When we hear about the joy of the Lord, the peace in the storm or purpose, and how God always works out everything for the good of those who love Him, it's easy to get the misconception that the Christian life is absent from pain or suffering. That we are always happy and that life is this picture perfect idea that somehow, magically, always works out for us. But nothing is further from the truth, in fact many times in the Bible we see our 'heroes' suffering, we see them nose to nose with danger, and persecution. We see over and over how God led them into places of vulnerability, danger, or difficulty to set them up for greatness, or allowed them to wander around in the desert until they were ready to take possession of His promises.
Today we want the fruits without labor, a hallelujah without pain, and perfection without refining but that is never how God has worked. While it is great to focus on all the good parts of being a Christian and having a relationship with God we also need to talk about the fact that if you have a genuine relationship with God He will allow bad things in your life, He will allow you to go into the furnace, but that He will be there with you also. That God will allow you to suffer, but He also gives you strength to overcome it in Him. God allows us to uncomfortable, to be broken, so we can grow and leave what is bad for us behind. God molds us into who we are meant to be by this refining process, by allowing the pain and frustration so we are forced to grow. I heard a song on the radio this morning that said in it 'they say you never give us more than we can handle,' and it continued on to say that the writer of the song was unsure of that but as he was overwhelmed and broken, that he came to the end of himself and he was met by God who could handle it all. I think this is a pretty good description of what it feels like to surrender to God. It is going through a tough situation, being completely broken and made vulnerable by it, then letting it go and trusting it to God. This is just a glimpse God refining us, and how He teaches us to trust in Him.
I know that there are some who do not understand this idea, that don't see how a loving God could allow His children to suffer, to allow them to be frustrated and overwhelmed, or how a loving God could allow His children to be broken in order to grow. This is the truth though, loving someone doesn't mean you give them only what they like and want, loving someone is giving them what's best for them or withholding that which would destroy them. A loving parent doesn't allow their child to eat sweets all day long just because the child likes it, instead they put them up or away and only let them have a reasonable amount. Why? Because they love their child and don't want them to be sick, or to end up with bad eating habits that could harm them later in life. It is the same with God. He loves us and knows what is best for us, He may have to make us unhappy by not giving us what we want to achieve it, or He may allow circumstances to appear overwhelming, but it is because He knows that there is something better for us on the other side of the struggle. God uses our pain, our disappointment, our brokenness to rebuild us without the sin that would harm us and lead us into destruction, because He loves us and wants us to be with Him. No one who truly loves you more than themselves will ever allow you to walk down a path of destruction, no one who truly loves you will allow you to persist in destructive behavior without warning you.
Psalm 119:71
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
Hosea 6:1-3
“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”
Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
James 5:10
As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
1 Peter 5:10
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
No comments:
Post a Comment