It is a fact of life that trouble comes to all. To the rich and poor, the proud and humble, the young and old. No one is exempt.
“Yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7
With each new difficulty we are given the opportunity to choose our response to it. What will we do in the day of trouble? This is a question of great importance. I love this quote by Hannah Whitall Smith:
We may make out of each event in our lives either a Juggernaut car to crush us, or a chariot in which to ride to heights of victory. It all depends upon how we take them; whether we lie down under our trials and let them roll over and crush us, or whether we climb up into them as into a chariot, and make them carry us triumphantly onward and upward.
2 Corinthians 4:17 tells us that “our light affliction which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Each difficulty presented, each sorrow to be endured, each gut-wrenching choice of obedience that must be made, they are invitations to glory. In each new challenge, an opportunity to die a little bit more to ourselves and to become more alive to who He is. Suddenly, our own comfort, even our own personal desires and happiness are no longer as important as they once seemed to be.
A dear friend, who has faced much difficulty in life, recently sent me this encouragement in an email:
“We can smile, and be at peace in our souls, and why not, because the worst it ever gets here is as bad as it can get, because to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ at whose right hand are pleasures evermore… The only thing that mars our joy is the voluntary sorrow and grief that we suffer because of the love for dear precious souls that we love as we see them in their lost condition; foolishly unwilling to surrender their miserable and futile lives to the Only One who can save them and give them purpose and hope. What else is there to sorrow over? Our lives are in His hands, and whatever temporary suffering, loss, or lacking is inconsequential compared to eternity.”
There are wonderful days when all things that concern us are as we had always hoped they would be. And then there are days when tears are abundant and pain and loneliness reside as constant companions. But in just a few moments this vapor that is our life, with all its difficulties, temptations and sorrows, will be over. We will step over the threshold into our eternal dwelling where sorrow can never touch us again….ever.
A few moments of sorrow, even should they stretch into years or decades, cannot compare to the heavenly comforts that await us and the joy of gazing upon the face of Jesus.
Even if my worst fears on this earth are realized, they only serve as an instrument to draw me nearer to Jesus. Not only has death lost its sting, so has life.
One faithful, one prodigal. Let us consider their words.
Luke 15:18-19 (The Prodigal) “I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”
Luke 15:29-30 (The Elder Brother) “So he answered and said to his father, “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’”
The story is a familiar one. Many of us have lived it. I did. I came to my senses one day in the pig pen of life and called on the name of Jesus. I remember the feeling of utter unworthiness as I considered the mercy of God that had been shown to me. I remember being the prodigal.
But time passes and we learn religion. Then we become the elder brother. We feel entitled to certain things from God, certain comforts, certain benefits. And if He does not give them we become angry and resentful. Our attitude screams at God “You owe me something and I will have it!”
Yet the prodigal says to the Father “I owe You everything.”
Those of us who have turned into the elder brother despise the prodigal because of the Father’s kindness to him. We consider ourselves more deserving, more worthy. We have worked hard, we have been faithful yet we feel unrecognized and unrewarded. Serving Him becomes a burden and we begin to resent Him. We consider the Father uncaring, distant and unloving. We despise His kindness to the prodigal and we hate the prodigal because we have forgotten that we were this prodigal.
“Therefore say to the children of Israel: I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.” Exodus 6:6
I have heard it said that the Old Testament contains many types and shadows of Christ and the New Covenant. I always rejoice to come across an Old Testament passage that foretells the New Covenant. This verse tells us 3 things that the Lord will do for His people:
I will bring you our from under the burden of the Egyptians
I will rescue you from their bondage
I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments
As I read the verse above, it was thrilling to see in it a picture of salvation.
The burden that He brings us out from under is the weight of guilt upon our conscience. Even those who never think of God, if they are honest, have moments late at night when all is silent when they feel the weight of guilt upon their souls. The guilt of their sins. There is a “knowing” that God has put into man through his conscience. What great efforts men will go to in order to silence this conscience, until it becomes a faint whisper. Yet Jesus offers to lift this burden of guilt from us.
The bondage He rescues us from is our bondage to sin, self and the world. Everyone has a different variety of bondage, but all are equally wicked and opposed to God. Our hardened hearts will tell us that we are not so bad as ___________ (insert name of wicked person here). And thus we justify ourselves and feel satisfied to remain selfish, sinful and sensual. Yet Jesus offers a life free from the pursuit of these things. A life that is focused on an infinitely more glorious pursuit.
The redemption that He provides is forgiveness and righteousness through Jesus Christ. Oh may the Lord deliver us from thinking that we are good enough. Never, never, never, no matter how nice, benevolent and selfless I am, can I ever earn heaven based on my own merit. There does not exist enough human goodness in the entire universe to allow even one of us admittance into heaven. But praise God, He has made provision for this as well. Jesus Christ, the perfect One, died for my sin, thus providing forgiveness. And now I live in the righteousness of His perfect life.
The God who delivered Israel out of Egypt is still a God of deliverance. And it is a mighty deliverance!!
“And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.” Matthew 14:26
Most of us have some ideas of who God is before we actually come to know Him. Most of those ideas are wrong and we have to unlearn them. After becoming a Christian, the remainder of life is a never-ending quest to know Him as He actually is, and to fellowship with Him. Learning His ways is the adventure of a lifetime.
Now let us return to our verse…..the disciples are in the boat in the midst of stormy seas. They left Jesus on the shore so they can’t even approach Him to calm the weather. Imagine their panic as the wind begins to toss the boat to and fro. All their rowing was in vain as they strained against the storm.
Into this scenario, Jesus comes walking to them on the water. But they didn’t recognize Him. Of course, standing on top of the water is probably the last place they expected to see Him. But why not expect Him there?
One of the greatest challenges in my walk with God is being overwhelmed with the pressure and demands of life and losing my focus on God in the details of life. Often I have lamented the precious moments I have lost with Him because my mind was overly occupied with other things and I missed the moment of His coming.
How many times have I missed Him walking on the water because I’ve been busy rowing? Or worrying? Or complaining? For all the good their rowing did, the disciples’ time would have been better spent looking off into the distance for His coming.
No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. Matthew 9:16-17
The unshrunk cloth results in a tear, the unaged wine results in a spill. In both cases, something new is added to something old and the results were destructive. That which is new (the new covenant) must be put into that which is new (the new heart, born again by the Spirit).
We live in an age obsessed with self-improvement. We want to put a patch here or there, and just fix up what we already have. “Sure, I’ll take some of that salvation”, and the gospel that is poured in, we cannot contain because we have not been made new by the Spirit. Our self serving religion cracks, the wine spills and the skins are destroyed.
New wine must be put into new wineskins. The gospel is not another self improvement method, adding Jesus to Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura as another good teacher that can help us learn how to live right. We don’t need to be fixed, we need to be made new.
It seems to me that there are only two religions in the world – law and grace. For those under law, whatever form of it they choose to follow, the work never ends. Endless patching needs to be done, which never fails to lead to more tears to be patched. But for those of us who have received grace, we have been made new totally apart from our own efforts.
About a week before Easter, while making the short trip to visit my parents, I passed by a small church. The signs outside churches always catch my attention. I guess because sometimes you run across one that has a thought provoking message. The sign outside this particular church read as follows:
“For a warm fuzzy feeling, try us.”
No – I’m not joking.
It made me angry.
Is this why we are to look to Jesus? For a warm fuzzy feeling? Is that what church is about? Sometimes I wonder if we just really don’t understand that it’s not all about us and our satisfaction and comfort. Sometimes God makes me very uncomfortable. Having our sinful hearts exposed in the presence of a holy God shouldn’t evoke anything remotely resembling warm or fuzzy.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they were referring to the feeling of knowing that you are reconciled to God. But to call that a warm fuzzy feeling is a gross understatement. It is the deepest source of abiding joy and peace that is available to man.
Maybe I am being fault-finding. I guess the predominance of so much fluff in our churches has made me extra sensitive to this sort of thing. I cannot get away from the feeling that things are not as they should be in our churches.
Oh God, please restore the fear of the Lord to Your church in America and a deep reverence for Your holiness.
“Yes, He is very precious to you who believe!” 1 Peter 2:7
If Christ is truly precious to us–we shall prefer Him above every other object; He will have the chief place in our affections. The love which a Christian has to his Savior, penetrates and possesses his heart. This distinguishes it from the pretended love of hypocrites, which is only in word, or in some external actions, while their hearts are full of sinful self-love; so that it may be said of them, “This people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me.”
We may possibly delight in some objects of an inferior nature, as they contribute to our health, our ease, or our comfort. Our homes, our food, and our other temporal enjoyments are dear to us, because they minister to our comfort and convenience in the present life. But true love for Christ, does not allow any other object to hold the chief place in the heart. This chief place is for Jesus, whom we ought to love with supreme ardor. The choicest affections of our souls ought to be supremely fixed upon Him.
As it is impossible for any man to love an unknown object–so it cannot be expected that Christ should be supremely precious unto us, unless we know Him to be excellent and desirable, beyond whatever may be compared with Him. We shall not esteem Him above all things–if we have not elevated views of His transcendent worth. Our esteem of Him rises in proportion to the knowledge we have of Him. Godly men therefore ardently desire to increase in the knowledge of Him–that their affections may be more intensely fixed upon Him.
That love, which has but created things for its object, is degrading to the soul. It is a cleaving to that which can neither give happiness to our souls, nor repose to our minds. For to love any object ardently, is to seek our felicity in it, and to expect that it will answer our desires. It is to call upon it to fill that deep void which we feel in ourselves, and to imagine that it is capable of giving us the satisfaction we seek. It is to regard it as the resource of all our needs, the remedy of all the troubles which oppress us, and the source of all our happiness. Now, as it is God alone in whom we can find all these advantages, it is a debasing of the soul, it is idolatry to seek them in created objects! “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ!” Philippians 3:8
If Christ is truly precious to us–we shall be induced to devote our souls and our bodies, our talents, our abilities and our faculties–as a living sacrifice to Him. To contemplate His adorable perfections will be our highest joy. We shall be ready to obey Him–in opposition to all the threats and the solicitations of men. We shall rely upon Him, though all outward appearances seem to be against us. We shall rejoice in Him, though we have nothing else to comfort us. If we enjoy health and plenty, friends and reputation, the Lord is still the object of our earnest desires and our supreme delight. “Whom have I in heaven but you? There is none upon earth that I desire besides you! As the deer pants for the water-brooks, so longs my soul after you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God!”
One thing is needful. These are the words of Jesus (Luke 10:42). That one thing is fellowship with Him. That is the one thing that I need. I don’t always know that as fully as I should and other things begin to creep in and crowd out the one thing.
I was reminded of this “one thing” concept today when reading the story of Hannah, who was barren: Then Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” 1 Samuel 1:8
I’m sure Elkanah was a good husband and provider. We’re told in verse 5 that he loved Hannah. It sounds as though she may have enjoyed a very pleasant relationship with Elkanah. But her heart was longing for one thing, and this one thing is what brought her to the place of pouring out her heart to the Lord in the fervency of her desire for it. She wanted nothing harmful, illegal or immoral. Only what was promised to her: children – a heritage from the Lord.
Elkanah could be a wonderful husband. But he could never be a son. And that was what her heart longed for. What does your heart long for? In those quiet moments when you can still your thoughts and search those secret corridors of your heart – what is that one thing you are longing for? Is it Him?
The longing of my heart to walk more closely with Jesus is almost painful at times. Painful because, to be honest, although I know that this is the genuine desire of my heart, I seem to be so complacent in my seeking after Him. In this complacency the question of the various Elkanah’s of life can be heard – “Am I not better?”
Elkanah will never be a substitute for a son. And absolutely nothing this world can offer – not even spiritual things – can be a substitute for a vibrant relationship with Christ.
Elkanah seemed to be content with the status quo. He didn’t understand Hannah’s longing. I wonder how many of us are like Elkanah – content with another church service, a few songs, a little sermon. But no meeting with God, no glory, a weekly event full of emotion but void of Presence. I KNOW THAT THERE IS MORE!!!!
And standing in church among a crowd of thousands, with voices singing worship choruses in unison, I find myself gazing upward, this question upon my lips – where are you God?
He is my Delight 