Why this Anguish, Lord?

November, 2004

by: Walt Bertelsen

The Pruner prunes to display His love

There is much that happens in this life for which we simply cry out to the Lord in noncomprehending anguish. The pain is so great, at times, that our faith appears to crash in flames.

Good Christians know the answers, of course. We agree with our comforters that God is in control and working everything together for our good, allowing this pain for a loving purpose. But alone, the horrific magnitude of the unbearable hurt cries out for an answer.

Jesus felt such pain. It was at a much deeper level. Kneeling in Gethsemane, He knew full well what was coming. Worse than a torturous Roman cross, He would know the anguish of having His Father turn away from Him after laying your sin upon Him: the torment of those hours was real. As He labored in agonized prayer, His sweat became like great drops of blood (Lk 22:44). He lived only to fulfill the will of the Father, yet the Son knew that the Father was preparing to pour out the fury of wrath — on Him.

Jesus went to the cross, not only to pay for sin, but to display God's love for you — in the ravaged body of Christ.

Through the deep waters you encounter, the Father is preparing you, too, to display His love. This point Jesus made to the Disciples, as recorded in John 15. We are the branches. We bear fruit as we live out our lives in dependence upon the Vine. The Father prunes us as He sees fit, to produce abundant fruit.

This pruning takes many forms, according to what the Father determines. The pruning is the discipline that God brings about in our lives that we might live for Christ instead of for ourselves. Discipline for the believer is not punishment: it is training. Left to ourselves, we never choose Him. The Father is continually drawing us closer to Himself as He trains us and brings us into conformity to the image of Christ (Christ–likeness). This was His purpose in predestination for us (Rom 8:29).

The writer C.S. Lewis was no stranger to pain and grief. He recognized that pain frequently seems incomprehensible. We cannot see clearly why God is allowing it — nor can we wish it away. Lewis wrote, in part, “…pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world…” (The Problem of Pain, p. 81).

No matter how deep the waters, we have these promises from Him: He disciplines everyone he accepts as His child (Heb. 12:7). He will use the pruning in our lives to comfort us and to comfort others as His love, once displayed on that cross, is now displayed in our lives (2 Cor 1:4).

Take heart and pay attention. Let the Pruner's pruning of you yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:11). Live, as Jesus did, for the Father's will. That is what kept Him going (Jn 4:34; 6:38). And He encourages His Disciples, “Abide in me.” The branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine (15:5). To “abide” means to remain, to continue, to live in absolute dependence upon His life to sustain us and allow Him to perform His will through us. Abide in Him.