If we take just physical suffering for example, there’s no question that it’s much easier to maintain strong faith when our bodies are fit, healthy, and functioning well. Indeed, one of the quickest ways to weaken faith is to abuse the bodies God has given us through overdoing work or underdoing sleep, exercise, and good food.

Three Pills
God has so made us that the body and soul are mysteriously tied together, dependent on one another, and to some degree each determining the health of the other. Many of the depressed people I’ve counseled have ended there through overwork, under-sleeping, and failing to exercise and eat well. A Christian psychologist friend of mine told me once that he always prescribes three pills as a vital part of his treatment plan for depressed patients: good food, good diet, and good sleep!

I know myself that when I’m not sleeping enough, or when I’m not getting daily exercise, that negative thought patterns quickly set in and I start spiraling downwards. My weary body drags down my mind and soul. But a few good nights’ sleep and regular exercise will usually turn me around again so that I can live with a more positive and God-glorifying faith.

Sick Bodies
But what if health is no longer an option? What if our body is sick, diseased, disabled, and even dying? That will happen to most of us eventually, even to those of us who have cared most for our bodies. God is able to work even the worst of suffering together for our good (Rom. 8:28).

He does this by helping us to find a redemptive perspective, which, Donald Miller explains, is really about creating two lists rather than one.

Normally when something hard happens we start a running mental list of all the negative consequences. And that’s fine and normal. Finding a redemptive perspective, however, is about creating a second list, a list of the benefits of a given tragedy. And there are always benefits.

The “Benefits” of Suffering
Why not go back through the yesterday’s list of “benefits” from the conviction of sin and calculate which of these fruits that suffering has produced in your life. Just like sin, suffering humbles us, sensitizes us, silences us, draws us, makes us dependent, increases carefulness, fans hatred for sin, motivates us to oppose the devil, drives us to the Bible and our knees, stimulates love for the Christ who suffered for us, provokes thankfulness for the good days and for the good God draws out of the bad days, makes us better comforters and encouragers, and above all, makes us long for heaven.

As the Apostle said, “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 1:18). But we don’t need to wait until heaven to see and enjoy the fruit of suffering. Though “no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11).

Beautiful Balance
That’s a beautiful balance, isn’t it. The Apostles do not downplay sin or suffering; they feel both deeply and painfully. However neither do they view them apart from the sovereign power and wisdom of God who is able to make the most and the best of our least and our worst.

The suffering Apostle Paul put it this way: “As dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yetnot killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:9-10). Both sides together at the same time. Sorrowful and rejoicing. Mourning and being comforted.

This is what distinguishes faith from mere optimism and enables faith to trump optimism. We confront the brutal agony of our lives, our families, our churches, and our society. But, at the same time, we also keep steady faith in the Word of God, especially its sure promises of personal perseverance and the ultimate triumph of faith and of the Church of Christ. Optimism is not faith; but faith is optimistic.

iPhone displays my son’s name: “Allan Murray”

9.45 pm.

I’m expecting the usual, “Dad, the Bible Study ran a bit late and we’ll be home at 10.15-ish.”

Instead.

“Eeeeeeeeeee-aaaaaaaaaw……Eeeeeeeeeee-aaaaaaaaaw”

An almost deafening siren. With multiple others in the background.

And heavy breathing. Pants. Gasps.

My wife analyzes my face. I try calm, controlled Dad expression.

More sirens. More grunts and groans.

Seconds slow down and pass slowly by.

“Allan! Allan!! Allan!!!” I give up on control and just resort to being Dad.

“Dad…”

Best word I’ve ever heard in my life.

“Dad…we’re both OK.”

Best four words I’ve ever heard.

I repeat them for Shona’s benefit.

“A drunk driver hit us…but we’re both OK.”

Within 30 minutes we meet up in the hospital. Allan’s on a board with a neckbrace and Angus is recovering from a bleeding nose, a pummeled face, and, strangely, two very painful thumbs. A few hours and a few CT scans later, we’re all home and reviewing what happened…again and again. 

The Pontiac Grand Prix

The Collision
Allan, who’s seventeen, was driving my car along Lake Michigan Drive, doing about 45 mph, when a drunk driver (or under the influence of something) in a black Pontiac, coming from the opposite direction, suddenly turned in front of them. There was nothing Allan could do, apart from swerve slightly just before impact. All the air bags deployed. After a few seconds of disorientation and shock, they both stumbled out of the car as fast as they could because they could smell gas and liquid seemed to be everywhere. Allan fell over and was helped by a bunch of motorcyclists who witnessed the accident.

Ambulance, police, and fire-trucks were there within minutes and soon they were on their way to hospital. The emergency workers were fantastic, reassuring the boys that there were multiple witnesses who saw exactly what happened and that the other guy would be charged. That is, if he escaped the fury of the bikers, especially one female biker!

The Ford Escape

The Injuries
Allan has whiplash and chest abrasions. Angus has a sore face and two broken thumbs – he was texting when the airbag went off and pushed his thumbs backwards, with his phone, into his face. He’s now in a thumb cast and a thumb brace. Weird, eh?

The car is totalled, but who cares. They were spared serious injury and even death, and we praise God for His sparing mercies. We also pray that the Lord would bless this to their souls, increasing their spiritual urgency and seriousness. As Angus said, “For a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe, and I did wonder if I was alive or not.”

The Mercies
Strangely, Shona and I had both separately read Psalm 121 that morning. Maybe that was because the day before, Tuesday, our family had been spared another potential tragedy. Last week, Allan bought an economical car to help him with his new business. It was a Ford Escape 2003 and he paid $2900 for it (all he had plus a little help from ourselves). Tuesday afternoon, he was leaving our driveway when the axle broke at the wheel joint. The car collapsed on one side and the wheel completely buckled. Not only were we thankful that Allan was not driving on the highway when it happened, but Shona had been driving it with our four other kids (including the baby) just two hours before. God is MERCIFUL!

That car also is totalled. It cannot be repaired for less than it’s worth. Although I tried to keep focussed on God’s mercy afterwards, I must confess it was still very painful to think that we’d just poured $2900 down the drain (we had got it checked by a mechanic before purchase).

However, today we are rejoicing that God broke the old Escape so that in their collision Allan and Angus were driving the 2010 Escape with all its modern safety standards and equipment. I think I counted at least six airbags that had deployed. As the salvage man said, “The car did its job well.”

$2900 for the lives of my sons? I’ll take that, thanks. A LOT.

On a slightly humorous note, our recently-purchased used tractor mower was also totalled this week! Transmission failure and again not worth repairing. I’m waiting to discover what disaster God is saving us from with that!

Two sobered sons.

Every night as I read a few entries to my fascinated girls, the memories come flooding back, and it really does feel like yesterday. Observations from the first six months of 1981:

1. I had incredible freedom that few children enjoy today. I was traveling alone on buses into the big city of Glasgow to shop, on trains with my friends to go bird-watching (yes, real bird-watching!), and on bikes up and down busy highways. And not a parent in sight! (And my wonderful parents were stricter than most.) True, I had some scrapes and stitches along the way, but I can hardly believe the parental paranoia that we are all consumed with today.

2. I hated piano lessons as much as I thought I did. I hated trombone lessons even more. And if possible, I hated school even more. And, yes, I do mean “hate.” A number of times I write/confess, “I dogged 1st and 2nd period today…I dogged the afternoon and went to the park…”  (Dogged = Scottish for skipped class. Don’t ask me to explain it). School was an utterly miserable experience for me – bored, bullying, and being bullied – but that’s another story

3. My school soccer team lost even more than I remember. I still bear the physical scars, but the diary re-opened some deep emotional wounds – like the day I played centre-back against the local Catholic school and we lost 10-2. Despite all that, I lived for soccer and played and watched it almost every day. (Did not help my school report card!) One of the chirpiest entries says that I was standing beside two Scottish International footballers in a Fish & Chip shop one night! (Alan Rough and Danny McGrain for Scottish middle-aged readers). Might explain why the Scottish team’s results were so awful though.

4. I had no interest in the Gospel whatsoever. Every Sunday records the preacher’s name, but nothing else. Not one word on one page about God! My parents were faithful in bringing me to church and trying to involve me in church youth groups. But I was spiritually dead.

5. I “went forward” at the Luis Palau evangelistic crusade. Yes, that’s right, I had no interest in the Gospel and yet on June 7 1981, I “went forward” at the Luis Palau crusade! I was one of about 12 young people from our church (a staunchly Presbyterian and Calvinistic Church) who went to the front to “commit our lives to the Lord.” Interestingly I write nothing about what I believed or understood. I simply say, “I got Luis Palau’s autograph!” Of the 12 of us who “went forward” that night I doubt any of us were truly converted (I certainly wasn’t), and I believe that only 2 or 3 of us are still going to Church. Within a few months of the crusade, nothing had changed in any of our lives. In fact, I fear that it did more damage than good. It would be eight more long and sinful years until God “went forward” into my life.

6. God has loved me with an everlasting love. Above all, as I read all my childish writing again, I feel myself enveloped and suffused in the engulfing love of God. I look back on my life and see His goodness and mercy have pursued me all my days, even all my utterly selfish and godless days. O yes, I see the remarkable, the astonishing patient love of my parents toward me, but above all I’m just overwhelmingly dwarfed by the patient love of a sovereign and gracious God.

Not only that He should save me from my sin, and not only save me from where my sin was most certainly leading me in this life and for eternity, and not only save me to know Him through Jesus Christ, but to actually save me to serve Him as one of His ambassadors. What can I do but join Paul on the ground and say, “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8).

Saved by grace alone. And sent by grace alone.

He certainly picks the nothings so that He can be everything.

Chris and Nancy Hanna tell of God’s sustaining grace through a recent car accident. Chris is the Director of Development at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.