“I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.”
Isaiah 45:7

Calamity as a creative act?
This is the ‘deeper magic’, as Aslan would put it, that gives understanding that suffering and calamity can be entirely the work of God.

Never forget that Satan is on a leash and needs permission for everything he does. Job and Luke and Revelation reveal this to us.
If Satan brings calamity it’s because God superintended and ordained it, and governs it entirely as it happens. He is NEVER absent and ALWAYS in full control.
For the sons of God, we have all the information we need in the Bible to show us God’s goodness and favour in bringing ‘calamity’ into our lives as it will always be for our training, always lead us to a place of perfect goodness free from suffering, and result in the glory of Jesus displaying radiantly in our lives with thanksgiving.

Just read the first part of Hebrews 12 and see that suffering, toil, struggle, wrestling, pain, sorrow, doubt, uncertainty etc are all in view in the context of God turning us into gold medal winners, through His discipline, BECAUSE He loves us.
He is purging, and will continue to purge our sin, and it’s a life and death struggle DAILY. Each day Christ must be crucified in our lives, and each day we must die with Him to our sin, and each day we must put to death the things of the flesh by the Holy Spirit.
Because we grip onto deadly things like love of money, sinful desires, sloth, deceit, malice, unforgiveness… God will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to remove from us this body of death.
Is it not a cause for great thanksgiving that He would dislocate our hip in order to bless us if that’s what it takes?

The implications of this ‘deeper magic’ are staggering and amazing!
If God could only use the ‘good’ things of this world and this life to bless us then that would be fine, but thanks be to God that He can use EVERYTHING to bless us in and through The Beloved.
In extremis it’s the extreme suffering and death of Himself, in His Son that gives us life and blessing. There is no eternal life or blessing for us UNLESS the Suffering Servant is crushed, according to the will of God, to take away our sin and rebellion (Isa 53).

So my prayer is this:
In calamity, thank you Jesus.
In despair, thank you Jesus.
In pain, thank you Jesus.
In suffering, thank you Jesus.
In darkness, thank you Jesus.
In sickness, thank you Jesus.
All of these serve you so that they might serve me.
Suffering serves you.
Pain serves you.
Loss serves you.
Cancer, MS, disability and all disease serves you.
Death serves you,
And will serve me to bring me to your eternal presence.
Sanctify me in your Truth; your word is Truth.

“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
Job 1:21