The grandmother of my best friend and brother in Christ is suffering a lot because she is sick. She is a woman of great testimony, a prayer warrior, someone who has always loved and served God with joy and diligence.
She has been sick for a while now. She has a problem with her kidneys, therefore she goes every day to the hospital to receive dialysis treatment.
More recently, she had a surgery that went wrong and had to be operated 3 times the same day. Then, a few days later she had a cardiac catheterization. She is also a diabetic and the process to heal is very long.
This is a woman who have seen great miracles before: her son was healed after being terminally ill, her husband was saved and healed after many years of being an alcoholic, her grandson was healed from leukemia and during her ministry was used mightily by God.
A few weeks before her recent surgeries, a woman came to her and told her that she was healed of cancer right after she prayed for her. This happened more than a decade before. Now, my friend’s grandma is suffering a lot because of her diseases, yet she still haven’t said anything complaining about it.
She always asks my family and me to pray for her, she definitely believes in the power of prayers. But, as my friend told me, she also understands that there are certain tests of faith we cannot - and will not - escape.
She knows that God can heal her immediately, yet, He have not done so. She knows that God has the power to deliver her from all her afflictions as He did in the past, yet, she is still struggling with these illnesses and she has not uttered a word of complaint.
She asked me to pray for her because she feels tired. There is nothing wrong with feeling tired unlike so many people say (see: Elijah Got Tired Too). But this great woman of God has said: “Your will be done, Lord”.This servant’s faith has taught me so much the last weeks. She is giving me a great lesson of faith.
First and foremost, I have come to confirm that true Christians do suffer. So many times I have heard the modern preachers say that if we suffer it is because we did something wrong, or because we are not tithing, or because we are not pleasing God, that many times I felt I was not even saved.
But my friend’s grandmother is the best example of how this new doctrine of prosperity, felicity, and well-being is a fallacy. God is much more concerned with the quality of our spiritual life than with the quantity of our bank accounts.
God’s purpose in us is to make us humble enough to make us reflect Christ in our lives, not to give us everything we crave for thus making us spoiled children who cry, complain, and get troubled every time we don’t get what we think we deserve.
Second, grandma is teaching me what should be our response when facing adversities: be still and know He is God. Though she can be struggling inside, her testimony remains intact, her faith intact, her devotion intact, and her submission to God completely intact even when His will is not pleasing to her.
What a woman of God! She reminds me of Job. Job was tested, lost everything, from family to properties, finally he got terribly ill. Though he had his struggles with God, he recognized one thing: God is sovereign, and even Satan himself cannot do anything to him if God does not give permission. He said:
He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
Please notice that Job did not say: “The Lord gave, Satan took away...” He recognized God’s power above Satan’s. He was brave enough to accept and acknowledge that what was going on in his life was a test from God. He lost everything, yet, he praised God and blessed His Name.
Pastor Tim Dilena in his sermon: What To Pray In Your Toughest Time, said that the church has overemphasized the giving character of God. It is not very often when pastors and Christians in general talk about the fact that God also takes away. He said that we also have to learn to praise when God removes things from our lives.
True spiritual battles come when we know we must praise God and He has taken away things we cherish, whether it is the removal of a job, a loved one, or anything we appreciate-like health. It is easy to praise God when everything is right, when God responds favorably, when He gives...but what about when He does not give? What about when He takes away?
Real Christians submit to the Lord. Submission is a word that is not very popular yet so important in our relationship with God and His Word. We have been deciding on what verses fit us better, we have acted with defiance towards God’s commands in so many “minor” issues that we are not being able to recognize that we are shaping Christianity, and even God, in our way.
Thus, the results are that we are more than willing to praise a God who gives but not the same God when He takes away. We praise God in our prosperity but complain in our moments of need. A true Christian, like my friend's grandmother, is willing to praise God and endure even when she is put into the fire. A true Christian knows that everything that happens is because God has allowed it (excluding sin of course, sin has nothing to do with God) and accepts that His ways are always perfect.
