Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
Have you ever had a "parallel" conversation with someone? There might be a more official term for it, but what I mean are those conversations where you say something to someone, and instead of responding to what you've said they reply by saying something that does not have much to do with what you've said. Hence, the parallel nature of the "conversation," which basically includes two people talking at each other, but not with each other, never having their thoughts or words actually connect.
I hate to use another video clip to illustrate my point, but I will:
Well, in the passage above I saw something like this going on. The Israelites pleaded with Moses to ask God to "take the snakes away from us." So, you'd expect God to answer Moses by either saying "yes" or "no," right? He doesn't.
Instead, he replies by telling Moses to put a bronze snake up on a pole so that anyone who is bitten can look up at it and be saved.
God does not comply or deny the request (although I guess it can be interpreted as an implicit denial), and seems to almost ignore the plea to take the snakes away. At first glance, it appears that God is acting like a parallel converser. But that is not the case. His response is sufficient and resounds so much louder than a simple answer would have. Not only does it point to the ultimate "bronze snake" to come, but it speaks to the issue of suffering.
Suffering is one of the common denominators in this life. Every single human being on the face of this earth is familiar with it in some form. Still, this does nothing to soothe us in our times of pain, sorrow, and anguish; for some, this knowledge can actually magnify the despair.
Whenever we enter a time of suffering our first response is to ask God to take the source of it away. (I think the source of our times of suffering is very distinct from the suffering itself. It is far more common to have suffering flee from us for seasons, but the sources of our suffering may very well linger for our entire lives on this planet.) That is expected, and even good since it shows our trust in and reliance upon God as our Almighty Father, whose arm is neither weak nor short.
But I think I can confidently say that many, if not all of us have had venomous snakes that were not taken away from us, no matter how often, how earnestly, or how fervently we asked for their removal. Why is this? That is the billion dollar question, and though there are so many ways to approach the question of suffering (its allowance, its presence, its lingering, and everywhere in between) it seems that the most sure and true response is: no one knows. Though it's unsatisfying and even haunting, it's the answer that we are left with in Job, the Bible's very own book of suffering.
So, what's the proper focus and response to our times of suffering? It seems wise to begin at a place where Paul sheds some light: "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."" (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)
Though it's good for us to respond honestly before the Lord, asking him to take the source of our suffering away, it is unwise and unfruitful to stop there. We must go beyond and even accept the holy fact that God may never take that thorn away, though he does provide a way out.
Our Lord's grace is always available to us. Though maybe not as tangible, it is infinitely more accessible than the bronze snake Moses elevated on that pole. Our Savior raised up on a wooden cross is all we need in our times of suffering.
Jesus suffered the deepest pain on the cross. The Son of God himself cried out and received no response so that we would never have to be ignored whenever we cry out in our times of need. He was separated from God to ensure our eternal union with him. He took the venom and had nowhere to look for salvation so that he could become salvation for us.
God will accomplish his mysterious purposes through our times of suffering. In the meantime, let's not waste so many of our thoughts, so much of our breath, and so many tears pleading with God to remove our thorns and snakes. When we do, we forget the fact that we have someone to look to in order to be saved from death. That's the important thing: we will live.
His seemingly illogical, and even cruel answers are meant to improve our perspective and draw us nearer to him, the one our hearts desire and seek. That alone should be reason for thanks.
Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear.
- Isaiah 65:24
by Oswald Chambers
Has God trusted you with His silence— a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible— with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him— He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God’s sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, "I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead" (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the "bread of life" (John 6:35).
A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that His stillness is contagious— it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, "I know that God has heard me." His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy— silence.
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