Following the death of my father the empty void in my life felt like a black hole encompassing me, often suspecting I’d never escape to the light. On a dark spring Sunday morning, while finalizing my sermon, I was on the cusp of giving up. I didn’t know where the strength or courage would come, not only for the sermon, but also for the long rugged road ahead of me. I prayed. I prayed for God to send me comfort to grant me the strength and courage I needed to preach. More so, I prayed for endurance as I was wandering through this season of spiritually barren wasteland and deserted wilderness.
As worship was beginning I found myself in the foyer of the church to welcome members who were still arriving. Terry entered the building. We shook hands and “small-talked” just for a moment before he headed toward our sanctuary. As he reached the closed doors he turned back to me and said, “You are the bravest man I know,” then proceeded to enter the sanctuary.
I was beat down, depressed, and my cup of anxiety was fizzing to explode like I was a shaken Coke bottle. To say I saw myself at the end of my rope was an understatement. But almost like the rainbow breaking through the clouds, Terry broke through my despair. Certain that I was not as brave as he claimed I was, his words offered hope. Without him knowing the ramifications he gave me the strength to move forward. It was a moment where I was at the end, “But God” comforted me with Terry’s words to remind me, “It’s only the beginning.”
Paul had his own “But God” moment in 2 Corinthians 7:6. The relationship between the church in Corinth and the apostle had all but disintegrated. The church he planted had turned on him, rejecting his leadership and message. He tried an intervention only to be run out of town (2 Cor. 2:1-2). Afterward he wrote a letter, outlining his expectations for the church, and sent it by Titus (2 Cor. 2:3-4). Then he waited. He waited some more. In the silence he waited. Without all the modern conveniences like “snail” mail, email, texting, or a phone call, Paul was forced to wait. We know about the waiting in the silence: an unanswered, sensitive text or phone call forces us to start filling in the gaps with our anxious details. Those details are always the worst-case scenarios. Always. In that waiting, Paul fought all the negative messaging of his mind where his anxiety overcame and conquered his peace. I can almost hear his second guessing, “Poor Titus. Why did I send this lamb to the wolves for the slaughter?”
We usually don’t think of Paul as having doubts and fears, do we? We normally hoist him on a pedestal of strength and confidence, untouched by the fallen world around him. He’s an apostle who travels the world to plant churches and is a prolific writer as well. We think anything bad happening to him almost seems to roll off him like water off a duck’s back. Yet the biblical story speaks otherwise. Paul says he comes to Macedonia worn out with no rest (2 Cor. 7:5). Then he adds how much he has been harassed at every turn. Not only was he having a bad day, but every step he took was one continuous bad day after another bad day. It was worse than Alexander’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
In a run of bad days, Paul in 2 Corinthians 7:7 describes these days in two ways. First, there are “conflicts on the outside,” a likely reference to the antagonism he faced for preaching the gospel. Imagine speaking a message counter to the culture where pushback just might be physical. Then again, his preaching is in conflict with the very church whom he planted and nurtured their faith. He’s almost waving his arms and hands at the church saying, “Hey guys! The conflict and breakdown in our relationship is tearing me a part.” Conflict with people is common and we’re constantly navigating friendships to keep them afloat. Conflict with people you love and have invested yourself tend to keep you unsettled and awake at night reliving the breakdown over and over in our minds.
Secondly, he describes, “fears within.” Such fears are the second guessing, doubts, anxieties and is certainly based on the fallout with Corinth. If you are continually putting out brushfires, you will eventually get burned. Paul was up at night with his head spinning and his stomach in knots over the conflict with Corinth.
Paul faced this battle every day: outside conflicts and inside fears giving him no rest. Why not? I don’t think I would either. Relationships that fall apart coupled with inward anxiety create a perfect storm that guarantees no peace, no sanctuary, no rest. His lying awake, night after night, worrying about the friends in his church was tearing him apart, leaving him no more than a wounded warrior.
The seventeenth century theologian and historian, William Fuller, once said, “It is always darkest just before the day dawns.” If the meaning conveys that things are at their worst just before they get better, then two questions remain? How dark will it get before the light comes? And, how will God bring the light when it does come?
As if Paul was anticipating the answer, he wrote these two small words, “But God.” The shift was felt. Good news appeared like it was the rainbow stretched across the grey clouded sky.
Let’s allow those words, “But God,” to wash over ourselves for a minute. Something changed, and changed like it turned on a dime. Paul was having a few bad days, but God was about to change all of that. Paul was experiencing stressful anxiety, but God was about to bring comfort. Paul was at the end of his rope, but God provided a safety net. Paul was undergoing a worried-fueled insomnia, but God was about to bring him into peaceful rest.
Here’s the thing – God won’t be performing some miracle to deliver Paul from his trials. God is not removing Paul from his conflict, nor will he deliver him from his fears. God could, but God won’t. The truth is, he’ll do something simpler. In the end, the something unadorned will be just as powerful as a miracle, and maybe even more beautiful than a miracle.
Basing God’s action on his character, Paul describes God as one who comforts the downcast. To say it another way, when we are spiritually cold, God is the comforter blanket that brings warmth. For Paul, God comforts him by sending Titus (I told you the solution would be simple). The silent void is now filled with the return of Titus. Not only is Titus present, but he brings even better news as the Corinthians, bathing in a repentant spirit, long to see Paul. Titus’s arrival was the “But God who comforts the downcast,” as Paul says in verse 8, because you never know when simply showing up is the comfort someone has been praying for.
Not long ago I was visiting a patient. I sat in her living room listening compassionately to her stories. Finally, toward the end of the visit she confessed, saying, “Jon, do you know what I was doing before you arrived?” Since my gift is not foresight, I told her I didn’t know. She continued, “I was in my room praying that someone might come by to visit me today. I was so alone, and I felt abandoned by my family, and did not want to be by myself. I prayed to God to send me someone, then you showed up.”
I couldn’t help but reflect on my morning before this particular afternoon visit. I was trying to decide who to see and who to delay their visit for another day. This patient was a potential visit, but I kept wanting to bump her visit to the next day. The next day would have worked better for me. The next day would have made more sense for me. But something else was tugging at my heart, telling me to see her today. So I did, and in the end, and only in the end did I realize, that I was being used to be her “But God” moment. She was lonely with feelings of being abandoned and forsaken, but God answered her prayer and led me to visit her.
This morning as you make your way through contacting patients and walking into their homes and re-engaging lives, remember that there has been a moment, an hour, or even entire day or more when you have lost contact with them. Time has passed since you last saw and talked to them, and who knows what has transpired since your last visit. So keep this in mind. As you step back into their lives you just might be the “But God” moment for them where their prayer has been answered by your arrival.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)