The bread of adversity, the water of affliction.

If you knew that you would find a truth
That brings up pain that can't be soothed
Would you change? Would you change?

Tracy Chapman-Change

Often times it is through adversity and affliction that our truest self raises to the surface. Our fundamental beliefs and trusts are exposed only in these times of contention and suffering, and often times we find that the claims we make are like “paper tigers” (indigo girls-“love will come to you”), just spoken words, not deep-heart, suffering-born conviction. They lack the power to heal, comfort, challenge, or make sense of the pain we are experiencing. It is our absolute commitment to not suffering in our culture that often erodes our ability to experience the guidance that the Lord often brings to us though suffering. Many of my daily interactions are had with people seeking guidance and direction from the Lord concerning their lives; yet they live diametrically opposed, via unwillingness, to receive from the hand of the Lord the “bread of adversity and the water of affliction” that often can lead to hearing his (“the teachers”) voice. That is to say, we want Jesus to lead us, we just don’t want to have to suffer. Yet as Paul knew all to well, being united to Christ in sufferings is part of experiencing this type of resurrected living (Philippians 3:10) Isaiah 30 gives us a beautiful picture of this.

Isaiah 30:19-22: 19 O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. 20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." 22 Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

It is hard for us to believe in a society so bound to comfort masked as safety, that the Lord could possibly be answering our cry’s for help with affliction. It is due to idolatry masked as “personal responsibility” that we continue to depend on our self for our provision rather than Him. Yet these idols, when shown to us for what they truly are, often through God given adversity, become as menstruation to us. That is they become utterly worthless and undependable to save. It is only in this God authored awakening thorough affliction, that we are finally set free enough to “defile” these very things we have trusted.

I find often a deep resistance to suffering within myself. An unparalleled allegiance to my comfort that takes on the form of hedonism (pleasure) and materialism (possessions) expressed through a deceptive and often times seemingly hard to pinpoint narcissism (self). Again we see this played out well earlier in the passage of Isaiah 30.

Isaiah 30: 9-11: These are rebellious people, deceitful children, 
children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction.10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. 11 Leave this way, 
get off this path, 
and stop confronting us 
with the Holy One of Israel!"

“Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.” “Tell me a lie, if it’s true” (griffin house-lyric from tell me a lie). I would rather live in a lie, in an utter illusion, that affords me comfort, than be faced with the truth, if it means I come to grips with the fact that as a Christ follower, I will be partially groaning the rest of my life. (Romans 8:23) This is not to say that the Lord never provides seasons of rest, peace, and comfort. Rather to say, that we must receive those things as from the Lord, just as we are free to receive affliction from him as well (Job 1:21). It is my (our) unwillingness to part with the first (comfort) that often times leads to a misunderstanding of the second (affliction). (Job 2:10- shall we not accept the good from the lord as well as the trouble?)

It is through the bread of adversity and the water of affliction that we often come to hear the Lords voice more clearly. The voice that says “this is the way, walk in it.” But the invitation to walk in this “way” is not an invitation to go it alone. For he has gone this way before us, and calls us to go with him where he has already gone.

Philippians 2:5-8: 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 
 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 
 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 
 8And being found in appearance as a man, 
he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross.