I, along with most of my team, came down with some sort of illness this past week. I was one of the last ones to get hit, and I got hit hard. I spent all night either in the bathroom or lying in my tent listening to things churn through my digestive system while my stomach cramped and my body shook with deep, sulfurous belches. I often would make it only partway back from the bathroom before having to turn around and head right back.
It was uncomfortable, to say the least.
A couple of verses have been on my mind lately, though. One is Philippians 4:11, where Paul says, “…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” (He reveals the secret of his contentment in verse 13, which many of you probably have memorized: “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”) The other verse is James 1:17, which says “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” It’s the last half of that verse that’s been particularly on my mind, that God doesn’t change.
My situations and circumstances change, but God never does. He is always good, always holy, always loving, kind, wise, etc. And he is always worthy of praise. He can never become unworthy, because he never changes.
Remembering God’s eternal praiseworthiness will change your perspective on things. I decided that night that I was going to praise God regardless of my physical discomfort. At one point, I was even singing in the bathroom in the middle of the night. (I did a lot of crying out to him to make the sickness stop, too.) I praised him for the healing he has already worked in my life, and for the healing I knew would come to my body, but mostly I praised him just for who he is. I declared his glory and his sovereignty, and laid my heart down before him in submission.
It would probably make for a better story if the glory of God had descended on the bathroom in a pillar of fire, bringing instantaneous and miraculous healing while a choir of angels joined in my song, but that’s not what happened.
Instead, God showed me a picture of the cross. I was suffering that night, to be sure, but I thought of the unimaginable suffering that Jesus endured on the cross. He didn’t have to be there; he chose to submit to torture and death because of his all-consuming love for the Father. The Father chose that kind of suffering and death for his beloved Son because of his everlasting love for me.
Jesus didn’t just die to save me from hell. He sacrificed his life so that I could know the Father. I can draw near and have communion with God and experience his love any time, even in the bathroom in the middle of the night.
That kind of love overpowers the misery of any situation and sustains you through whatever you might face. I had a physically miserable night followed by a not-so-great day, and then it was over. I went to bed and slept peacefully.
Being sick is awful, but God is good. One of those things lasts, and the other doesn’t.
