Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I

Arthur Pink in his book Attributes of God explains that God is love, not simply in the sense that he loves, but He is love itself. Love not merely being one of God’s attributes, but His very nature.

When I did Kairos in 2023, a course meant to give weight and perspective regarding the need for Missions especially among the Unreached People Groups of the world― those who know nothing yet about our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the important lessons that’s still quite solid and fresh was the reminder: God has not only loved us, but he is working to transform us into people who love him. God has loved us, and he requires that we respond to his love by loving him as well, and we prove our love for God when we hope in him and trust in him, when we obey his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

There’s no time that proves our love for God as when we are suffering. Suffering should lead us to a place of contemplation on the love of God rather than self-pity and resentment. Suffering and pain are not an end in themselves much more than they are a means to an end. Count it all joy, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, so says James.

Our love should be fierce during those times when it seems much more difficult to love the Lord, so that with the three Hebrew boys, we may say as well, even if He will not save us, we will not bow down to your graven image…. This kind of fierce obedience proceeds from a place of love, that kind of love that casts away all fear. It is easy to obey God, to trust him, to hope in him when and if we truly love him. It is only love that can say with Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

The third chapter of Lamentations recounts the sighs of a man clearly afflicted almost to a point of desperation, however, he proceeds to explain why he has every reason to hope in the Lord, still, because he knows that the Lord’s steadfast love towards him never ceases, and it is because of the Lord’s compassion that he is not consumed. God has been faithful to deliver us in times past, and he promises to deliver us in our current circumstance. It is also because of his steadfast love towards us that He chastens us, for every father disciplines the child he loves. We need to look beyond our suffering and pain, and see how it shapes us. Let us not suffer and be no better for it afterward, learn your lessons. You can trust God, you can hope in God, because he will never disappoint, neither will he cast off forever. Suffering produces steadfastness, and after steadfastness has had its full effect, we are perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.