Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: We are in the middle of a study on the book of Job, and I'm sure you know where to find it now. We need to be in Job 23 for a little bit today.

I'd like to turn in your Bibles to a passage of scripture there. We'll read it in a moment. The topic for today is "Waiting It Out." Waiting it out helps for the long haul.

Because suffering comes in different dimensions of time. Sometimes it's just five minutes. Sometimes it's half an hour. Sometimes it's an hour, a day, or a week, or a month, or three months. And other times it's months and months and years and years and years on end.

And there are different sorts of coping mechanisms that you and I need to investigate when we find ourselves in a situation that's going to go on for a very, very long time indeed. And so I want to talk about waiting it out.

I wrote an article called "On the Way to Soon" because I was waiting out a situation. Not a desperately dramatic situation, but for me, a painful situation. It was a suffering situation in measure.

And everything I would read in the scriptures would say something like, "Soon." I kept picking up this little word.

And I found myself saying, "Not soon, now!" "Not soon, now!" Because as soon as we get into that suffering situation, I don't know about you, but I want to be out of it.

It's a little bit like the shepherd leading the sheep through the green pastures in Psalm 23.

And he comes to this big valley, and I can see the little sheep saying, "I don't want to go through this big valley. This big valley looks dark and dangerous, and I don't like the look of it at all."

And I can see the sheep wanting to put its little spiritual Nike shoes on and run through the valley. And that's the thing that I as a human being, I think, react very much like that.

If I find myself in a suffering situation, I want to be through it with a sprint as quickly as I can.

And I remember years ago the Lord saying to me, "But the greenest grass grows in the valley, Jill. The greenest grass grows in the valley."

And if you take off in this sprint, getting or wanting to get through this valley of trouble quickly, then you won't lie down in this valley.

You won't wait in this valley. You won't see what is there for you in this valley. You won't nourish your soul in this valley. You won't grow in this valley.

And the greenest grass surely, I have discovered in my little places of suffering, have been indeed in the valleys.

And so "On the Way to Soon," it's a hard place to be, and maybe some of you are on the way to soon.

But nobody knows how quickly soon will be, except God.

And he doesn't tell. His knowledge is not withheld to tease us, but to test us.

Waiting for closure always dissolves or exposes the caliber of my faith, the intensity of my patience and trust, the shape of my character.

But when I'm waiting for some particular painful something to be over, there's bound to be some bright, well-meaning saint who lovingly and often with ill-conceived satisfaction comes around to tell me how much deeper I'll be when it's finished.

I want to scream, "I don't want to be deeper! I want to stay shallow!" and have the hurt go away.

On the way to soon. Perhaps some of you are on that journey today.

In "Whispers of His Grace" by Dr. McKenneth, he says this: "Job is dealing with the type of darkness most of us would call irrational evil."

Incoherent suffering. Suffering that makes no sense at all.

Suffering that is threatening to destroy his faith, his understanding of God and of his world.

And we see him disorientated, confused.

And the book of Job insists, however, that suffering falls within the sweep of God's sovereignty and is part of fallen creation.

We find Job reeling from the shock of his blackest day, yet in his darkest hour, he utters some of the brightest words of history, words that perhaps can help us when our night comes.

And if you remember, we saw him doing two things: accepting adversity and trusting in trouble, trusting without feelings. Those are the two areas that we've dealt with so far, and we will revisit those areas too before we're through in this series.

Let me talk about the difference for a moment of accepting the fact you're on the way to soon, accepting the situation, settling down in it, lying down in this valley.

And resignation. There is a difference between acceptance and resignation.

Resignation belongs to probably most of the major religions of the world, apart from Christianity.

Fate. You cannot move fate. It's a fatalism that is a deadening thing.

I think Elizabeth Elliot hits this point very, very, very well.

Elizabeth Elliot was married to Jim Elliot, and along with other young missionaries were setting out into the jungles of Ecuador to reach an unreached tribe who are very hostile, very dangerous.

They eventually, after a year of making contacts and dropping presents from their little plane, landed the plane and were met with arrows that ended their lives.

And so we have these five martyrs here. Elizabeth Elliot becomes the widow of one of those martyrs. She has a little girl called Valerie, aged five or so, at the time of this terrible tragedy.

And within, I think a year, I'm not quite sure of my facts here, certainly within a very short time of this happening, all those widows, those five women, had to decide what they were going to do.

They all decided different things. I mean, this was not on their agenda. Suddenly, they found themselves on the way to soon.

Soon they would see their husband's face, but the soon had stretched into a lifetime for them.

It was not going to be when they returned that evening from their expedition or the next week. It was going to be in heaven that they saw them again.

And they found themselves, each of those women, on the way to soon.

So what did they do with their now? Well, all of them did different things.

Elizabeth decided that God would have her take that little girl of hers and go and meet daddy's murderers, which she thought would be a very good idea, and try and win them to Christ because now she was more convinced than ever they needed the Lord, if she hadn't been before. That's what they did.

They tramped, walked back in and met the people that had murdered her husband and Valerie's daddy.

Years later, Valerie was baptized in the river by the man who had killed her daddy, who was then the leader of the church.

Marvelous miracle story.

Resignation says, "It's all over for me."

Acceptance asks, "Now that I'm here, what next, Lord?"

Resignation says, "What a waste!"

Acceptance asks, "In what redemptive way will you use this mess, Lord?"

Now, can you see the difference?

There is an active participation in the journey to soon that Christ can bring into our suffering.

And acceptance can then become the springboard for action.

We can dive into the deep end, into some adventure as Elizabeth Elliot did, although I'm sure not one of us here would have the courage, the tenacity, the ability to do what she did.

However, before suffering comes, we might find ourselves paddling in the shallows, scared of getting wet.

After suffering has been, to our amazement, many of us discover we can swim, and we just never knew it.

So we accept the adversity, not resign ourselves to it, and then we begin trusting him in the trouble without the feelings.

And then we begin to wait it out.

Job 23:10 says this: "He knows the way I take. When he's tested me, I'll come forth as gold."

And there's the word, the time word again: "when." He's in the when, the now, the being tested bit.

One of Warren Wiersbe's books is called "To Be Renewed."

And in that he says this: "God never wastes suffering."

Trials work for us, not against us.

God permits trials that he might build character into our lives.

Some of you say, "I knew it! I knew she was going to get around to that!"

Don't you hate that? Don't you hate it when you know that what is happening to you is in fact to bring some Christian character into our lives?

Perhaps we've been like a jellyfish, and God wants to put us some backbone into our Christianity.

God permits, he says, trials that he might build character into our lives.

Then he says this: "He can grow a mushroom overnight, but it takes many years and many storms to grow a sturdy oak." I like that.

Do you want to be a mushy mushroom? Yes? That's my reaction too.

I would rather be a mushy mushroom than a mighty oak, Lord, because I know it's going to take many storms to build a mighty oak.

When we used to live in Brookfield, we had a mighty oak in our front yard. I know how big it was because it used to take a week to gather up the leaves in autumn after they'd fallen.

I looked out the window one day and to my surprise, I saw lawn chairs and little carry chairs and about 50 people sitting around our oak tree on our lawn.

And I said, "Stuart, are you having a meeting out there? There's all these people sitting around our oak tree." He said, "No, I don't know who they are."

So I sort of shyly went out and and stood at the back and there was a lady giving a lecture about our oak tree.

And I discovered this was the historical or hysterical society or whatever it's called, and that they looked after all the all the ancient things, like me and my oak tree.

However, I learned a lot about it, and I learned you do not grow an oak tree overnight.

There was many a day as I raised our teenagers, I went out to that oak tree on my own, just up to here with teenagers.

And I would look at it, and I would say, "You don't grow an oak tree overnight." And then I'd feel a lot better and go back inside again.

Because I was growing teenagers, and you don't grow a teenager overnight either.

It takes time. Takes time to build a mighty oak.

But most of us, because we're very fond of ourselves, would rather be mushy mushrooms any day.

You know, in Job chapter 38, there is twice it says this: "God answered Job out of the storm. God answered Job out of the storm."

Now, he does. He speaks to us out of the storm, out of the storm.

And he wants to see us a sterling oak. He wants to see sterling character in our lives.

Come back with me to Job 23. I want to read the whole piece here, verse 8. He's saying, "If I go to the east, he isn't there. If I go to the west, I don't find him."

"When he's at work in the north, I don't see him. When he turns to the south, I can't catch a glimpse of him."

"Where is he?" he says.

But he knows the way I take. When, there's the word, he's tested me, I will come forth as gold.

My feet have closely followed his steps. I have kept to his way without turning aside. I have not departed from the commands of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. I've treasured the words of his mouth.

God spoke to him out of the storm. You getting the picture?

It's the words of his mouth as he speaks to us out of our storm, on the way to soon, when we're in suffering, that become our treasure of darkness.

The treasures of darkness are the words of the Lord out of the storm, in our pain, in our suffering.

I think of a good biblical illustration of this when Lazarus died.

You know, he just got sick, and the two sisters, Mary and Martha, sent a immediate message to Jesus. They had seen him heal people. They knew that if he came quickly, he could heal Lazarus, however sick he was. And they waited looking down the road.

One of them kept waiting looking down the road, and the other kept looking after Lazarus, I'm sure, and he never came, remember? And Lazarus died. And Jesus didn't even come that day, or even the day after he died, or the day after that.

He came the day after that, three days after he died. And when he came, both the sisters were so hurt and so bewildered that Mary, of all of them, both of them, sat still in the house.

She couldn't face Jesus.

Martha, however, true to her character, got up, rushed to where Jesus was, knelt at his feet and said, "If you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died."

"Where have you been?"

Just like Job, you know, "If I go to the east, you're not there. If I go to the west, I don't find you. When you're at work in the north, I don't see you. When you turn to the south, I can't catch a glimpse of you."

And Jesus said to her, "Ah, but I know the way you take, and when I've tested you, you're going to come forth as gold, Martha."

"Where's Mary?"

He sent for Mary. Mary came then, said exactly the same thing: "If you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died." And then he raised Lazarus from the dead.

And what they discovered was that God spoke to them out of that storm. And what he said in essence was this: "If I had come, you would have known that I was the great healer, but you knew that already."

And because I didn't come, you discovered something greater, far more precious, a treasure of darkness.

You've now discovered I'm the resurrection and the life. You didn't know that before.

And you know there are things that you did not know before you will know on the way to soon.

You will discover that he's going to give you a treasure.

As Job says, "I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread." By the time Job is finished, he has treasure upon treasure upon treasure of what God eventually says to him out of the storm.

And you know what that does? It builds character, Christian commitment.

Christian understanding, Christian knowledge, Christian depth. That's what it does.

Paul in the New Testament in Romans 5:2-5 says this: "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." You see, the Christian has hope, he doesn't resign, he accepts.

Because in his suffering, then he has given the Christian hope, confidence in a God who's going to be with him in it.

"Not only so," says Paul, "but we also rejoice in our sufferings. We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance produces character."

And character produces hope.

And there it is, all round up together. Job's joy, "When he's finished testing me, when I'm through the other side of the valley, when the storm stops, when the rain ceases, I will come forth as gold."

Gold character. God uses situations like this, part of our life on this fallen planet, to do this to us and in us.

So while we're waiting it out, we can know what's happening. Hopefully, this will bring you a little comfort.

To know what's happening and why he's allowing it to happen.

And why it's going on and on and on and on.

And you don't see him active in the situation.

Have you ever gone for a medical test and you've sat there and they've said, "Well, we can't give you the results till till next Thursday?" That is the worst. I don't know about you, but once you know, even if it's bad news, then you can start to do something somehow with your life.

But if you're in this waiting room, waiting for the bad news, which all of us think it will be, there is something about the pain and the suffering of that that is is very, very difficult. Just just waiting to hear when you don't know what's wrong. You know you've got a pain, you know something's wrong, there's something out of order, but you don't know what it is.

Now, there is a little bit of comfort to be gathered from the fact that you know what it is.

You know because the scriptures tell you, all sorts of places, not just in this particular one, that God is making you a sturdy oak. And in the knowing, there is a little bit of comfort.

The end result is the golding of your character. Now, that's what God's going to do with you and me. That's what he wants to do.

He wants to gold our character. And display that character to the universe, says in the New Testament that he wants to put down the principalities and power in shame because he's going to display the glory of his saints.

And that's what he was doing in heaven at the beginning of this book of Job.

He was saying to Satan, "I'm going to show you how gold Job is."

And that's going to do you more harm and give you more pain, Satan, than anything else I could do.

He's going to trust in me. He's going to believe in me, whatever happens to him.

You'll see. Of course, Satan did see.

So he's after our golding, if you like.

And that really means in practical terms that our Christianity has got to be so real in our lives, it's worth living for and it's worth dying for.

It's worth living for and it's worth dying for. That's gold character in a nutshell.

Now, another biblical example of all of this is Daniel. In Daniel chapter 8, there's a very familiar little story.

Daniel had three friends. Their names are Shadrach, Meshach, and to Bed We Go. That's how I used to teach the children their names: Abednego.

And they, like Daniel, served God, Jehovah Elohim. However, they were captives, they were slaves, they were probably made eunuchs, and they were brought into the service of the king. They were trained to a high degree to be rulers and teachers. They were the brightest of the converts, the princes of Judah.

And they stood up to the test that they were put in very, very well, until at one point the king decided to make a golden image of himself and have everybody worship him. Those that would not worship him were to be thrown into a fiery furnace, if you remember.

And of course, they could not do this, for they would not bow down to any graven image. That was one of the tenets of their Ten Commandments, the tenets of their faith. And so they resisted the king's decree, and those who were jealous of them in the realm had great delight in telling the king that these three young men were not bowing down to the golden image that the king had made of himself. And so the king said, "Bring them to me."

And so the young men were brought to him, and he asked Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, "What are you doing?" He couldn't believe it. "Why won't you do this?" And they answered, "Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king." And then they said this, "But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, we won't serve your gods or worship the image of gold you've set up."

Well, shall we say this did not please the king very well. Nebuchadnezzar was furious with them, and he told them to heat the furnace seven times hotter so that when they were bound and thrown into it, the people that threw them into it were all killed with the heat from outside the furnace. That's how hot it was. And King Nebuchadnezzar, who was standing with his people a little way off, looked in and waited for the quick death of these men. Suddenly, he jumps up in amazement, and he said to his advisors, "Were not three men we tied up and threw in there?" And they said, "Certainly, O king." And he said, "Look, I see four men walking around in it, unbound, unharmed, and the fourth looks like the Son of God." He then approaches, and he says, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, come here."

And so they came out, and everybody gathers around them, obviously. And they saw the fire hadn't harmed their bodies, nor was the hair of their head singed, and their robes weren't scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. And Nebuchadnezzar said, "Praise be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any God except their own God." Then he goes on to decree that anybody that doesn't do the same will have their heads chopped off and their houses be made a dunghill. You know, he was one of those sort of guys. Couldn't please him. However, what a story! What a story!

Here we have a furnace. Here we have three people put in the furnace. They're going to come out as gold, as we saw them come out as gold. I saw gold made in South Africa once. We went into a gold mine and watched it all. We saw them taking the rocks that the gold had been hidden in. And then we saw them grinding the rocks to dust, and then we saw them mixing the dust with chemicals. And then we saw them putting the dust and the paste into a process that began to fire it, heat it to such a degree that it became liquid. And then it just ran all the way around the different factory places until they skimmed the dirt off it, and all that was left was the pure gold. Then it was poured into a shape out of which came an ingot. And incidentally, you could take that home with you if you could lift it with one hand. They had made that ingot just too big for anybody to do it, but we all tried, I can assure you. You hadn't just fit around it, very frustrating.

The shape of it was was beautiful.

And that's what God's doing with us. I don't know what process you're in, the grinding or the furnace, or the liquefying or. But I tell you what's going to happen in the end: he's going to pour you into a shape, and that shape is Christ.

You're going to come forth as gold. What does that mean? It means you'll be like him. He's making you the shape of Christ. Christ was gold. God's gold. And that's what he wants to do with us.

And when I think of Daniel's three friends, God saved them in it before he saved them out of it.

I don't think they would have minded if they ever came out. I mean, they had the fourth man in there. So have you, and so have I.

And when you're walking around in the furnace of your affliction, you have the fourth man with you, who is indeed the angel of the Lord, Jesus Christ himself. And he will take off you in the furnace the things that have bound you before you ever were thrown in.

I know this in little measure myself: what binds you before suffering disappears after it. For example, I'm a worrier. Those of you that know me know this. And you know that when I was young, I worried I would never become old, and that when I was going to my wedding, I worried I would never get there. And when I got married, I was worried I'd never have children. And when I had children, I was worried they'd fall into the washing machine and drown. And when they didn't, I was worried they would never grow old, and when they got married, I was worried they'd never make it to the wedding and die. And when they had children, I was worried they'd fall into their washing machines and drown. It just goes on and on and on and on.

And basically, the the basis of all that worrying I've done for hundreds of years now is fear, is fear. What's going to happen if they What's going to happen if they What's, you know, fear. Now then, as some of those things—not, please God, and thank God, have we had people drowning or anything like that—but as some of the things I've worried about have happened. I have found I didn't need to worry. I've wasted all that energy because God has been with us in it, brought us out through it, and we have learned the treasures of darkness and all these things I'm talking about. Then I can turn around and look back and say, "I'm not going to worry about that anymore. If it happened again, I know it's going to be all right because it happened then, and this is what God did. Therefore, if it happens again." And God has unwrapped some of the things that bound me, just like he did these people in the fiery furnace.

He will unbind us, and we'll come out and say to Nebuchadnezzar, "Look! What tied me up before through the suffering? Now I'm released. Now I'm free. Now I am not worrying about the things I worried about before." I'm worrying about other things, bigger things, more important things. It surely focuses the attention. That's what happens to you. In fact, the fire can deal with your fear. It won't harm you, but it will certainly take away the things that bind you. And that's something else that gives you maybe cold comfort, but a little bit of comfort. As you are waiting on the way to soon.

Of course, the greatest model of all for this is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. In Hebrews 2:10, it says, "It was fitting God should make the author of our salvation perfect, gold, through suffering." And there's a whole lot more to why all that, but that's what it says about Jesus. So he knows what it is to sit in the furnace and not to be delivered within it. And yet, there is an acceptance and not resignation that we need to work on here.

This golding needs our cooperation. We need to ask God, "What action we need to be taking in the furnace?" We need to say, "Okay, Lord, what redemptive way are you going to use to use this mess?" "Now, what can I be doing?"

And so there is a cooperation. We can decide to help the process along, or we can decide to just sit and gripe about it. We can decide to curse God and die, or trust God and grow.

Grow into this sturdy oak he wants us to be.

Tozer says this in his book, "High Mountains and Deep Valleys." "Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will." "Refuse to be average." I love it. "Refuse to be average, or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment."

Boy, there's a lot of good thoughts in there. Refuse to be average. As we're waiting it out, it helps us to know what's happening.

Now, as we're waiting it out, prayer has an integral part, has a huge part in helping us to wait in the long haul as we're waiting it out. Prayer is going to be developed as much as our character is going to be developed. Our potential in prayer has never even begun to be exposed until suffering comes our way. It's sad, isn't it? That suffering has to come before we'll ever really get down to praying. You know, have you ever heard somebody say, "Well, there's nothing else we can do, we'd better just pray." It's the last thing, but it's the thing that we definitely are forced to do when suffering comes.

And there is no question about it. Job teaches us much about prayer. For example, there are 42 chapters of his prayers. And he never heard God answer one of them until we get to the end of the story. He just kept praying. And that's a very simple lesson: if you are on the way to soon, keep going, keep praying. Keep praying. Even if you can't see him in the north and the south and the east and the west, even though he seems to be busy answering everybody else's prayers but yours. Keep praying. And Job's three friends kept telling him that, "God is answering our prayers. God answered my prayers. God answered my prayers." And Job saying, "Well, he's not answering mine," but he kept talking to God all the way for 42 long chapters. How long this trial of Job last? We don't know, but we do get a feeling it was a pretty long haul, a long time. And the hardest thing is to keep on praying. The easiest thing is to stop.

Now, how we pray in suffering is also very, very important. Don't be like a prophet of Baal. The prophets of Baal would cut themselves, would mutilate themselves, would dance, would scream, would try all sorts of things to make their gods listen to them and notice them and see their anguish and their suffering and their agony. Some of us are like the prophets of Baal when suffering comes. Now, I don't think we mutilate ourselves, we beat ourselves, we try, we we maybe think, "What can I do to make God answer my prayers?" And maybe we will do it religiously like they did it religiously in their way. Maybe we'll fast and fast and fast because we feel if if we if we do all of this, then God is going to answer my prayers, going to reward me with the answer. What we need to do is not try so hard and start trusting more. That's easier said than done.

The problem is the discipline of praying on when you're in this unanswered prayer vacuum is something that is absolutely down to the will. I mean, forget your emotions, forget everything. It is a question of whether you will pray on and not give up when you don't see a prayer answered.

I think one of the best illustrations of this I've had in the past couple of years was when I was on the way to soon in a particular situation. I couldn't sleep. We have a condominium, and the condominium has some land on a little lake, and on this little lake, there's a little jetty and there's a little seat. And often in the good times I would go and sit down there, and so in the bad times, I started to do it as well. And I remember getting up very, very early one morning and taking a rug and something to sit on and going down because I couldn't sleep and and sitting by this lake. It was absolutely exquisite, it was beautiful, it was a gorgeous day, the sun was just coming up. And I looked at the lake and it was just glass, it was it was beautiful. That day I had been very aware that God wanted me there. I'd I'd sensed, "Come down to the lake, I have something to say to you." And so I sat there trying to listen to the voice of God. I had my Bible. I read a little bit, shut my Bible and just tried to be still and know that he was God. And I looked out at the lake, and it was just as if the Lord said to me, "Do you believe there's any fish in that lake?" And I said, "I know there's fish in the lake." He said, "What evidence have you that there are fish in the lake?" And I looked over that that, you know, glass pond. And suddenly a fish jumped. And the Lord said to me, "Do you have to see a fish jump to believe there are fish in the lake?" And I said, "Yes." Because I knew where he was getting at.

Actually, the answer, the truthful answer was no. I didn't need to see a fish jump to know there were fish in the lake. I knew there was all that activity going on under there, that life. But to look at the surface, did I have to see a fish jump? Did I have to see him active? Did I have to see him answering one of those hundreds of prayers I'd been praying? Now then, could my Christian character grow a little bit and stretch a little bit? Could I become a little more of a sturdy oak by saying, "I don't need to see a fish jump, Lord. I will believe. I will believe there is activity, heavenly activity, going on under the surface of my pond, which to me looks just like glass, nothing happening. I will believe." It was a turning point for me. And I've shared that illustration with many, many people since, and it's been quite helpful.

When I can't see him active, I will believe. I will trust him. He knows the way I take, and when he's finished with me, I will come forth as gold.

And where are you in the story today? Maybe you're on this journey to soon. Is that right? Are you waiting it out? Are you saying, "Not soon, now, Lord?" Would you be able to say today, like the three men in the fiery furnace, "Deliver me in this, Lord, whether you ever deliver me out of it or not?" Would you be able to say to him, "When you've tested me, I will come forth as gold. I will cooperate in this process, Lord." "Help me to see the redemptive way you and I can turn this to your account, this mess to your account." "And I'll be yours. I'll work with it. I'll work with you. I'll let you work with me, that you may get the glory." Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, thank you for Job. Thank you for the lessons that we're learning, certainly in our heads. Lord, may we learn them in our heart. May we take them to heart. May we listen to your voice and weigh all the words that are being spoken. Lord, you want to see us come forth as gold. You want to make us sturdy oaks. And so many of us are like mushy mushrooms and tin, and that's no good. And we know that it's not easy, that furnaces hurt, storms drench us. The pictures are very vivid here today, Lord.

And I pray quite simply that we might not resign ourselves to fate as others would that do not know Jesus, but that we would accept with hope and confidence the mess that you have seen fit to allow in this sin-stricken universe of which we're a part. And we pray that you may be pleased with us, Lord, as we respond rightly to the suffering you permit. And we ask it for your name's sake. Amen.