Stop Viewing Sorrow with Blurred Vision
The Failure of Natural Sight
When you don’t have your glasses on or have yet to put in your contacts, everything around you isn’t clear. The problem isn’t that the world is blurry!
The problem is that our eyes aren’t seeing things correctly; our eyesight needs adjustment and an improvement. We need to see our life through a Christian lens.
The Bible is clear: do not follow your heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Do not trust your natural thoughts, your first responses, or your immediate feelings.
Man is a poor North Star. Only Christ is our true North. Our eyes are poor interpreters of truth. We need a heavenly perspective on all of our earthly experiences.
We are prone to interpret and see suffering and sorrow with blurred vision. How then are we to see?
Talk to Yourself
Because our first (fallen) instinct is to respond with how we see and perceive reality, we must first respond with how God sees and perceives reality. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote this, “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”
So, what should we preach to ourselves?
First, we must grab ourselves by the lapels and tell ourselves how to think.
Lamentations 3:37, ESV, says, “Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?” God has ordained my circumstances — all of them — by His good and wise pleasure (see Ephesians 1:11). Our God “does all the he pleases” (Psalm 115:3, ESV).
My Father has bruised me in love!
Second, we must remind ourselves that there is a divine design in all of life. What is God’s purpose in your mountains and valleys, highs and lows?
Romans 8:28-29, ESV, says, “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. For [because] those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
God has designed your pain for His glory and your good.
Third, we must also respond biblically with faith in God’s sovereignty and design in our life. By faith we receive everything that confronts us in life as from God’s hand and for our good. We remember that in suffering God is growing and strengthening that which is more precious than gold, our faith (1 Peter 1:6-7).
How then do we walk by faith?
Walking by Faith
To walk by faith then we must live according to what we believe. This requires us to stop, pause, and look heavenward in life to see the Lord’s mercy and purpose in all that comes to pass.
Charles Spurgeon said that when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart. Though we may not see God’s hand in our suffering, we know the heart of God for us.
In the most wretched and horrific scene in human history, Jesus Christ was crucified. And this, the Bible tells us, was God “demonstrat[ing] his love for us” (Romans 5:8, ESV). When suffering comes, go to the Word.
So, when financial circumstances are dark and cloudy, trust that God has ordered this for your good by looking to the birds and the lilies (Matthew 6:26-34). He will provide for you, He will sustain you. He did at Calvary, He will here (see Romans 8:32).
We walk by faith then by knowing and believing His Word and responding in faith with contentment, joy, confidence, and assurance that God is working this for our good.
Joni Eareckson Tada said this, “Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding His character, in trusting in His promises, and in leaning on Him and resting in Him as the Sovereign who knows what He is doing and does all things well.”
