We are continuing our focus on how to cope with evil and suffering.
Our first assertion was…
1. God has provided a future without evil for those who choose Him now.

Now, we are elaborating on the second assertion:
2. God has provided peace and hope in the face of evil.

We have covered four of six instructions regarding this:
1.) If we are going to respond correctly to the evil in this world, we must first receive from Jesus His peace that He freely gives His followers.
2.) It is okay to express our frustration to God.
3.) We must always affirm that God is still trustworthy.
4.) We must hold to the hope that God is working through the evil.

Today, we look at the fifth and sixth instruction:

5.) Wait and Trust.

This is not always easy, but sometimes it’s all we have left. When we’ve done everything we understand God would have us do, it’s now up to God to do the rest. And when we wait for Him and trust Him, He’ll always come through for us.

There is a part of a verse that most of us are very familiar with…
Psalm 46:10 (ESV) “Be still, and know that I am God…”

There is an old saying, “Don’t just stand there, do something.” But often God will say to us, “Don’t just do something, stand there.”

For most believers, waiting for God is one of the hardest Christian disciplines. We live in a world of instant gratification. We want answers now. We want results now. So, often times we go before the Lord and don’t give Him a chance to work His will in our lives. We are too busy working our own will while all along we think we are just helping God out to achieve His results. In doing so, we miss the blessing of experiencing the work of God in our lives.

When we are still before the Lord, we will experience His mighty power. The rest of Psalm 46:10 says, “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!.”

In its context, God is also warning the enemies of evil that they should pause to recognize who He is. And that He will be exalted among all nations when He demonstrates His power over them.

Those who refuse to exalt (lift up) Jesus today will most certainly do so in the future.

Philippians 2:9–11 (ESV)
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Someday every knee will bow before Jesus, even if they have to do it from the pit of hell. Wouldn’t it be better to exalt Him now and forever?

We should note that God is never exalted when, by our power, we try to exalt Him. God is exalted when we allow Him to exalt Himself through us.

Look at how Isaiah describes what the power of Christ can do for those who wait upon Him.

Isaiah 40:28–31 (ESV)I
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Our God is never tired. Our God is never powerless. In fact, He has sufficient power to share it with we who are weak; enough power to enable us so that we can walk, run or fly.

What we must do is be still before the Lord and wait for Him…

Psalm 37:7–9 (ESV)
7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! 8 Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. 9 For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

In this world of evil, we need the power of God in our lives. We are not to let evil and evil people capture our thinking. If we “fret” over evil, we ourselves may be doing evil. No, instead, we must choose to wait and trust in God because He is trustworthy.

Just before this admonition in Psalm 37, David says in verse 3: “Trust in the Lord, and do good; …”

And that brings us to the last instruction on coping with evil and suffering.

6.) Do what you can to ease suffering.

Waiting on the Lord does not mean we do nothing. Rather, it means that as we wait for God to deliver us, we seek to be a part of the solutions to the pain around us. Rather than to just sit back and do nothing but complain, we should take an aggressive approach toward evil and suffering. The name “Christian” literally means “little Christ.” So as Christians, we are to be doing the things that Jesus would do. We must ask, “What Would Jesus Do?”

James 1:27 (ESV)
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

When we help people who can’t help themselves or who are suffering, we represent Jesus to them.

When we get involved with the suffering of others, we displace the focus that is on us to them.

We should be activity looking for ways to help hurting people. Sometimes that’s as simple as buying groceries for Mercy Mission.

As we do our part, we can be sure that God will do His.