A Foothold in Suffering

Psalm 73

2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;

    I had nearly lost my foothold.

3 For I envied the arrogant

    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

13 Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure

    and have washed my hands in innocence.

14 All day long I have been afflicted,

    and every morning brings new punishments.

16 When I tried to understand all this,

    it troubled me deeply

17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;

    then I understood their final destiny.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?

    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,

    but God is the strength of my heart

    and my portion forever.

28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.

    I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge;

    I will tell of all your deeds.

Covid-19 can feel like the latest in a long string of divine failures, layered on top of generations of sickness, war, hunger, loneliness, graft, greed, abuse of power, racism, loneliness and suffering. And for generations, people have been angry at God - angry about how their lives are going; and if not that, angry about how the world is going.

 I thought I had overcome this anger. Then my daughter arrived. And with new eyes I now grieve the world anew. I dread watching her inevitable suffering. And it forces me to realize I have largely used stoicism and fortitude to avoid confronting God on these issues - not faithfulness. I accept my suffering, but I cannot abide hers.

I think we should be angry. It’s the most loving response to observing suffering and one of the most honest responses to experiencing it. But how can we keep our foothold on the very God who allows it? 

 Tim Keller contends that one of great challenges in making sense of the world is our proximity to it. We are too close to our problems. Truth, he says, is a cube - not a square, it’s three-dimensional not two. So we must somehow gain perspective, circumnavigate, elevate. But how? 

The answer, the psalmist tells us, is to take our anger into the sanctuary of God - but what did he find there? He would have heard Scripture and seen ritual sacrifice - animal blood shed on repeat to wash the iniquity his own hand washing could not clean. It somehow brought him near enough to God to lift him above his despair – something to grab onto before his foot slipped. 

But God was not content to reveal himself in written word only. His incarnation is a three-dimensional revelation - Jesus Christ - who promised to destroy and rebuild the old sanctuary. Through his death and resurrection he achieved it. 

In His sanctuary we find these truths. The necessity of God’s death means we are more sinful than we ever dare imagine; his willingness to do so tells us we are more loved than we ever hazard to hope. His resurrection promises that restoration, not suffering will have the final word - that the pure in heart triumph, not the arrogant. This sanctuary somehow comforts us in our brokeness and fortifies us to serve our suffering world. And it also reminds us that we are the incarnation for others - God’s still small voice to the afflicted and His arms opened to the outcast. 

I pray that my daughter finds her refuge in his presence. I pray my own feet will not slip.