What If the Truth Doesn’t Comfort?

The following is an excerpt from page 18 of The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Winter 2001 issue, written by Michael W. Bobick, Pastor of Calvary Community Church in Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

God’s providential control over all things is indeed a great certainty in crises. But perhaps you have had the experience of trying to help someone who has just fallen upon a crisis. You tried to encourage him with the truth of God’s loving providence, but the truth didn’t take. No comfort came; rather, God’s sovereignty seemed like salt in your friend’s wound. Or perhaps in your own suffering you have tried to extract hope from the flower of God’s providence. No nectar came; perhaps, even for a moment, it tasted more like poison. What went wrong? Was it an inappropriate time to say what you did? That, of course, is possible; we are told to “weep with those who weep”; and not to “sing songs to a sorrowing heart.” Could it be that you responded out of unbelief, rather than faith? Certainly at our best moments we say, “I believe, help my unbelief.” But is it possible that you gave a one-sided representation of God? Could it be that you omitted the priesthood of Christ as you presented the providence of God? Might you have choked on the bones of a doctrine abstracted from Christ, who is the face of God for us?

You see what I am suggesting. The providence of God truly cannot be understood apart from the priesthood of Christ. The providence of God may not minister help to people in crisis unless, right along with it, we show the human face of Christ. The immediate question of “Why, Lord?” erupts when a crisis arises. It is not enough to tell the parents of the abducted girl that God is sovereign. You must also communicate that Jesus the High Priest feels the trials of His people and carries their burdens in His heart. It is not enough to tell the soon-to-be unemployed father of seven that God is sovereign. You must tell him that his Savior in heaven was tempted by crippling anxiety as well, and can give him help now. Providence and priesthood: both are ultimate truths. What God has put together, let no one separate.