This past Sunday, we sang the well-known hymn “It Is Well with My Soul”, which speaks of “sorrows like sea billows”. This hymn was written by a man who was familiar with sorrow– he lost five children before he wrote it: one to scarlet fever and four to a shipwreck.
When I first began following Christ, I had an unrealistic idea about Christian suffering. I basically thought that Christians go through immense suffering, but don’t really feel the grief. It’s almost like God anoints us with a dose of supernatural happiness in the midst of it. Honestly, I have experienced that at times. I’ve experienced Christ giving me a divine sense of comfort in the midst of things that should have crushed me.
However, I also see in the scriptures and in my own life that God doesn’t always operate that way. I don’t usually see Christians in the Bible saying things like, “I’m in a trial, but I’m praising Jesus with a smile!”
The grief in Scripture is real. The pain is real. The sorrow is real, and it’s heavy. Just read Lamentations 3. However, for the believer, Godly sorrow gives birth to a living hope.
Sorrow over a loss causes me to hope in the day when all things are restored and renewed, when the joy and comfort that comes in the end will justify the pain and loss along the way.
That nagging feeling of discontentment and emptiness causes me to hope in the day when I will see Christ face-to-face, as He is, and be fully enraptured and satisfied by Him.
Sorrow over sin gives me hope in the cross and the work of the Spirit– because the fact that I am sorrowful over sin is a working of the Spirit. It gives me hope that He has begun a good work and will complete it. It also causes me to rejoice in the cross, because I know that every sin I have ever done and ever will do has been paid for by Christ.
Sorrow over a lack of approval or acceptance from others reminds me that I have been fully accepted in Christ, and my identity is found in Him and not the opinions of others.
In short, discontentment in this life is the biggest motivation for me to find true and lasting contentment in Christ. Sorrow in this life is the biggest reason for me to look forward to Christ’s return.
I think the Apostle Paul describes the Christian life perfectly– sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
Why? Because when sorrows like sea billows roll, I rejoice in this:
My sin, not in part, but the whole, was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. One day, my faith will be made sight: the trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend! It is indeed well with my soul.