout Scripture, God allows trials in order to accomplish specific purposes in the lives of his people. When faced with suffering they experience spiritual growth; repentance from sin; or, as in the Old Testament story of Job, the chance to demonstrate devotion to God in the face of inexplicable agony. In Suffering Wisely and Well, Eric Ortlund explores different types of trials throughout Scripture, revealing the spiritual purpose for each and reassuring readers with God's promise of restoration. The majority of the book focuses on Job, one of the most well-known yet misunderstood stories of suffering. Ortlund thoughtfully analyzes the text chapter by chapter, including the doubt of Job's friends, God's response to Job's questions, and the meaning behind important imagery including references to Leviathan and Behemoth. Suffering Wisely and Well shows readers how to deepen their relationship with God during painful experiences in their own lives and how to comfort others who are hurting. - Explores Lament and Redemption in Scripture: Helps readers understand how to interpret suffering from a Christian perspective - Applicable: Each chapter ends with a "What Have We Learned?" summary - Biblical Advice on Grief and Support: Teaches Christians how to avoid blame or legalism when addressing the suffering of others

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“I have lived long enough with suffering to know that it doesn’t come in ‘one size fits all.’ It is messy and confusing. Yes, God always has specific purposes for the kinds of sufferings that he sends our way, and in his remarkable book, Eric Ortlund helps us understand the various trials we encounter and what makes each so tailor-fit for us. Want to know how not to waste suffering? Here’s a book that will help you discern its character and align yourself with God’s purposes in adversity. What you have in your hands is a useful tool to help you sort through the complex and often frustrating world of affliction. I’m passing this book on to others, and I would encourage you to do the same!”

Joni Eareckson Tada, Founder, Joni and Friends International Disability Center

“The book of Job gives us deep and inexhaustibly bewildering insights into the power and wisdom of God in Christ. I have been humbled and instructed by this fresh, scholarly, and pastoral study. Ortlund’s writing is replete with thought-provoking arguments always set in the context of an insightful love for people. I warmly recommend this book.”

Christopher Ash, Writer in Residence, Tyndale House; author, Trusting God in the Darkness and Job: The Wisdom of the Cross

“If Job scares you, this is the book for you. If you feel you know Job so well you don’t have to read it again, this book will change your mind. If you avoid Job because the concepts are too hard, this book will help you through it. Eric Ortlund combines knowledge with wisdom and wisdom with patience as he guides us through this mysterious and meaning-filled word from our God.”

Russell Moore, public theologian, Christianity Today

“Suffering is a confounding matter that at some point will seemingly interrupt the plans we have for our lives. Eric Ortlund’s new book doesn’t try to explain away our suffering but helps us think through biblical categories of suffering. The first chapter on varieties of suffering is worth the price of the book. This study of the life of Job highlights that our relationship with God must be greater than anything this world has to offer, because eventually these earthly blessings will pass. Whether you are suffering or you know someone who is, pick up this book, highlight every page, and be transformed by the life-changing power of God through the book of Job.”

Dave Furman, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Church of Dubai; author, Being There and Kiss the Wave

Suffering Wisely and Well

Suffering Wisely and Well

The Grief of Job and the Grace of God

Eric Ortlund

Suffering Wisely and Well: The Grief of Job and the Grace of God

Copyright © 2022 by Eric Ortlund

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2022

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7648-5 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7651-5 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7649-2 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7650-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ortlund, Eric Nels, author.

Title: Suffering wisely and well : the grief of Job and the grace of God / Eric Ortlund.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021023078 (print) | LCCN 2021023079 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433576485 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433576515 (epub) | ISBN 9781433576492 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433576508 (mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. Job—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Suffering—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Suffering—Biblical teaching.

Classification: LCC BS1415.52 .O7575 2022 (print) | LCC BS1415.52 (ebook) | DDC 223/.106—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023078

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023079

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-01-06 01:44:05 PM

To my mother, Jani, who means more to me than I can express, who reads everything I send her, and who, as I have grown, has become one of my closest friends.

Contents

Preface

1  Suffering Wisely: Varieties of Suffering in the Bible and Our Response

2  The All-Surpassing Worth of Knowing the Lord (Job 1–2)

3  Job’s Torturers, the Psychology of Legalism, and the Beauty of Gospel Friendship (Job 3–37)

4  Patiently Listening to Job’s Protest and His Faith (Job 3–37)

5  Job’s Limits, God’s Goodness, and the Continuing Presence of Evil (Job 38:1–40:5)

6  Behemoth, Leviathan, and God’s Defeat of Evil (Job 40:6–41:34)

7  Job’s Worship and Restoration (Job 42)

Concluding Reflections

General Index

Scripture Index

Preface

As Christians, we are told in no uncertain terms that we will suffer—it is through many tribulations that we enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22)—and we should not be surprised by fiery trials, for it is no strange thing for a Christian to undergo them (1 Pet. 4:12). What might be more difficult to see, however, is that the Bible portrays our sufferings as Christians as taking different forms. We suffer in different ways and for different reasons; our afflictions as God’s children are not uniform. Nor are God’s expectations for us always the same. Every kind of hardship should, of course, be met with steady and hopeful faith in God, looking to God’s promise to bring good out of everything (Rom. 8:28) and fully to redeem his broken creation (Rev. 21:1–3). Nevertheless, the Bible’s portrayal of the Christian’s suffering reveals that God has different expectations for us in different kinds of trials and makes promises distinct to each. This means that part of suffering well as a Christian involves wise discernment about the particular kind of trial we are undergoing and responding appropriately.

Suffering is a vast topic—there are so many potentially helpful and biblical things to say about it. This book will not try to say all of them. Rather, in the first chapter, we will focus specifically on the Bible’s portrayal of different kinds of suffering that fall on Christians. We will examine distinguishing marks of each, what God wants from his saints in different kinds of trials, and what promises he makes to us in the different sorts of ordeals that he allows. Of course, you cannot talk about tribulation in the Bible without turning to the book of Job, the one book in all of Scripture most obviously concerned with suffering. But we will spend much more time on Job than on the other kinds of suffering portrayed in the Bible: after laying out different kinds of suffering in the first chapter, the rest of this book is exclusively devoted to the book of Job. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the book of Job reveals, in a way unlike any other book in all of Scripture, a unique kind of ordeal that God sometimes allows to befall his children, a dimension of suffering both intense and inexplicable, which has nothing to do with sin and (strange as it might sound) nothing to do with growing us spiritually.

A second reason for spending so much time on Job is that the book of Job is not very well understood in our context. Having taught and preached the book of Job in both academic and pastoral settings for more than a decade, my sense is that most Christians are mostly or entirely unfamiliar with this book. To my mind, this is tragic, because Job’s story is extremely common. I have lost count of how many times people have approached me after I have taught or preached part of the book and told me they know someone whose life reflects Job’s story—or that their own does. Even more poignant is the mingled surprise and clarity that these Christians express as the book of Job helps them to understand their predicament. I’ve also been told more times than I can count about the “help” that other Christians offer modern-day Jobs, which usually only deepens their bewilderment and pain. (We resemble Job’s friends more than we realize!) God does not wait for us to have a perfect understanding of the Old Testament’s most difficult book before leading us into a time of pain and loss similar to Job’s. Christians need to be wise about this book if we are going to suffer well. In light of this, we’re going to spend most of our time on Job.

I want to make it clear from the beginning, however, that although this book is about suffering and especially focuses on the intensely painful and bewildering quality of a Job-like ordeal, it will not be all doom and gloom. Strange as it might sound, the ending of the book of Job is one of the most joyful interludes in the entire Bible. As we’ll see, God expresses a profound joy in creation when he speaks to Job, all without being glib or unrealistic in the slightest about the chaos still loose in his world, a chaos Job has experienced with such terrible intimacy. Job, for his part, heartily repents of his former criticisms of God and expresses his utter comfort and reconciliation to his heavenly friend in a new vision of God (42:1–6). And Job expresses this comfort before he is restored (42:7–17)—before anything in his life gets better. The joy and comfort inhabiting the final chapters of Job are really quite amazing—and they are an intrinsic part of a Job-like ordeal. Job is not the last saint to be utterly comforted, to rejoice in his very bones, while still on the ash heap.

My prayer is that just as the book of Job reveals to us one particular kind of ordeal that God sometimes allows his children to undergo, so also the profound quality of joy that ends the book would be yours as well. My prayer is that you, like Job, would be able to see God as a far more glorious Savior and friend than you had even thought, and you would be able to enter into depths with him you did not know existed (42:5). And I pray that you will be able to speak both wisely and well to Christian brothers and sisters who suffer, avoiding the false friendship of Job’s friends to which we easily succumb.

1

Suffering Wisely

Varieties of Suffering in the Bible and Our Response

This book is about suffering both wisely and well as a Christian. The order is important: one necessary prerequisite for suffering well involves wise discernment about the different kinds of trials we undergo, how to recognize them, and what response our Lord wants from us in each. Steadfast and patient hope in God is appropriate in every season, but there are certain times of trial in which repentance is necessary—and other times in which we absolutely should not change. God’s word helps us in this. It reveals to us distinct experiences of suffering, deepening us in wisdom as to their distinct reasons in God’s wise providence, what God expects from us in each, and what happy closure God has waiting as he enables us to endure. We will consider each of these in turn: how to recognize a certain kind of suffering, what God wants from us in each, and what hope we can have in each.

It is crucial to remember that the categories developed in this chapter are not airtight, and the last thing I want is for readers to trouble themselves wondering exactly where their own story fits. Life is messy, and we may not always be able to tell. At the same time, the sufferings of God’s people in both Testaments are varied. Some distinctions are possible, and they are helpful to have in mind as we think about our own Christian journey and reflect with others about theirs.

Suffering for Sin

Surely the most obvious explanation for the presence of pain in our lives in the present age is our own sin. God created the world good and very good (Gen. 1), and his original intention for us was unclouded intimacy with himself and each other in a paradisiacal garden named “Delight” (Gen. 2).1 Even if God provided his human creations with a nervous system that could react in pain for our own safety, sin and all its consequences in sorrow and loneliness and shame and heartache were no part of God’s original design for us as his creatures; God planned his world so that it could function maximally without any evil being present. Indeed, part of our tragedy after the fall is that our sin and its consequences recur so frequently and deeply in daily life that it hardly occurs to us to view our shame and sadness as intruders in God’s world.

It’s unwise to underestimate the profound depths of human misery that exist for no other reason than our sin and rebellion against God. Can you imagine how wildly happy you would be if you had never broken any of the Ten Commandments? If you had never set up some finite good in God’s place and asked it to fulfill you as only God can, only to have your heart broken later? Never lied or cheated or stolen, never been jealous or petty or arrogant—never hurt or slighted another human being? And can you imagine how the world would change if, irrespective of being converted, everyone merely obeyed the second half of the Ten Commandments? Natural disaster and disease might still exist, but war would be a thing of the past. Police would no longer be needed—and no more courts or jails or lawyers, as well. You would never have to lock your door at night or worry about your children being harmed. Imagine if you were safe with every other human being, both physically and relationally. It takes one’s breath away to imagine how much of the world’s misery is our own fault.

Biblically, sin always leads to suffering, and the suffering always outweighs whatever fleeting pleasure the sin gives. David mourns the wounds that “stink and fester” because of his own foolishness (Ps. 38:5); he is sick in his bones because of his sin (38:3). In Psalm 32, David narrates how his refusal to acknowledge his sin only deepened his anguish, until confession brought release (vv. 3–5). At another point in his life, David is in such pain under God’s judgment after his sin against Uriah and Bathsheba that he cannot even stand on his own two feet (2 Sam. 12:17). To give another example: the exile towers over the historical and prophetic books like an Everest as the greatest trauma of the Old Testament, but it happens only because of Israel’s betrayal of their covenant Lord and persistent devotion to the gods of the nations (2 Kings 17:7–23; 25:1–21).

There are so many other examples from the Bible of sin causing suffering that it’s hardly necessary to list more. Even if one is at times thankful for the connection—how much worse it would be if God left us contentedly alone in our sin, to wallow and sink forever!—a somber grief over our great sin and its tremendous consequences will sometimes be appropriate and not contrary to gospel hope. Even if it is happily not God’s final word to us, perhaps each Christian will have times when he echoes Moses’s agonized question: “Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?” (Ps. 90:11).

As profound a matter as this is, however, discerning whether suffering is due to sin (in your life or a friend’s) is simple. Have you sinned? The question here is not whether you are a sinner. Rather, if the normal course of your life has been interrupted by suffering, it is pastorally appropriate to ask the more specific question of whether your suffering has been allowed by God as a natural consequence of some specific and unrepented sin, with which your conscience has made peace or your memory has deliberately forgotten.

Given the way our sin and its consequences suffuse the whole of our experience, one might think that discerning whether a time of suffering is because of sin would be impossible to tell—or that we should assume all pain is (at least partially) our own fault. Instructively, however, the Bible never does this. It never guides us to say, “Humans are so profoundly and innately disposed to sin that we should assume that we are to blame (at least partially) for our suffering.” The great confessional prayers of Daniel (Dan. 9) and Nehemiah (Neh. 9) specifically identify what transgressions are the cause of the present distress of God’s people, instead of engaging in vague catch-alls about how we must have done something to deserve whatever we’re going through. Why else would Leviticus and Deuteronomy be so minutely specific about different kinds of sin and the defilement that results unless God wanted us to be clear about what is and isn’t a transgression? It’s also hard not to think of Jesus’s mild rebuke to the disciples who assume that either the blind man or his parents must have sinned to explain his disability (John 9:2). The Bible’s insistence on the universality and profundity of sin is meant to drive us to our Savior, not to guilt-trip us into assuming that personal tragedy is always our fault.

A vague and sourceless sense of guilt is inappropriate for a Christian, and if you are suffering and unaware of deliberate and unrepented sin in your life, you should prayerfully consider the other biblical categories explored in this chapter. But when pain brings unrepented sin to mind, God’s only expectation is repentance: that we take God’s stand against ourselves, renounce our sin and cut ourselves off from it, offer ourselves afresh to God, amend our lives as best we can with God’s help, and “restore fourfold” to anyone we have harmed (Luke 19:8).

Such repentance is very precious to God. He promises to restore anyone who will repent to fullness of life and joy in his presence. Broken bones will rejoice (Ps. 51:8); the prodigal is embraced by his happy father and feasted and celebrated (Luke 15:22–24), and heaven itself explodes in joy (Luke 15:7). When God meets a penitent so joyfully, who could resist?

Spiritual Growth and Suffering

Suffering for sin is punitive: its goal is healing, but the pain involved counts as (not unloving) discipline from our heavenly Father. But as often as the Bible shows us sin leading to suffering, there are many other examples of suffering deepening us as Christians—suffering that is not punitive but a catalyst for growth. Paul connects suffering with endurance, endurance with character, and character with hope, such that we can rejoice in trials that might otherwise break us (Rom. 5:3–4); James encourages the same joy for the same reasons (James 1:2–4). We see this truth at work in poignant and powerful ways in Joseph’s life. Joseph is betrayed by his brothers and narrowly avoids being murdered only so they can cut a profit by selling him as a slave (Gen. 39:26–27). Then he languishes for two years in prison after a completely false accusation (39:20; 41:1). But instead of embittering him, the insecure and boastful teenager of Genesis 37 is transformed, using his God-given position of power and influence to bless his brothers instead of exacting revenge (Gen. 50:15–21).2 Joseph struggles mightily to forgive his brothers, of course. But the change in him from Genesis 37 to Genesis 50 is still as striking as it is moving. And it does not happen without Joseph suffering profoundly.

Even here, of course, the distinction between suffering for sin and suffering for spiritual growth is not absolute. For example, although the exile is almost always shown to be just punishment for Israel’s idolatry (e.g., Jer. 5:19), Isaiah once describes it as God’s refining of his people (Isa. 48:9–10). And I suppose there would be no need for suffering that produces character if there were no sin in the world. Nevertheless, distinguishing these two kinds of affliction is valid. Joseph’s suffering is not presented in the same way as Israel being sent into exile, nor the unfortunate fate of the Corinthian man being handed over to Satan (1 Cor. 5:4–5) as that hardship which toughens us up in Christ’s service (Heb. 12:4–11).

God’s expectations for us are also distinct: not a renunciation of past sins, but rather, assured of our undeserved forgiveness and favor with God, that we would “make every effort” in suffering to add to our faith virtue, to our virtue knowledge, to our knowledge steadfastness, to steadfastness godliness, and to godliness brotherly affection and love (2 Pet. 1:5–7). According to Romans 5:3 and James 1:2, we make these efforts joyfully, because we know of the great and precious gift that God gives us through them: spiritual maturity. John Owen wisely asks in this regard whether we have received “any eminent mercy, protection, deliverance” that we have not “improve[d] in due manner,” or whether we have been “exercised with any affliction without laboring for the appointed end of it.”3 If that “appointed end” of your suffering is unclear, pray, and the same God who has allowed your ordeal will reveal to you his purposes in it and what good thing he is working into you through it. For he is indeed working something good and very good: not just moral improvement, but perfection in Christ’s image (2 Cor. 3:17; 4:16–18). He is making you a Christian in complete armor, to your perfect joy and his great glory.

Persecuted for Christ’s Sake

Even a superficial reading of the New Testament will show how common a theme persecution is. The apostles are frequently jailed for preaching the gospel (e.g., Acts 12:1–19). Part of Paul’s boast in the Thessalonian church is the Thesssalonians’ steadfastness amidst persecution (2 Thess. 1:4). Paul himself was “often near death,” whipped, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, in constant and wearying danger (2 Cor. 11:23–28). Nor is this limited to the New Testament: David was mocked for his devotion to the Lord in the midst of his suffering (Ps. 22:6–8), and those who trust in God are hated without cause elsewhere in the Psalms (e.g., 34:21; 35:19; cf. 139:21–22). The Bible treats this as a kind of suffering separate from fatherly discipline for sin—the persecution of the early church was entirely different from (for example) God using Assyria to judge his people’s idolatry and injustice (Isa. 10:1–19). It is also different from that affliction that God uses to grow us in Christlikeness: although God may have used it for their spiritual good, the many ways that Paul and the other apostles suffered in Christ’s service is never tied in Acts to personal spiritual growth, but rather has its genesis in human hostility and resistance to God and his gospel (Acts 4:24–31).

God’s expectation for his people when persecuted is that they would remain unflinching and steadfast in their testimony and good works (Rev. 2:10), unsurprised (John 15:20; 1 Pet. 4:12–13), loving and nonretaliatory (Matt. 5:44), trusting God to redress any wrongs suffered (2 Thess. 1:6–8), and knowing that any earthly loss is more than made up for in heavenly blessing (Heb. 10:34). We can, in turn, expect from God a glory and joy far surpassing the worst of what we endure in this life, tasted now in anticipation of its final fulfillment in the new creation (Rom. 8:18; 2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Pet. 1:3–7).

I hope no one will think, in speaking briefly about suffering for Christ’s sake, that I am treating it as a light matter. My only goal is to help us discern different kinds of ordeals, and terrible as persecution can be, it is hardly difficult to recognize.

Wandering in the Wilderness

Exodus 15–17 and Numbers 11–14 narrate Israel’s wilderness wanderings as a particular time of hardship and deprivation, as well as a time of particular intimacy with God. This overlaps somewhat with our first category above, in which suffering is explained in relation to sin, because although the beginning of their wilderness journey was not due to any sin, Israel’s stubborn refusal to trust God’s promises and take the promised land leads to forty years of wandering in the wilderness as the exodus generation dies out (Num. 13–14). It overlaps somewhat with our second category, in which God allows suffering in order to grow us spiritually, because these wanderings were a humbling test from God, a kind of spiritual training meant to teach his people dependence in the midst of need:

You shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. (Deut. 8:2–5)

Despite these overlaps, Israel’s wilderness wanderings form a distinct chapter in their life with God: Israel’s relationship with God takes on a particular shape after the exodus as they journey toward the promised land. The same is true for new-covenant believers in two ways. In a global sense, the whole of our Christian lives reflects Israel’s history: we have been redeemed by a greater Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7) from slavery, not to a political power, but to those greater powers of sin and death (Col. 1:13–14), and we journey toward, not a particular geographical location in the Middle East, but toward the new creation and the new temple, where God’s presence is (2 Pet. 2:11; Rev. 21:1–3). This means that all of our lives as Christians count as a kind of wandering in the “wilderness” of this present evil age (1 Pet. 1:1, 17–18; Heb. 11:10, 15–16). But Christians can “wander in the wilderness” in smaller and more specific ways as well. God can so order our lives that we find ourselves needing to trust God through a desert-like experience for a certain time. Christians should not be surprised when God leads us into a kind of desert-like experience to teach us the life of faith.4

Surveying Exodus 15–17 and Numbers 11–14, I see three emphases in particular that define a desert-like experience and detail what God expects from us in it and what we can expect from him.

First, the desert is where we learn to trust God like we never have before. Of course our whole lives are spent trusting God—but God sometimes providentially orders our lives so that certain comforts and structures, perhaps not sinful in themselves, are taken from us, and we must depend on him directly and more deeply than before. Israel had to wait morning and evening for food in the desert (Ex. 16:12–13) and could not store it for the future (16:21) except to avoid work on the Sabbath (16:22–30). In the same way, God sometimes allows difficulty, instability, and a kind of lack to pervade our lives in order to train us in trusting him to provide for us day by day, when other normal resources are taken from us. A desert-like pilgrimage is one in which God miraculously sustains us outside of those normal structures by which he normally nourishes human life.5

Israel does not do this very well, of course (neither do we). A second characteristic of desert-like suffering is complaining about being redeemed by God and longing to return to Egypt. We first see this in Exodus 15. Israel has just been delivered from Egypt (Ex. 14) and is soon complaining in the wilderness (Ex. 15:22–24). God responds to their first complaint by presenting his people with a choice between trusting obedience that enjoys God’s abundant sustenance, or disobedience that suffers the plagues of Egypt (15:26–27). At this point in the narrative, of course, they have not yet claimed that it would have been better to have stayed slaves in Egypt—but they soon will (16:3). This means that the blunt alternative given to Israel in 15:26–27 is meant to quell, at the start of their journey, any idea of returning to Egypt. The only thing God’s people will find back in Egypt is the plagues. Egypt is, as it were, part of the old order of things, under God’s judgment; Israel cannot make their home there.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop Israel from complaining about how inconvenient it is for them that God saved them and deciding that reenslavement is preferable. No sooner do they depart from Mount Sinai (Num. 10) than the rabble among them get struck with a strong craving and infect the whole people with their complaint (Num. 11:4). It takes hardly any time at all for God’s people to misremember their time in Egypt, picturing their Egyptian taskmasters as waiters providing course after course of exquisite food (11:4–6). Ironies multiply: the food cost nothing (11:5) because they were slaves, and the manna they are tired of (11:6) actually sounds fairly appetizing and can be prepared in multiple ways (11:7–9). Since honey was the only sweetener in the ancient world, the fact that manna had a honey-like taste (Ex. 16:31) makes their complaint even more ridiculous.

We are hardly different. Having been liberated from the kingdom of death and spiritual darkness, our natural home and habitat, we forgo certain pleasures and securities as we journey toward that heavenly city which is our eternal home (Heb. 11:16). But it does not take many days of doing this for us to get struck with cravings for sins we used to indulge and to misremember what it was like to be dead in sins and trespasses. Israel actually goes so far as to call Egypt the land “flowing with milk and honey,” i.e., that perfect paradise of fulfillment and contentment (Num. 16:13). If we are honest, we sometimes look on our past sins the same way. As the desert trains us in trusting God daily, it also teaches how little we actually do trust God, how counterintuitive it is for us, and that we are not as mature in our faith as we thought. God uses the desert to toughen us up spiritually, to grow us in self-denial, and deepen us in our renunciation of the sins we once enjoyed in Egypt.

Sometimes suffering as a Christian involves a terrible sense of God’s absence, as it does in psalms of lament (to which we will soon turn). This is, however, not the case with desert-like experiences. A third characteristic of a sojourn in the desert is that it is a time of intense and sometimes uncomfortable intimacy with God. This was Israel’s experience: at Mount Sinai, a terrifying darkness and cloud and tremendous thunder and lightning (Ex. 19:16), a voice speaking from the midst of the fire (Deut. 4:12), an overwhelming presence that they could not bear (Ex. 20:19). And God has wonderful, overwhelming, not exactly comfortable encounters waiting for new-covenant believers whom he leads into the desert, where the skyscrapers and entertainments of Egypt cannot block out that numinous, terrifying beauty that calls us near and embraces us. It is in the desert that we see the glory of God. In Hosea, the desert becomes the place where we fall in love with our spiritual husband all over again as he speaks to us tenderly, alluringly (Hos. 2:14), betrothing us to himself in righteousness and justice, in love and mercy, and in faithfulness (2:19–20). The desert is the place where we know the Lord (2:20) more beautifully than we ever had before.

The desert is a time of mingled hunger and fullness, deprivation and intimacy with God. What he wants from us in the desert is trust in his daily sustenance; what he promises is deeper intimacy with him, sensuous views of his glory and beauty, a deeper enfolding in his embrace.

Lament and God-Forsakenness

Desert experiences tend to be characterized by an intimacy with God in the midst of hardship and uncertainty. By way of contrast, the psalms of lament reveal a different kind of experience in which God withdraws from the one who trusts him. These psalms bewail the absence of God, both in terms of personal experience and in terms of God’s activity on the psalmist’s behalf—God does not intervene for the psalmist in ways that the psalmist can legitimately expect him to. Because of this, the psalmists suffer internally, becoming sick and sorrowful. They suffer relationally as well: friendships with other saints are strained or broken (Ps. 55:12–15), and God’s enemies are able to advance their own agendas to the detriment of God’s people (Ps. 13:1–2).

Psalms of lament could fill a book by themselves, of course. Out of much that could be said about them, what is most pertinent to present purposes is to note that a lament is never caused by a mistake in the psalmist’s perception, and the resolution of lament never amounts to the psalmist realizing God was fully present and active all the time and the psalmist somehow misunderstood. Rather, a time of lament is one in which God, in some real but not full or ultimate sense, withdraws his presence from and action on behalf of saints who trust him, exposing them to sorrow, distress, and mockery—but only for a time. The great promise in psalms of lament is that God’s distance is always temporary. He always returns to the believer and reactivates his activity on their behalf. A further promise made in psalms of lament is that this reigniting of fellowship has a wonderful ripple effect beyond the sphere of the individual believer’s life: God restores the trusting lamenter so gloriously that others see and are drawn into worship along with the psalmist. In other words, the psalms of lament connect the restoration of the psalmist with an expansion of God’s kingdom and furthering of his purposes as God wins great praise for himself through the testimony and praise of the restored psalmist. As David says:

I waited patiently for the Lord;