Suffering or Prosperity? The Gospel for a New Year

“I just prayed that your book will be published this year.” My husband’s voice broke through my sleep-obscured thoughts as we snuggled in the New Year this morning. Putting off the inevitably icy reception of the air outside our covers, I lay in bed praying and wondering what this new year will hold for us.

We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago. With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers; you crushed the peoples and made our fathers flourish. It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them.
Psalm 44:1-3

I remember wondering the same thing on a New Year’s Day several oceans and years ago. We had set the day aside to fast and pray, asking the Lord’s direction and blessing on our upcoming year. Small children and frequent visitors had kept me busy, but I finally managed to slip away for some focused time in God’s presence. As I meditated on His sovereign rule over governments and toddlers, ministry plans and personal resources, His voice broke through my thoughts.

“Take all that you hold dearest and lay it in My hands.”

One by one I named my children and my husband and offered them up to Him in worship. This wasn’t a completely new exercise for me. I had occasionally used it as a litmus test for the state of my heart, checking to see if God still had first place in my affections and loyalties.

But He was after something else this time. He urged me to go on. I began naming everything else I could think of that was important to me: my beautiful home, the treasures that filled it, my friends and communities on both sides of the world, my health, financial stability, and success in ministry. Each of these I surrendered into His hands with a growing sense of dread, wondering why He was asking me to do it.

Finally He let up, telling me to leave it all there in His hands.

I agonized in His presence, chafing under the thought that perhaps this had not just been a test, after all. What if He was going to take me up on my offer? And yet He had already anticipated my next impulse, reminding me not to try to take it all back.

I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory over our enemies… In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise your name forever.
Psalm 44:6-8

I walked through January not knowing whether to dread the upcoming year or to look forward to it. Did this mean that God was going to take all of those things and prosper them or simply take and keep them?

But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies. You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us. You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations. You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale.
Psalm 44:9-12

Little did I know that by the end of that year, we would have lost our entire income, our home in South Asia, our status in ministry, and many of our closest relationships. I would be a mental and emotional wreck, struggling to survive the aftermath of trauma and incapacitated to serve my family or my God.

All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness.
Psalm 44:17-19

That was the darkest year of my life, scored by a valley of suffering deeper than any I had thought humanly possible. I had placed all of my eggs in one basket and entrusted it to God’s hands. After all, wasn’t that supposed to be the safest place? But He dropped the basket. As I reviewed the chain of events that led to my utter devastation, His was the hand I saw behind it all.

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits–who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Psalm 103:2-5

Years later I can look back and recount the ways that He caught each of those “eggs.” Not a one of them hit the ground and was permanently destroyed. In fact, most of those precious treasures that I entrusted to Him have been returned to me, radically altered but greatly enhanced through the process. I still bear the scars of my losses, but I have gained new stories to tell of God’s faithfulness.

As I survey the life He has reconstructed for me, drastically different from the one I would have chosen for myself, I can see how He was working all along to fulfill the deepest desires of my heart. I look around my Scottish home and marvel at its beauty. I consider the friendships that sweeten our life from near and far, the ministry opportunities that fill my days, and the rich provisions that make our life possible and I can’t help but see God’s hand in all of it. I watch my husband flourishing and my children developing into mature, well-rounded disciples of Christ and fall to my knees in gratitude.

Will this next year hold success or suffering, prosperity or pain? I really don’t know what to anticipate. But I do know the glorious, nail-pierced hands of the One who holds it all.

The good news for 2015 is: He reigns.