"Son of man, with one blow I
am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or
weep or shed any tears.”
Ezekiel 24:16 NIV
Is Your
Life Going Smoothly?
Perhaps
you have had a day like this. I got mad
at my kids. I was late to work. I argued with my wife. I had a headache. I got grease on my dress shirt and it was too
late to change it. Someone cut in front
of me on the freeway. I was frustrated
by my job performance. Did I mention that
I had a headache? For someone without
food or water living in war ravaged Somalia this probably would have been considered
a great day. I did not see it that way
though and I admit that I complained to God about my circumstances. I read
recently about the acorn woodpecker which beats a hole with its beak into wood
posts and then carefully stuffs an acorn in it.
Later, the woodpecker returns for a tasty snack. However, sometimes squirrels climb up the
posts and snatch the acorns and feast on them before the woodpecker gets back
to it for a winter snack. That is a bad
day for the woodpecker when it discovers the thievery and no acorn to quiet the
rumbling in its belly. I could imagine
it squawking up to the heavens in frustration.
What
do you consider a bad day? We all have
them…or at least we think we do. No one
else decides for you if your day is going well or poorly. You are the judge of that. Sometimes you may wonder why so much trouble
comes your way. What did you do to “deserve”
what you have faced? Is it karma, bad
luck or some punishment from God? What
sort of God lets such trouble afflict good people like you?
One
of the most enigmatic moments described in Scripture is the time God told his
beloved spokesman Ezekiel that he was going to lose his wife. The
word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take
away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any
tears. (Ezekiel 24:15-16 NIV) Try to explain this demand of God’s and the
action He took and you most likely will be stumped. Justify this to your nonreligious friends and
you won’t have a receptive audience. We
know of course that this stoic response to his wife’s death was to be a sign to
the Israelites living in Babylon that they were not to weep or complain when
God let the Babylonian army destroy Jerusalem.
It was divine judgment upon a wicked and arrogant people who were
murderous and corrupt. Yet, does that
make it any easier for Ezekiel who lost the “delight” of his eyes? It was not like Ezekiel was tired of marriage
and coldly indifferent to the fate of his wife.
She was his beloved, someone he adored.
No
one is immune to devastating losses and tremendous hardships. As
Jesus Himself noted, “He (the Father) causes
his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and
the unrighteous.“ (Matthew 5:45 NIV)
We are told in Scripture that every person who has been born again is
going through a transformation process on this side of heaven. Therefore
we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are
being renewed day by day. For our light
and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs
them all. (2 Corinthians 4:16-17 NIV)
What you and I call the trials of life or maybe even more correctly, the
unfair hardships of life, God calls the normal transformation process all
Christians experience as He reworks them.
Consider it the universal maturation experience worked out in us by the
Father. It is spiritual aging as it
were, normal and to be expected. We look
at these problems and hardships as terrible or dreadful; God sees them as the means
by which He peels away layers of sin wrecked and contaminated parts of our
personality. Like an onion, our Lord
uses troubles and even pain to strip away from you the scales that are no
longer useful or helpful to living in Christ forever.
The
last part of the book of Acts gives the account of the terrifying storm the
Apostle Paul endured while being transported by sailing ship to Rome to face
trial in front of Caesar. Not only was
he being unjustly imprisoned for crimes he did not commit, he also had to
suffer near starvation conditions and drenching rain for two weeks as a raging tempest
pounded the vessel. It was not fair and certainly
unwanted but Paul had to go through it anyway.
In 2 Corinthians Paul listed the experience as one of the many horrific miseries
of his life after he became a Christian.
The truth is that being in the terrifying storm and then shipwrecked was
perhaps one of the less painful distresses he faced. Yet this is what Paul thought of all the troubles
he had. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in
hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am
strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV)
Who
would consider it natural or normal to think of suffering as something good and
beneficial? We do our best to avoid it
and certainly don’t look forward to it.
The Bible never encourages Christians to look for opportunities to
suffer. There is no masochistic theology
within Scripture; only a realistic understanding of what suffering
accomplishes. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the
glory that will be revealed in us. The
creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration,
not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and
brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8:18-21 NIV)
It
is not just you that is frustrated by your suffering; all of creation is
frustrated. Perhaps you have not thought
of eagles or redwood trees or mountain ranges as frustrated with what they face
but there is in the universe a ubiquitous groaning as it were, a straining in
trial that is comparable to childbirth.
What mother looks forward to the searing pain as her baby prepares to
leave her body? Have you known any
smiling as they go through the final moments of birthing a child? Yet each and every contraction is a movement
toward joy. Would a woman consider her
newborn a punishment? Perhaps some in
the most trying and horrific of circumstances might but in a normal delivery,
the strain of the mother is cause for hope and coming happiness. What is God doing in you when you go through
the normal suffering and troubles of life?
He is birthing a new you.
At
this point we shall speak of something that is much too profound and mystical
to have any sort of depth in discussing.
Let us admit that we are entering at a point in Scripture that is beyond
our knowledge base but must be given great thought. In Hebrews comes this magnificent
declaration. During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and
petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death,
and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience
from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation
for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order
of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5:7-9 NIV)
Suffering
made Jesus a better man. It completed
Him as God’s perfect sacrifice for Sin.
Something was missing in Him that only suffering could produce. If Jesus needed suffering to put in Him some
part of His personality that would make Him “perfect”, how much more so is
suffering a requirement for us to be complete as God’s children. Try and think of the best people in Scripture
who we have an abundance of data to study that did not suffer. James and Peter and the mother of Jesus and
before them to Joseph, Jacob, Abraham, Ruth and Sarah all suffered great sorrow
and hardship. Suffering is the
transformative catalyst God uses to put in perfect order the Christian
personality. It is like sunlight for a
plant or yeast in bread. It is how God instills holiness and goodness
in His people. You must suffer for the
strength of God to be built in you.
Consider
any of the great leaders of American history and you will find they all
suffered horrific pain or sorrow.
Whether you look into the life of George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham
Lincoln or Martin Luther King, suffering built the character of each of
them. Just think of Moses who many call
the “Savior of the Jewish people.” He
failed miserably at his first attempt to lead his people out of slavery. He was mocked and despised by them and then
spent forty years in the blazing sun of the Middle Eastern desert before God
was ready to make him his leader of Israel.
How many years did Moses question the goodness of God and wonder why his
life was so wrecked? Yet in it all, in
those thousands of hours baking in the wasteland the Lord was watching over him
and putting in Moses the humility and patience he would need to be the perfect
servant God wanted to carry out His work.
What
about you? What sort of trouble and pain
are you going through now? What kind of
desert are you in at this moment? It is
not wasted, this time of waiting and enduring.
God is perfecting you. Making you the kind of person He can use for the
most important matters on His agenda.
Bread must be broken before it can be eaten and grapes must be crushed
before they produce juice. Your life is
broken bread for others to consume. The
patience you acquire and the humility that is built in you are critical for
some who God will and is putting in your life.
Remember this. You are not and
never have been your own. You belong to
God and He must make you in such a way that your life will feed others and
provide them with nourishment to be perfect.
Someone is watching you and needs the strength your suffering and sorrow
has generated. It is up to you what you
will make of the trouble you have faced and how you will respond to God’s work
in you through them. Will you be bitter
vinegar that must be spit away or sweet juice that brings joy to those who
drink from it?
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