Taking Heart While Losing Health

BRYAN GAINES

If true and lasting happiness depends upon good health, we are all doomed! In contrast, if true and lasting happiness comes through dependence upon the Lord, we can flourish even while our flesh fades. Psalm 73:25–26 says, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

The experience of illness is a reminder of our frailty and our need to embrace God’s sovereignty (in His preparing us for eternity). Whether through something like an acute illness (such as pneumonia), a chronic illness (such as lupus), or a terminal illness (like advanced cancer), we must all deal with the reality of suffering in a fallen world. Given such a hard reality, how can we “consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18)?

As an apostle who came to know the powerful working of God’s grace in his ongoing affliction (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), Paul wrote:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:16–18)
Could it be that the fading of good health is a means God uses to prepare us for blessings far greater than the gift of good health? In 2 Corinthians 4:16–18, Paul indicates that the wasting away of our temporal bodies is used of the Lord in the present to prepare us for an incomparable, glorious future in His presence! To that end, Philip Yancy, in his book The Gift of Pain, wrote:  

Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort? Yet we bitterly complain about a lifetime that includes suffering when that lifetime is a mere hour of eternity . . . let the orchestra scratch out its last mournful warm-up note of discord before it bursts into the symphony.
In referring to 2 Corinthians 4:17–18, A.W. Pink gives this encouragement:

Afflictions are light when compared with what we really deserve. They are light when compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But perhaps their real lightness is best seen by comparing them with the weight of glory which is awaiting us.
With an eye on eternity in the midst of his own struggle with physical illness, David Van Vleit wrote: “God promises to release me from my depraved, decrepit, and made-of-dirt corpus and to change it into a brand-spanking-new, perfect, eternal body to house my holy, redeemed-in-Christ spirit.”

Until that glorious day when we take possession of our resurrected bodies in the presence of Christ (and experience “the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison”), we must continue to look to the Lord in the midst of our sufferings. In his own affliction, David models this for us in Psalm 13:2 as he cries out: “How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” As David laments his affliction, he then pleads with God in Psalm 13:3: “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death…”

In personalizing these words of David, Brad Brandt wrote: “More than relief, we need light. We need the Lord to give light to our eyes so we will not miss what He is up to in our pain for His glory and our eternal good.” Rather than choosing to focus on the suffering, David, in Psalm 34:5–6, reminds himself of God’s goodness and thus chooses to praise the Lord—even in his hardship. “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” It is interesting to note in Psalm 13 that David’s circumstances had not changed for the good, but his perspective on his circumstances had changed as he recalled God’s steadfast love toward him.

As David’s trust was in the Lord in his affliction, so must our trust be in the Lord through physical illness. What does such trust look like? Concerning trusting God in adversity, Jerry Bridges wrote:  

We are responsible to trust him in times of adversity but we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit to enable us to do so. Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelm us.
We can trust God because He is “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). In His infinite power and immanent presence, God sovereignly orchestrates blessing through affliction. Craig Svennson, in his decades of struggling with severe chronic pain, wrote:  

The pulverizing impact of a sculptor’s hammer and chisel ultimately reveals a beauty none but the artist could perceive in advance. The scorching heat of a refiner’s fire burns away dross to produce purer medal. Similarly, believers who understand that heart work accomplished by trials will see their refining work as a gift from God. In bringing the trial, he is not doing something to us, but he is doing something in us and through us. And what he does brings blessing.
The greatest blessing in this life is the experiential knowledge of Christ and conformity unto Him (Romans 8:28–29). From her wheelchair as a quadriplegic, Joni Eareckson Tada testifies to God’s good purpose in conforming us to Christ through afflictions:

While the devil’s motive in my disability was to shipwreck my faith by throwing a wheelchair in my way, I’m convinced that God’s motive was to thwart the devil and use the wheelchair to change me and make me more like Christ through it all.
In his recent book, John Newton’s Theology of Suffering and Its Application to Pastoral Care, Keith Palmer noted: “The first and primary way God utilizes suffering, according to Newton, is by making believers feel their weaknesses, inadequacy, and utter dependence so that they lean solely and continually on Christ.” Leaning solely and continually on Christ is our greatest need. Therefore, if in His infinite wisdom and steadfast love, God chooses to orchestrate our drawing nearer to Christ through the fading of our flesh. Therefore, will you trust in God’s steadfast love for you and praise Him according, as did David in Psalm 13:5–6?  

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,

because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Original Post found HERE.