On Advent and suffering and hope

Advent. It's a season of slowing--originally slowing in order to connect to our longings--those unmet-in-this-world desires. It's also a season of anticipating a hope that answers those longings. 

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David's Psalm in 2 Samuel 22 describes God as His deliverer, rock, refuge, horn of salvation, shield, stronghold, and Savior. In His might and delight, God rescued David again and again from the hands of the giants living in Midian. I love those qualities of God--deeply love them. I've experienced them, so they carry weight and meaning for me.

But I'm also struggling with these attributes of God. "He rescued me from my powerful enemy" and "God saves the humble." Part of me nods--yes, yes. But there's this other part grappling with all the godly, humble people I know who haven't been saved or rescued from their enemies. They've died of cancer. They've lost children. They continue to struggle with alcoholism. Their husbands have cheated. They've lost their jobs. And like Mary and Martha after their brother died, I'm asking, "Lord, where were you? Why didn't you come?" And I wonder about a larger, global suffering--how and why God allows beheadings, rape, disease, torture, and starvation. How does that jive with His character that David describes?

I don't have a lot of answers. Many days it feels like God has turned a blind eye and abandoned me (or the world) in my suffering. But I do know a few things. I know Mary and Martha didn't know the whole story, and I don't either. I know that the existence of suffering doesn't negate God's character as our good, kind Rescuer. And if suffering didn't exist, would I really long for Heaven? Would I really need Jesus at all or commune with Him deeply? Could it be that suffering draws us into Him in a way nothing else could?

I don't often understand the story He's writing. It's costly and messy and confusing. Many of Jesus' disciples felt the same way: "On hearing [Jesus' teaching on communion], many of His disciples said, 'This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?'" Jesus then asks Peter if he wants to leave too and Peter replies, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6:60, 68). 

So many questions are unanswered for me about Jesus. But like Peter, who else would I go to? He alone gives words of eternal life, and there's hope there in the darkness.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in Thee tonight.