Soulfood

Brad Hambrick

Do all things really work for good? Case study of Natasha (“forsaken”). How do you respond to such a person. When words like peace and hope have lost their meaning. For someone who hears Romans 8:28 and just can’t comprehend how it is possible. Whose frustration and emptiness is so strong that she doesn’t know where to go from here?

Start by listening so that we show her she is not alone. A sermon starts with a text and moves toward an application. Counseling starts with a crisis and moves toward offering hope.

Proverbs 25:11 “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” But the opposite is also true. A word spoken at the wrong time is like a punchline delivered in a rush. It is important to be careful not to rush to a word

Five false beliefs about suffering:

1. Suffering is a competitive sport.
2. The cross silences us about suffering.
3. Suffering means something needs to be forgiven.
4. Comforting sufferers encourages passivity.
5. God allows suffering because the benefits outweigh the pain.

As a counselor we don’t have the benefit of coming to pre-prepared soil. Sometimes we have to remove rocks. Truthfulness says:

1. Just because your suffering is less than someone else’s doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. It’s still suffering.
2. Jesus didn’t suffer to shut us up in our suffering. He suffered to identify with us in our weakness so that our suffering has meaning.
3. Personal agency matters. But that doesn’t mean that every suffering is the result of sin that requires the sufferer to repent.
4. Personal agency matters. But it isn’t always true that the sufferer could have done something differently. He may need to do something different moving forward. But offering comfort is a place to start.
5. Outweighs is probably not the best word.

“But if we hope for what we do not see…we wait for it with patience…Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness…For we do not know what to pray for as we ought…but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words…” (Romans 8:25-26)

Hope means we are doing without, right now. Something is missing right now. When we hope for something we can’t see, we can’t see it. We can’t even see it coming yet. Waiting is exhausting. Waiting is painful. We get faith fatigue. This could speak to a Natasha.

“Likewise” = “having the same posture” The Spirit is in the same condition as we are. He is WITH us in our circumstances. And God is not displeased with our limits. Rather He moves into our weakness to help because He has compassion. (Isaiah 53)

When we feel stupid, worthless, defeated, and don’t even have the attitude to pray – in those moments, the Spirit groans with us and intercedes for us. He is speaking to the Father on our behalf. Even our silence is not silence before God because the Spirit is speaking for us! God is near to us (Phil 4).

“And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit…because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God…And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

The Father searches our hearts! And

As bad as things seem, there is still a purpose.

Beware of the ghost word “your” before good. It’s not about us but about God’s glory and where we are going to participate in it. What we have right now is what we have. Whatever it is that God is going to do hasn’t happened yet. We live in the middle of the journey. We haven’t experienced the end yet. So we are patient. It’s more important that we feel safe than it is that we know how our story ends. Sometimes we don’t have the answers, even if we know what the right answer should be. We don’t have to rush. We do need to point to where we are going.

Good in Romans 8:28 is not the opposite of bad. It is the eventual destination of a hard journey. And the harder the journey, the more we appreciate how good goodness is. There are dark chapters in good stories.

We must be accurate ambassadors of God’s heart toward and agenda toward our counselees. We are more than teachers and coaches. We are heralds of the kingdom!

Moses needed to hear that God sees, hears, and knows. God is paying attention. He is not blind, deaf, and dumb. We need to remind ourselves to remember that God is with us. He sees our pain. He hears our cries. He knows our suffering. He is with us.