Cedar N' Steel

Over the past week, several things have brought my attention to Satan, to darkness, to evil. The first came in a song lyric from North Point InsideOut “Death was Arrested” where the singer croons “Our Savior displayed on a criminal’s cross, Darkness rejoiced as though Heaven had lost.” This visual, of Satan in his lair smiling and laughing at his supposed triumph brings to mind in the beginning of Job where Satan asks God’s permission to afflict the righteous Job to test Job’s faith, and God allows it. Satan takes Job’s family, his possessions, and his health, leaving him nothing but his life and Job is stricken with grief, no end in sight. Satan gleefully rejoices in his supposed prize.

The Bible, and today’s world, are full of stories of people stricken with poverty, illness, disability, death of loved ones, natural disasters, wars with neighboring tribes, terrorism, etc. The most significant of all, indeed the most significant event in all of human history was the Crucifixion. The worst things that could ever happen to a person: mockery, severe battery and abuse, slander, unjust trial, death penalty for false accusations, all happened to the greatest, wisest, kindest, most loving, perfect human to ever live, not to mention he was actually God in human flesh. And God, in all his power and wisdom and love, did nothing about it. Even when Jesus cried out “Father, why have you forsaken me?” God remained silent and let it happen. “Light of the world by darkness slain” (in Christ Alone).

Our human hearts and minds ask “Why?” Why did God allow all the suffering in the Bible, and in today’s world, when the Bible itself attests to His perfect love, perfect goodness, perfect strength, perfect wisdom; to the fact that He could’ve stopped it all in a heartbeat and restored everything to Heavenly standards in a finger snap. We humans try, with our arrogant yet limited intellectual capacity, to answer this question. We say it means there is no God, or that if there is one, he must not be as powerful as Christians and the Bible claim. He must not be stronger than Satan after all, since Satan seems to keep winning.

I chuckle when I hear these passionate arguments against God. As if you or I or anyone in the entire world are smart enough to completely understand God’s wisdom. God states quite clearly in Isaiah 55:9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” I don’t care how many times you’ve read the Bible, how many degrees you have, how many scientific experiments you’ve conducted, how many books you’ve written, or whether you are the biggest atheist or the Pope. You and I will never fully understand God. We can never fully understand His reasoning for allowing some things, and intervening in others. He reveals Himself in small ways to people as they go through life, through various circumstances and interactions, especially to those who seek Him. However, for every person it’ll always come down to a choice: Do you trust Him or don’t you? Suffering always brings us to that choice.

To suffer is to feel pain or distress, to sustain loss, to endure something unpleasant. What suffering has happened or is happening in your life? Do you perceive it as momentous or just annoying? In my experience, it doesn’t matter how big or small. Suffering is suffering and needs to be dealt with. Avoiding the emotions and consequences of suffering delays the healing process. We all find our own coping mechanisms for dealing with pain and suffering, some destructive like alcohol, drugs, material possessions, and excessive exercise, and some more tame like reading inspiring books, listening to inspiring music, and spending time with good friends and family. I’d like to give you a glimpse into my biggest coping mechanism for dealing with my inability to bear children, because I believe it’s a mechanism every person can use for any manner of suffering they experience.

I said I’ve been thinking a lot about Satan lately, what he’s currently doing in the world, and the way I’ve been thinking about him is in the form of a question “What does Satan want me to do?” You all are probably bug-eyed right now wondering what the heck I’m talking about. As an unashamed Christian, aren’t I supposed to only ponder what God wants me to do and focus on Him? In fact, I think it’s God Himself, by giving me glimpses into His interactions with Satan through songs I’ve heard, books I’ve read (Case for Faith, Screwtape Letters), Bible studies I’ve done (Priscilla Shirer’s Armor of God study), and things I’ve felt and witnessed in my own life, who’s given me this new perspective of not only “What does God want me to do,” but also “What does Satan want me to do.”

Satan has an idea how we should respond to suffering and a lot of the time we just go right along with his plans. In the midst of the pain of another miscarriage, the discomfort of another medical procedure, another drug regimen that ruins my body, another doctor without answers, another failed attempt to start a family, I have two choices. I can let Satan have his victory, let darkness overtake my soul, feel self-pity and shame at my body’s inability to do what it’s designed for, feel anxiety and worry about my future, feel anger, despair, fear, and sorrow at the seemingly endless road ahead, and let all these things paralyze me into inaction and sinful behavior. That’s what Satan wants. He gleefully waits to claim his prize in me as he keeps battering me with new trials within my infertility.

Or…I can say “Screw You Satan! You can’t have me!” I can take this suffering, this awful thing that has happened to me, and USE IT. See it as a great opportunity instead of a great burden. As I said, Satan expects us to react a certain way to suffering. Find out what that is (usually what our feelings are telling us to do), and call on God’s strength through prayer to help you do the exact opposite. Allow yourself to feel everything that comes with suffering, but resolve immediately to grow closer to God through it, not farther away. You may think I’m crazy to say all my miscarriages can be used for good, but that’s exactly what the Bible says. And that’s exactly how we defeat Satan. By turning every bad thing that happens to us completely on it’s head into something beautiful and glorious and good.

“Another miscarriage? Screw you Satan, I’m gonna tell everyone I come in contact with how much I love God and how He’s comforted me and brought peace to a situation you intended for chaos and anger.” “Another tough diagnosis or procedure? Screw You Satan, I will take up my cross daily, rely on God’s strength to persevere, and carry on until He sends me on a different path.” “You’ve taken away my ability to have kids? Screw you Satan, I’m gonna adopt every poor soul out there I can get my hands on and bring them up to know God. You won’t hinder my desire to raise up warriors for Christ even if we don’t share DNA.” “Another pregnancy announcement and baby shower invite? Screw you Satan, I’m gonna shower those babies and their precious mamas with gifts and love and joy because I want to reflect God’s selfless unconditional love to them, especially those who don’t know Him.” The way we believers react to our personal suffering is our biggest weapon against Satan, our biggest tool for evangelism.

There you have it. My coping mechanism for this entire infertility saga. It’s taken 2 years, lots of setbacks, lots of prayer, lots of reading and writing and listening to puzzle out what God wants. And what He wants, is for me to pay attention to Satan’s attacks, pray for God’s help in every situation cataclysmic or mundane, and then use whatever happens to me to glorify Him and grow His kingdom. The smaller goal of growing our family pales in comparison to the overall goal of growing His kingdom. Telling more people about God, sharing what He reveals to me about Himself with others. Most importantly, modeling what a true Christian looks like. Not perfect and not sinless, but very aware of my imperfection, my sin, my failures, truly desiring to change, and completely relying on God’s actions through the Cross and through daily training to bring about that change from the inside out.

Most importantly, where Satan says this infertility journey is hopeless, God reminds me to hope for my future because He promises good things in Romans 8:28, where He says “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Even if those good things don’t happen until “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day–and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:7-8). Written from his prison cell knowing he was about to be executed, Paul didn’t necessarily experience good things at this point in his life, but he trusted that his faith through adversity would be rewarded in Heaven. The only thing I can do while suffering is pray to God in all situations, rely on His perfect strength and wisdom and love by daily re-affirming my commitment to Him, use the circumstances in my life for Him, and remain firm in faith and hopeful for Heaven.

God knew. God knew when He allowed Satan to strike Job, that Job would remain faithful to Him, proclaiming God’s glory despite his friends protestations, and God restored Job twice as much as he lost for his faith. God knew when He allowed David into the lion’s den and against Goliath that David would rely on God, not his own strength, and God’s power through David would defeat his formidable foes and lead him to become King. God knew when He lead the Israelites out of Egypt, that they would encounter an endless sea, and demonstrated His majesty when He parted it for them and then washed away their enemies. From them He created a great nation that ultimately lead to a Savior for us all.

And God knew when He allowed Jesus to go to the cross and die such a horrible death that in three days Christ would arise, securing freedom for all that trust Him. As Lee Strobel puts it in The Case for Faith, “He has demonstrated how the very worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the world ended up resulting in the very best thing that has ever happened in the history of the world…The death of God himself on the cross. At the time, nobody saw how anything good could ever result from this tragedy. And yet God foresaw that the result would be the opening of heaven to human beings.” A few sentences later, Strobel writes “if the ultimate evil can result in the ultimate good–it can happen elsewhere, even in our own individual lives.”

“Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave He rose again!…He stands in victory.” (In Christ Alone) “But then Jesus arose with our freedom in hand” (Death was Arrested). These are the lyrics immediately following Satan’s mistaken victory. God can bring good from your situation, as He continually does with mine, as He did with Job, and the Israelites, and David, and Jesus Christ, and countless other stories from the Bible and from our world. Look for those opportunities to say “Screw You, Satan” and highlight that goodness. Trust that He’s perfectly wise, knowing better than us the reason for our present season as a single thread in a large elaborate tapestry He’s created. Trust that He perfectly loves us, not content to leave us the sinful, self-loving, idolatrous creatures we are when we enter into relationship with Him. And for those who don’t know Him or care, trust that He’s always trying to reach you because He loves you just as much as He loves His followers. Trust that He has good things planned for you. Even if we can’t see them yet, God knows.