One of Satan’s primary tools against believers and unbelievers as well, is a spirit of offence against God. That spirit prompts us to view God as the source of our pain or loss and paints some episode in which we have been wounded as a betrayal by God. The offence often begins in the form of a question such as “Why did God do this to me?” or “Why did God allow this to happen?” Satan follows up with accusing thoughts suggesting that God doesn’t love us or that he broke his promise to us and therefore cannot be trusted.

This strategy shouldn’t surprise us because it was the first strategy of the devil recorded in scripture. It began with the question from the serpent to Adam and Eve. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the Garden’” (Gen.3:1). I’m sure he was pointing out an abundance of trees filled with fruits and nuts as he said that. His tone of voice undoubtedly suggested that God was the sort of God who always withheld the best things from his people. When Eve replied that there was only one tree in the garden from which they could not eat and eating from it would produce death, Satan simply replied that they would not die which implied that God was a liar and could not be trusted. Once Adam and Eve accepted the premise, it was downhill from there.

One of the great lies that Satan promotes in the American church is that God has promised that if you serve him faithfully, your life will be trouble free or, at least, the troubles will be light and momentary. With that expectation, anytime loss or serious crisis arises, the believer must either believe that they are so defective that God can’t love them or that God has broken his promise to them. Either one of those conclusions moves us away from God.

The truth is that Christians will most likely face loss, woundedness, disease, and betrayal from other humans in this life. Jesus warns believers that in this world we will face trouble (Jn.16:33). The idea that God is supposed to totally protect us from all hurts while we live in enemy territory in a fallen world is an unbiblical expectation. Look at the “roll call of faith” in Hebrews 11. Some of God’s best people were delivered from trouble after a season of serious suffering while many others were ridiculed, rejected, tortured, flogged, chained, put in prison, stoned, sawed in two, put to death by the sword, and so forth. Jesus was rejected, beaten and crucified. Eleven of the apostles were martyred and the other was exiled to a lonely island. Hundreds or thousands of Christians today in the Middle East and China have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their faith.

As believers, we are often shaken with a diagnosis of cancer, a spouse leaving us for another, the unexpected or even tragic death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the failure of a business, a child born with a birth defect, a miscarriage, or the inability to have children altogether. At moments like these, we want everything to make sense as if that somehow would comfort us. I’m sure it makes sense from heaven, but not from this side of the veil. At times like that, we have to hold tightly to the things we do know to keep from being shaken by the things we don’t know. Paul said that we only know in part (1 Cor.13:9). We will have to be content to live with some mystery and some unanswered questions. If we had an answer for everything we would not need faith.

What we do know is that God is good. He is faithful. He cares and his grace will be sufficient if we allow it. We have to know that we are all subject to loss, pain, and betrayal in this world and for it to come is neither a sign of God’s disapproval or any broken promises. The promise is not for a pain free life but that he will walk us through the pain to some good that waits on the other side.

In Psalm 23, David did not say that God would take us around the valley of death but that he would give us hope and courage as we walk through the valley. Paul tells us that God is the God of all comfort who comforts us in our troubles (2 Cor. 1:3). It is in the midst of trouble that we experience his comfort. It’s not that God does not keep us from harm or from the evil one. He protects us more that we will ever know.

There are certainly promises of protection in scripture. But those are balanced with the realities of living in a fallen world in which God chose at the outset to honor the free will of men. That free will can have devastating consequences. By man’s decisions people are betrayed, drunk drivers kill the innocent, spouses enter into adulteress relationships, war’s take the lives of millions, and drug overdoses take the lives if the young. But it is also the very thing that produces real love, sacrifice, compassion, heroism, and faith. The church’s mission is to bring enough people under the saving grace of Jesus Christ that man’s free will becomes a blessing rather than a curse.

They key is to know these realities before trouble comes. If we are living with the paradigm that God only loves us if no pain comes our way, the devil will have no trouble getting us to be offended at God. The key is to know that we all live with the possibility that in this world we will have trouble. Some trouble will be short-lived. Some we will overcome in this life. Some we will gain victory over only in heaven.

Remember that Paul promised that “in all things we are more than conquerors” (Rom.8:17). However, we are conquerors because we can never being separated from the love of God no matter what. Whether in life or death, we will eventually win because our standard for winning is living eternally with Christ. That is where true victory lies regardless of the outcome of our battles in this world. I believe God wants us to live as overcomers in this world, pray for supernatural healing, raise the dead, and believe God for victories here and now. But those victories will usually come after some initial pain, sorrow, and battles. Some victories, however, will simply show up as victory over the grave and victory over the enemy as we refuse to fall to his strategy of alienating us from the God who has prepared a place for us and has promised us eternal life in a place without pain, hate, loss, and betrayal.

Life without pain will eventually be the full expression of God’s love for us, but only when we finally arrive home. Until then, the question is not whether trouble will come but only whether our faith stands when it does arrive. Jesus told us that we will have trouble, so we would not be surprised when it comes. When it comes, we should only hold God tighter and know that he is not absent nor uncaring but has already prepared what we will need to walk through the moment if we will walk with him.

On Monday morning, pastor Donnell Jones shared some essential thoughts with our staff on overcoming that moment when life and ministry seem overwhelming. I want to share the gist of his message along with some of my own thoughts but wanted to make sure that you knew Donnell was the primary source and that his thoughts were seriously worth sharing with you.

In his gospel, Matthew tells us, “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will’” (Matt.26:36-39).

As we read the gospels, we always see Jesus unafraid, in control, and the master of every situation. But the night before the cross, he confesses something that must have stunned his inner circle of Peter, James, and John. In the darkness of the Garden, he confesses that his soul is overwhelmed with sorrow or heaviness to such a degree that he needs them to watch and pray with him. They have always needed him, but now he desperately needs them. The idea of Jesus being overwhelmed is disconcerting. Yet we have to remember that Jesus faced the cross as a man, not as God.

Secondly, we need to note that his soul was overwhelmed, not his spirit. Our soul is not our spirit. Our soul is comprised of our will, our mind, and our emotions. Our spirit is the eternal part of us that the Holy Spirit quickened and renewed when he took up residence within us. It is that part of us through which the Spirit leads us, reveals God’s will to us, and through which he renews and transforms our thoughts, emotions, and will. But that is a process. The soul is a kind of middle ground or even battleground between the spirit and our fallen nature or “the flesh.”

When the enemy attacks us, he either attacks us through the flesh with infirmity or disease or attacks our soul where he fills our minds with thoughts contrary to the will of God and with thoughts that stir up the negative emotions of fear, hopelessness, shame, lust, anger, and so forth. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the enemy was attacking Jesus with fear, heaviness, and maybe even doubt that what he was about to do was even worth the suffering that lay ahead.

In his soul, Jesus was tormented and overwhelmed. When we feel overwhelmed by life, it is our soul that is overwhelmed. As Graham Cooke says, “ Our circumstances are not the problem. Our perspective of our circumstances is the problem.” When our soul looses sight of the Father, his goodness, his resources, and his vast, unconditional love for us, we can feel overwhelmed and sorrowful unto death. Those who contemplate suicide are in that position. That is where Jesus found himself that night, just minutes before his arrest and a few hours before the beatings would begin.

In that moment, Jesus asked, “Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”   At that moment, Jesus only wanted out. His soul saw no way to face what lay ahead. And yet, as he confessed his fears and sought God, his prayer changed. “He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matt.26:42). Before, Jesus prayed, “If it is possible….” Now he prays, “If it is not possible…” The word “if” can often be translated “since.” Jesus could have been saying, “Since it is not possible to take this cup away….” Something has shifted from his soul not being able to see his way through the next few hours to seeing that the Father would walk with him through the suffering he saw ahead, no matter how hard. His soul was no longer so overwhelmed because he had poured his heart out to the Father and had received strength from the Spirit. We are told by Luke that an angel came and ministered to him in that moment and strengthened his resolve. His third prayer was the same as his second.

When our souls are overwhelmed by sorrow, loss, difficulty, or even responsibility, we often look elsewhere for comfort rather than going to the Holy Spirit who is the Comforter. We go to friends, food, therapists, medications, and assorted addictions to get us through, rather than to the Spirit who is our friend, our counselor, and our guide. Friends are good. Therapists are fine. Food is essential. But only the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are enough. When Jesus went to the Father three times, he was engaging with the Spirit and heaven responded with a ministering angel. His soul began to receive hope and strength and the feeling of being overwhelmed with sorrow unto death began to lift.

We should take heart from Jesus who is our model. First of all, even those who have great faith and an intimate relationship with the Father can come to a place where his or her soul feels overwhelmed by life. That is not sin…or Jesus sinned. Jesus did not suppress those feelings but shared them with those he was close to for prayer and encouragement. But more than that he cried out to the Father and asked for strength, hope, and encouragement from the throne of heaven. He pressed in until the Spirit ministered to his spirit which then ministered to his soul. His perspective changed. Light could be seen in the darkness.

The goodness, love, and power of God became anchor points for the soul and Jesus was able to move ahead. He is our model. When life feels overwhelming we should follow in his steps. At some point, Jesus was given or given back a supernatural perspective that looked beyond the cross to all that his suffering would accomplish. The writer of Hebrews spoke of that when he said, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb.12:2).

In the midst of feeling overwhelmed, Jesus was given an eternal perspective by the Spirit that everything he was enduring was worth it…even to the point of joy. There are times when we need that perspective. That is why Paul counseled us, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:9). In every circumstance, God has a purpose for our good. He does not always create the circumstance but he will always use it for our benefit. Sometimes, we need a glimpse of his purpose. Like Jesus, we can ask for it and when we receive the eternal view of what we are going through, our soul will be strengthened.  And remember, it is your soul that is overwhelmed, not your spirit – so tune into what the Spirit is saying to your spirit. In that moment, even your prayers will change.