Walking with God Through Loss, Pain and Suffering
“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” John 16: 7.
These are words Jesus spoke to His disciples shortly before He was crucified.
There is a deep truth here that I believe applies to any and all painful losses. In this instance, the disciples were having to endure the painful loss of their friend, teacher and savior in physical form.
But I believe you could insert other losses, even the most devastating ones, in the place of Jesus and the statement would still be true.
To read the entire passage for context, click here.
Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering Is to Your Advantage
“I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that your job, your health, your spouse is going away. For if it does not go away, the Helper will not come to you”. But if it goes, I will send Him to you.”
Someone who loves God and walks in faith and obedience never really loses anything. Because anytime we lose something in the natural realm (job, health, relationship), we have an opportunity to gain in the spiritual realm.
This is really just more of the Holy Spirit. This truth is echoed in Psalm 34: 18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit”.
A Balance
In fact, I think there’s always a balance between the kingdom of God (spiritual realm) and this world (natural realm). I don’t think we can gain in the spiritual realm (repentance, strength, maturity, wisdom) without losing something in the natural realm.
And what we’re really gaining is a greater measure of the Holy Spirit. And I believe the gain will be commensurate with the loss.
In other words, the loss experienced when I resist the temptation to lose my temper is by no means the same loss as losing my job or a close friend. And the gain that can come from it will be proportional to the loss.
Absolute Loss
Now, if we refuse to continue to love God, and walk in faith and obedience in our loss, we’ll lose the opportunity to gain in the spiritual realm. And we will have experienced loss in the absolute sense. Both in the natural and spiritual realms.
But for those who love God and walk in faith and obedience in spite of the loss, God is still expressing His love to us, still blessing us, still adding to us, just in the other dimension.
But whereas it takes no faith to see and embrace natural gain since it is obvious to the senses, spiritual gain is not evident to the senses. It is intangible. It requires faith to be seen and embraced.
We Must Lose in Order to Gain
But the truth is, we can’t gain in the natural unless we first gain in the spiritual. This reality is echoed in psalm 84: 11: “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” Psalm 84: 11.
In other words, when our character lacks nothing our lives will lack nothing. And how do we obtain character (maturity, wisdom)? How do we gain in the spiritual realm? By losing in the natural one.
I think it’s also probably true that when we gain in the natural realm, we lose in the spiritual. We lose that sense of desperation that causes us the cling to God. We’re not as sensitive to spiritual things. We can tend to backslide into old ways.
Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering Is Not Loss
It’s so important to remember that the Lord is never trying to take anything away from us when we suffer loss, although this is how it looks. He’s just wanting to add to us in a different dimension.
He’s not wanting to take anything from us. He wants to add something that can’t be added without loss. There’s no other way for Him to increase us in the spiritual realm. It requires natural loss.
When we lose something in the natural, the Helper comes and teaches us the ways of God. And the more we know and walk in His ways, the less natural loss we’ll experience.
To read another post related to Walking with God through Loss Pain and Suffering, see Giants In the Land: What they Represent in the Bible.