The Narrow Path Ministries

I haven`t seen Chris for many years, our paths have gone different ways (countries mainly!) and we were never close friends. But he was very good friends with my younger brother, best man at his wedding etc (though two more different trajectories since then could hardly (unfortunately) be imagined).
Chris lost his wife to cancer last year:

http://www.wycliffe.net/Features/tabid/ ... px?id=1886

I heard on the grapevine that he has taken it very hard and this link confirms that.

Steve, you have spoken of the spiritual support you received from God at the time of the death of your second wife. Comparable spiritual support seems to have eluded poor Chris. It would appear to have taken the wind out of his sails.

It must have been hard for you too, Steve. But it didn`t stall you in your purpose. Why has God been different (seemingly much less interventive) in Chris`situation?

Hi Ian,

How sad for your friend! God bless him and his family!

I don't know why some people receive greater grace than do others, but I know that grace comes through faith (Rom.5:2; Eph.2:8)—which means trusting God. It becomes more difficult to trust God when He does (or allows) something that we think He should not have done—that is, when we perceive an injustice in His dealings, and then begin to wonder whether He is really the good and faithful God that we had been willing to see Him as previously.

While teaching among Christians around the country and around the world, I am often surprised at how many seem to have an inadequate understanding of how suffering (in general, and their own especially) fits into God's purposes. I was fortunate, at an early age, to have been influenced by well-balanced, non-American writers along these lines. Foxe's Book of Martyrs, the writings of Richard Wurmbrandt, Corrie ten Boom, Borther Andrew, Watchman Nee, and others, instilled in me, from my teens, the idea that suffering is the normal state of affairs (especially for Christians) in a fallen world. What I had trouble understanding was not why we suffer, but why we Americans suffer so little, when the Bible instructs us to expect great trials.

There are whole books of the Bible devoted to the subject of suffering (e.g., Job, 2 Corinthians, 1 Peter, Revelation), as well as important passages in the Psalms, the Prophets, the Gospels, Acts, Romans, Philippians, Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, Hebrews, James, etc.), and key stories wherein the suffering of the righteous figures prominently (e.g., Joseph, Jesus, Acts). I never could understand how any Christian who reads a Bible could ever be surprised by suffering.

Afflictions are both corrective (Psalm 119:67, 71) and demonstrative of one's character (Job 23:10/ 1 Peter 1:7). They are potentially good to those who respond in faith to them. Our proper response is to affirm God's faithfulness in our afflictions (Ps.119:75 / 1 Peter 4:19)—which is what faith means, of course.

As for dealing with the death of my wife (and other losses even more painful), I have always figured that God holds all the prerogatives over the fortunes of His servants. If God's will goes against my preferences—well, isn't that what I signed up for when I willingly became His slave? It has never seemed strange to me that I have suffered. In fact, on balance, I still think I have suffered less than I deserve.

Without wishing to minimize the horrors of widowhood, I must say that the pain and bereavement that is sensed at the death of a faithful spouse is nothing compared to what one goes through in an unwanted divorce. All the poignant memories of which the article spoke, are there just as much as when a spouse has died, but there is the additional grief of knowing that the spouse with whom you shared such wonderful memories is still living, and they wanted to inflict this pain on you. In divorce (though not in widowhood—I have known both) there is the added pain:

1. of rejection and ingratitude continually coming from someone you love and in whom you have invested your entire life;
2. of a continuing tension (and sometimes competition for the hearts of the children and even for the sympathy of friends);
3. of jealousy about your spouse's new lovers;
4. of the lack of closure as to whether to give up hope of reconciliation; and even
5. of enduring the suspicions of friends with reference to your own innocence in the matter.

A minister is never stigmatized by the church for having lost his wife to death, but he is always stigmatized by losing his wife to abandonment and divorce. When your spouse defects, you must worry about his/her salvation. When a faithful spouse dies, you can rejoice that they have experienced an early promotion.

When people ask me whether I was angry at God for His allowing my wife (the good one!) to die in an accident, my natural response has always been, "How would you have preferred for her to die?" I knew that my wife would someday die (and that I also will die) before I married her. It is not hard to do the math—the human mortality rate remains right up at 100%. I did not know, of course, that she would die six months after we were married—nor was I happy about it—but I have always believed that all of us are under the sentence of death, and that it is God's legitimate right to decide when and how He wishes to carry out that sentence.

I don't mean to suggest that I did not find the loss terrible and excruciating! Sufferings—by definition—are supposed to be painful. What never occurred to me was that any loss I have suffered somehow challenges any of the premises of my faith or worldview. It is when we have too little of that element in our worldview that unanticipated trials defeat us. Our faith in God's goodness is being tested whenever God's providences seem unfriendly. Passing the tests is what it is all about.

I am very grieved for your friend. Satan has desired to sift us like wheat. I will pray for his faith not to fail.

thank you Steve,

your reply took a different direction than I expected but one that moved me.

I will say this: God clearly uses adverse circumstances for His purposes. In your bio you talked about your desire as a young single man to have a successful marriage that would be a "stunning witness" to the rightness and appropriateness of a lifelong covenant with one person. God`s intended way of things. And it didn`t work out that way, twice. I perfectly understand how divorce was worse than bereavement for you. As you know, it is the issue of women that has too often tripped me up ever since my painfully shy teen years, and on through my forties. Worse than breaking my neck by far - that was and is just physical pain. People like me are legion, of both genders. Churned up over the opposite sex. But it was reading and hearing of your own history that has held my attention here at http://www.thenarrowpath.com. Not primarily the Bible teaching. But you yourself Steve. What has happened to you. I have never met you. Only heard you and seen photographs. You are the proverbial "man`s man". But I imagine if I was a woman I would also be drawn to you. And I tell myself, "if Steve can go through all this with women then why shouldn`t I, a lesser man?" (in my eyes). I think of a line in a Genesis song, "you`re taking it all too hard". So unconsciously your witness to me is - "these things happen to the most impressive of us. But romance is not what life is about. Now turn your heart to what life really is about!"

Hi Ian,

I appreciate the affirmation, Brother, but I certainly have never felt like I am a "man's man." Like yourself, was very shy in my early teens, and never hit it off with girls. Even now, I do not appear to be good in relationships with women, and I am aware that it is too late in my life to have my dream of "lifelong" marriage fulfilled in the scraps that remain of my days. This has been a greater disappointment to me than I can communicate, and I am sorry to say that I have not always responded well to that disappointment.

I should not think anyone would envy me, though I hope, when all is said and done, that there may be something good for others to emulate in me. While I do find satisfaction in helping people through the ministry, which is very important to me, I have nonetheless been deprived of everything else that mattered most to me in this life in terms of family relationships (my birth family excepted). It is not my intention to whine or to curry sympathy. I do not pity myself, as I have received many undeserved blessings. If the Lord is pleased to mete out disappointing providences (as I said in my last post), it is certainly His prerogative to do so. I am not the pillar of strength that many apparently view me to be. Perhaps my bio, though honest, was too one-sided. I have probably done as many things wrong as right in life, so I am sure that the Lord is well-justified in any chastisement He may think necessary to bring to me. I just hope that the net result of His dealings, and my responses to HIm, will be for His glory and the advancement of HIs kingdom. That has always been the most important thing to me. I appreciate your compliments, but I hope they do not reflect an unrealistic image that I am portraying.

I am not trying to be particularly humble here. I just want to be genuine, and I often hear people say flattering things about me that make me wonder if I am giving a fully accurate impression. I am a true brother in the Lord. I hope the gift I have received may never obscure the fact that I am no better or worse than the average lover of Christ.

In hindsight, "man`s man" was daft phraseology . And what is that anyway? Crocodile Dundee? Steve Irwin? That wears thin after a while.

But "scraps"? Come on. Some men are of more use to Mankind in their 80s than others are in their 20s. And you will be one of them.

If the Lord wills it. Frankly, I have never had much desire to reach my eighties—but not my will, but His be done!