Pain is an opportunity

What do you do when you are troubled?  I liked to sing the gospel song “In these dark days lift up your eyes”: “In these dark days lift up your eyes to Jesus, lift your eyes He's still upon the throne, And come what may, He never will forsake you For He is God to Him all things are known.  Lift up your eyes He still is there, Be not dismayed He knows your weight of care, In these dark days lift up your eyes to Jesus And trust in Him He will your burden bear” (Internet).  Are we lifting our eyes upon Him when we are troubled?  Or are we committing sin against God in discouragement, disappointment, and pain by grumbling when we look at the painful circumstance that we are in?

                In Isaiah 53:7, the Bible says that the Messiah “was oppressed and afflicted.”  I want to think about what He did when He was oppressed and afflicted in three ways so that we may learn and apply them in our lives.

                First, we must not open our mouth when we are oppressed and afflicted.

                Look at Isaiah 53:7 – “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.”  The Messiah was silent when He was oppressed and afflicted.  The Bible says “He did not open His mouth” and “like a sheep that is silent” (v. 7).  How could He be silent in the midst of oppression, affliction and judgement? (vv. 7-8)  Our nature is to open our mouths and defend ourselves when we are oppressed and afflicted.  This is an extremely natural behavior.  For example, if we didn’t do anything wrong but falsely accused and charged, we will stand in court and defend ourselves through a lawyer.  But Messiah didn’t open His mouth, even though He who had no sin became like a silent sheep that was taken to the slaughter.  This is what Henry Nowen said in his book “The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life”: ‘I am so afraid to hear the words of the curse, or whether I am useless or inferior, I soon overtake the temptation to open my mouth again.  It is to overcome my fear.’  We have the instinct to open our mouths and to keep on talking when we are troubled because we are being oppressed and afflicted.  But Messiah Jesus didn’t open His mouth.  He had acted beyond human instincts.  How is this possible?  I looked up the answer in Isaiah 30:15 – “…  in quietness and trust is your strength ….”  When we are oppressed and afflicted, our strength is to quietly trust God.

                 We must learn to be silent when we are oppressed and afflicted.  To do so, we need to listen to Henry Nowen’s words in his book, "The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life”: ‘The Word leads to silence, and silence leads to the Word.  The Word is born in silence, and silence is the deepest response to the Word.’  The phrase ‘silence is the deepest response to the Word’ is challenging to me.  We must learn to be silent while quietly trusting the God's promise Word when we are oppressed and afflicted like Jesus and are troubled.  We may hear many voices and we would like to say a lot, but we should be silent when we are oppressed and afflicted.  In silence we must hear God's quite voice.  And that voice is the voice of Heavenly Father which Jesus heard: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mk. 1:11).  This is what Henry Nowen said: ‘It is not easy to listen to a small and intimate voice of God saying, ‘You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’ as we enter into silence and turn away the noisy and troublesome voices of the world.  However, if we embrace solitude and make silence as our friend, we will know the voice.’  We must boldly embrace solitude and make silence as our friend.

                Second, we must think when we are oppressed and afflicted.

                 Look at Isaiah 53:8 – “By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants?  For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.”  The Jewish people at the time of Jesus thought wrongly that Jesus was “stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted” (v. 4).  But actually He was stricken because of “the transgression of my people” (v. 8).  In other words, Jesus, the Messiah, is desperately despised and persecuted for our transgressions.  Jesus Christ is without sins who was oppressed and judged on our behalf and died on the cross in order to atoned our sins.

               We need to think about this.  We must meditate on the sufferings of Jesus and the death of the cross in silence and think biblically.  Especially when we are oppressed and afflicted, there is a danger of not being able to think biblically.  So when we are oppressed and afflicted, we must think biblically in silence.  Usually, when we are oppressed and afflicted, it is easy for us to grumble and complain.  Also, we are more likely to be angry and be emotional than to think logically.  Instead of thinking in terms of the Word of God, we are more likely to be guided by our emotion and commit sin against God.  But when we are oppressed and afflicted, we must think of the Word of God.  We must think about Jesus.  We must meditate on Jesus' suffering and His death in silence when we are oppressed and afflicted.

                Lastly, we must not commit sin when we are oppressed and afflicted.

                Look at Isaiah 53:9 – “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”  It is easy for us to commit sins when we are oppressed and afflicted.  We can sin against God with our lips and also with our actions.  But Jesus did not sin when he was oppressed and afflicted.  The Bible says that when Jesus oppressed and afflicted, there was no deceit in his mouth.  That is, Jesus didn’t sins with his lips when he was suffering.  Jesus also didn’t do violence.  Jesus did not sin with words or deeds when he was oppressed and afflicted.  Jesus did not sin until death.  Though his grave was with the wicked and buried in the tomb of a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus did not sin against God in any way, either in lips or action.  Is this really possible?  A possible example is Job in the Bible.  He didn’t sin with his lips and actions by the grace of God.  Since Job did it by God’s grace, we can do it too by His grace.  This is what the Bible Job 1:22 and 2:10 say: “Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.  …  But he said to her, ‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?’  In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”  Rather, Job worshiped God when he was suffering (1:20).

                Therefore, when we are suffering, we must not sin against God in our lips or actions.  Rather, we must be silent.  And we should hear in silence the Heavenly Father's quite voice, 'You are my beloved child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’  We must remain silent before the throne of God's grace to hear the word of God's promise.  In such a situation, we should be driven by the Word of God rather than by our emotions in response to our agonizing environment.  We need to look at the painful situation with the biblical thoughts.  In particular, we must overcome our suffering environment by looking at Jesus who suffered.  Victory!

Praying to hear the God’s quiet voice in silence when I am in pain,

Pastor James Kim