In Just A Few Hours

Luke 24:1 NIV

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

What Could Happen In A Few Hours?

When our son was four years old, I decided as the good father that I was, that it was time to take the training wheels off his bike.  This is of course a rite of passage for most of the world’s population, as important as promoting into middle school and going out on the first date.  Now I am certain that if Mary Jo was home at the time, I might not have gotten past getting the first training wheel off our son’s bike but she wasn’t and so like all good fathers who love their children I took charge of helping our son spread his wings and fly, We went out to the back of a nearby middle school where there was an acre of asphalt and basketball courts.  I got our boy up on his little bike, steadied him as he established his balance with his feet on the pedals and hands on the handlebars, said a brief prayer and then pushed him off into the adult world.  I cheered him on as he wobbled away from me, furiously trying to maintain his equilibrium, veering left, then to the right, but steadily moving forward.  There were perhaps sixteen large metal poles holding the basketball rims and backboards in place spread out over at least an acre of land.  Not one of them was shrouded in mist; none of them were hidden behind sheets, painted with special colors that camouflaged them.  Each was like the Eiffel tower standing boldly by itself, far from its matching partner, a giant mountain of metal and immovability and yet as my little boy pushed off with the enthusiasm of Christopher Columbus looking for the passageway to the Orient, he somehow not only did not avoid the basketball pole, like a bee drawn to a flower, he pedaled straight at one.  Silently he crashed into the basketball pole and there he lay crumpled on the ground.  Like a good dad, I ran to him, checked for any major structural damage to his body and comforted my son in the same way any true father would.  “Son”, I said.  “You did great!  Do you want to try again?”  He got up, dusted himself off, climbed on his bike and with a push from me, off he went again.

Now here is where I was dumfounded and could not grasp what I saw.  Why did my son, with perfectly good eyesight not notice the giant metal poles out in the middle of the wide open spaces?  How did he miss the danger before him and why didn’t he do anything to avoid running into one of them?  Yet I must admit this to you.  I also have run into my fair share of basketball poles and did nothing to avoid them.  I have failed and because of pride or an unwillingness to look at the facts have ruined parts of my life.  I have made bad decisions, thought I knew what I was doing and was wrong.  I have hurt others by what I have said, made others suffer for my mistakes and plenty of times blamed someone else for my failures.  Are you immune to failure or have you had your fair share of losses?  Have you sinned?  Do you know when you are wrong or are you like me, you tend to cover up your mistakes or ignore them?  How bad is bad when it comes to you, how seriously should you take your sins, your moral mistakes, your rebellious acts against God?  What should you make of your failures, your shortcomings, the difficulties you cause others and yourself?  Let us look at Easter and how what Jesus did two thousand years ago impacts your life.

When it comes to what we have done wrong, our own sin, we have a giant blind spot.  We make too little of it and do not realize just how destructive our sins are, the potency of their evil. The Bible has this to say about your mistakes and moral failures.   Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey — whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6:16-17 NIV) We see our violations of God’s law as silly little misdemeanors that were not intended to harm anyone.  Everything from a little lie we tell to a short adventure into porn, we laugh away as no big deal.  And yet God clearly does not see what we call shortcomings as insignificant at all.  What it took for Him to eradicate sin from His people is a clear indication of just how really horrific our sinning is and the devastating effect it has on the universe.

Look closely at what Jesus had to suffer to get rid of your sin.  Can you see the flesh being ripped from Him as the whip tears at His back, across His chest, along His legs?  Do you hear the beating His face took as he was pummeled by the guards?  Have you noticed the blood dripping down His face from the crown of one inch thorns shredding His scalp and forehead?  Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face. ohn 19:1-3 NIV) What about the force of the nails driven into His feet and wrists, the writhing pain He suffered as He hung on the Cross hour after hour, the ridicule He suffered as strangers laughed at His naked body hung up for all to see?  What did it cost God to take those insignificant, trivial, unnoticeable sins out of you and make you free of them?  Do those sins really seem like nothing?  Are they as unimportant as you have pretended for Christ Himself to be tortured like that, beaten like that, and ripped apart like that?  It took just a few hours for God to take our sins from us but the cost of that transaction was unbearable pain for God Himself.

I think there is one more aspect to Easter we would do well to consider.  Not only are your sins horrific and devastating for you and others, this matter of what you should think of your troubles and failures must be considered.  So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.  Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. (Matthew 28:8-9 NIV)  Ponder for a moment what sort of shock Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, Thomas and the others must have felt when they saw Jesus alive after they had watched Him shattered by pain and die.  Is there any sort of comparison we can make to it?  He was dead; everyone at the foot of the Cross, from the soldiers to the disciples to the women who watched Him be crucified, knew He was dead.  The body was a wreckage of death.  Can you picture how wide their eyes were, how violently their heart beat in their chests, how numb they were to all other sounds, all other movements, all other smells when they looked upon Jesus alive and knew beyond doubt He really was alive?  What thoughts of previous failure went through their heads, what disappointments and trials of life did they consider as they gazed upon His wondrous resurrected body?  Did any memory or plan stand in the way of just seeing Him, staring at Him, being mesmerized by Him?  Did they fuss about what they would have for dinner, complain about the back pain they suffered, get irritated by the long wait they endured as Jesus remained dead?  No sight could have been more spellbinding, no event more entrancing than just this one matter, Jesus standing before them raised from death and fully and magnificently alive before them.  Ponder this for a moment; that what we see with the disciples is just a hint at the emotions you will encounter when you too take your place among the saints who see Jesus standing before them the first time.  You too will soon enough, like the disciples be gripped by the most stupendous joy a person could ever possess and it is not that far off.

Have you ever noticed the connection the Scripture makes between the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus?  Over and over the Bible points out that it was on the third day after He died that Jesus was raised from the dead.  When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.  They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life." And the disciples were filled with grief. (Matthew 17:22-23 NIV)   .  God gave a number to it, a very specific number to connect the two parts of the salvation equation.  Crucifixion plus resurrection after three days equals salvation.  It is not four days and it isn’t two days either.  It is the third day that everything comes together for God’s people.  No crucifixion and there isn’t the removal of Sin from us.  Without resurrection there isn’t any life to our holiness.  They must be joined as one and they cannot be separated for your eternal life to begin—crucifixion and resurrection.  The two are joined into one outcome on a particular day and no other day, the third day.  The third day…it is where all our hope rests; where your hope rests.

Keep this in mind when you think about your life right now.  Our LORD does not initiate a crucifixion without a resurrection in mind.  Yes, you have troubles, you do have hardships.  You may wonder why He lets them happen.  Why this sadness, this frustration, this failure?  I cannot say why you have faced what you have and perhaps you cannot either.  I do not know how it will all work out for you, how this trial you face will go.  It is hard maybe for you to see how your dreams can still come to pass; how your suffering can be removed, but you must see this, look squarely at this.  You have not come to the end of the matter; it is only the first day, maybe the second but it is not yet day three.  For you it is Friday or maybe Saturday.  The dread of things is still upon the wind, the troubles you face are still in the air.  Death is before you, troubles and heartache and pain and discouragement have still remained and it seems late in the game, too late for anything much to change, for any good to come of this but it is the second day.  You have not yet reached the third day.  It is Saturday, perhaps even Saturday evening but remember, God does not initiate a crucifixion without a resurrection.  Sunday will come; it is nearly here in fact. Yes, you wonder like Job with all his troubles why it is so tough, so hard.  Like Jesus’ mother, His disciples, His friends, you don’t know why Friday has to be so bad and why there is so much pain and defeat on Friday. That is because you have first day thoughts, first day emotions, first day worries, first day fears; it is still the night for a universe awaiting the dawn.  Friday has come and Saturday stands for now, but there is one more day left and then everything will change for you. There is hope in Friday, hope in Saturday because...Sunday is on its way.  All death will come to life.  All troubles shall be cast aside with the dawn of the third day.  And you will see that day!

Time Out

Revelation 12:14 NIV

The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach.

Have You Been Sent To Time Out?

When I first arrived at the college where I would earn my degree, I came by plane, was picked up at the local airport by a college representative and dropped off at the dormitory where my room was on the second floor.  Carrying my two suitcases up the stairs, I was all alone.  I did not meet anyone in the lobby.  No one was in the hallway on the first floor; no one was in the hallway on the second floor.  I came to my room, which was empty except for two beds, two dressers, a sink and a phone on the wall and I tossed my suitcase on the floor and began to unpack it.  My roommate would not be arriving for two days.  I pulled the blanket and sheets out from my suitcase, made the bed and lay down on top of the covers, wondering what it would be like to go to school here.  Outside my window, I heard laughter and male and female voices chattering.  It sounded like there was a party going on below my room and I wasn’t invited.  I cannot say what is more lonesome.  Being alone in a great circle of emptiness or being by yourself when you can hear the crowds having fun without you.    That night, without a single soul to keep me company, two thousand miles away from my family, my church and my friends, I felt like I had been sent to time out.

“Time out” as an expression has shifted in meaning over the years.  It used to mean “taking a break”.  In basketball or football it is the term used for regrouping and talking about what to do next as a team.  It also has been the idiom for going off and having fun; taking in a movie, hanging out with friends, going dancing, eating at a restaurant.  The field of psychology embraced the term as a descriptor for a mild punishment given to a youngster who is disruptive or disobedient.  If a parent sends a child to time out, it means the child is ordered to go sit alone for a certain period of time in a boring place and “learn a lesson” about how to act properly.  Not many kids like being sent to time out and rarely do we adults either.  “Jail time” is the grown-up version of it.  A boring, inconsequential job is too.  Many of us feel like from time to time we have been sent to time out and it generally isn’t something we like.

The Bible is filled with examples of its most famous people stuck in time out.  Imagine what it must have been like for Joseph, the son of Jacob to wind up in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and languish there for twelve years.   What about Sarah, the wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac who was left behind in camp at the foot of Mt. Moriah as her husband took her only child off to make a sacrifice to God somewhere out in the mountains.  She had to have noticed the taunt and grim expression on Abraham’s face as he shuffled away and wondered what was about to take place and why she couldn’t go with them.  Thomas, the apostle, suffered a sort of time out when for seven days he lived with the disappointment of being the only one of the Disciples not to see Jesus alive after He had been crucified. How about Moses and his forty years of time out after he had to flee Egypt and live in Midian?  Was it not a time out for Jacob, the father of the Jewish nation when he had to run away from his brother and live in near slavery, serving his uncle Laban as a shepherd?  How about the time out Mary, the mother of Jesus, experienced when she left her home in Nazareth to go stay with her cousin Elizabeth because she was pregnant and not married?  David wandered about in the desert wilderness of Israel almost ten years trying to avoid capture because the crazy king Saul wanted him dead.  Was that not a time out?

We almost always assume that when we are in time out, it is something terrible or at least frustrating.  Our time outs keep us from what we like doing, make us wait for something we want, take us away from exciting activities others get to enjoy.  When God engineers our time out, we don’t know what to make of it.  Is He cruel?  Am I out of favor with Him?  Have I lost my best and most productive years?  Am I wasting my life?  Sometimes and we must be open to seeing this is so, we are absolutely off base when it comes to understanding our circumstances. 

In 1889, a publication called The Literary Digest had this take on the automobile.  “The ordinary ‘horseless carriage’ is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course come into as common use as the bicycle.”  Dr. Alfred Vlepeau, speaking for the medical community in 1839 wrote, “The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera.  It is absurd to go on seeking it today.  Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient.  To this compulsory combination we shall have to adjust ourselves.”  It was only seven years later that anesthesia was introduced into the medical world.  One more example to make this point!  The “Father of Radio”, Lee De Forest, in 1926 insisted, “While theoretically and technically television will be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.”

Even the brightest and most highly educated among us can be and have been thoroughly wrong.  You too are wrong if you think God is wasting your time because you are in time out.  God cemented Mary’s faith in Him and His plan for bringing the Savior into the world while He wasted her time at Elizabeth’s house.  David developed a theology of what a good and faithful king should be when God wasted his time in the desert.  Jacob learned how painful it is to be deceived and the value of integrity when God wasted his time at his uncle’s house.  Moses learned patience and confidence in God when God wasted his time in Midian.  Sarah learned hope and trust in God’s goodness when God wasted her time as she waited for her husband and son to return.  Joseph learned mercy and forgiveness when God wasted his time in the Egyptian prison.

We are mistaken if we think this promise of God’s is just about the future!  It is about now, today.  For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV) Our Lord knows what He is doing with you at this moment, with the time He is wasting now.  You may not have any idea what that plan is and He may not tell you but Christ has thought this through and He has every detail, every moment that seems so wasted plotted out so that you will be exactly the sort of person He wants you to be when He gets this done.  Why did Jesus waste so much time being an infant, and then a child, a teen and a young adult?  Why not just be settled on earth as a man fully grown, get those disciples and in only three years save the world?  It is because God had a plan and for Jesus to save the world, He had to be a human being in every way…and that meant wasting His time being born, growing up and dealing with all the frustrations and pleasures of being an actual human being.

God has your life thought through in His mind and He has you right where you need to be so everything He wants to make of you can and will be accomplished. The Mona Lisa took time.  The Sistine Chapel took time.  The Golden Gate Bridge took time.  And you also take time to finish or to put it more precisely, to perfect.

One and Ninety Nine

Nothing is quite as stunning as the realization that God loves you.  It is not unusual though for God’s people to question His devotion to them; is He really for us or more concerned about some agenda that extends beyond us.  Do we possess the whole of His affection or is God distracted by some bigger issue?   Have we been created as a pawn; a fairly insignificant component to a broad scheme God has in mind?  Here is where we must pause in front of our Lord's own statements about us.  Twice He spoke metaphorically of a one out of a hundred situation where the one is of much more significance than the ninety-nine others in the group.  In God's economy, you never are a part of the ninety-nine, you are always the one.  You are the one in need...the one facing struggles...the one with hardship and heartache.  The ninety-nine are always someone else, someone you don't know.  The one, regardless if you are the one in Calcutta or the one in Hong Kong or the one in Berlin or the one sitting on a park bench in Memphis is you.  You are the one who has caught God's eye.  You are the one whose prayer He pays careful attention to hear.  You are the one He thinks about with undivided affection and devotion.  Ninety-nine may get past Him somehow but not you the one.  You are the apple of His eye, the object of His concentrated gaze.  When God had His discussion with Satan in the Heavenlies, He did not point out five or six of his favorites, the Lord only spoke of one and his name was Job.  God did not pull in a thousand doubters in the upper room, He only motioned to Thomas and our Lord gave him a private showing of His wounds.  One walked on the water with Jesus and it was one He pulled out of His disbelief and helped get back into the boat.  He looks at you and is not distracted by ninety-nine others.  His mind is not pulled to some problem on the side that also needs to be solved.  He loves you.  He looks for you.  He cares for you.  The great mystery of God is that somehow He can keep His eye on you when there is a world of chaos all about.      It cannot be that our Savior loses track of you; He is always thinking of you, always searching for your good in the midst of every trial you face.  Never have the audacity of accusing God of being distracted by some more important issue.    You are the one on His mind.

In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.   Matthew 18: 14 NIV

He Meets Us

Nothing argues as fiercely against the presence of God as the unbending hardships we face.  They press against us like pointed spears and we wonder when our deliverance will come.  We wait and pray and cry out for help and yet the oppression remains and we wonder what sort of God would allow what we face.  The Christian community is filled with silent mourners who have grown weary of praying.  Sometimes they rise up against God and bitterly denounce Him.  Other times they simply sneer when given spiritual platitudes that sound good only in theory.  Our world is broken and filled with shame and sorrow and we must face the facts as they are.  Our children's hearts are rubbed raw by their disappointments and our friends sigh without relief in sight.  Is it any wonder that God is ignored today in the very circles where we would expect His name to be praised?  There is within us though a cry rising up; a mourning hope that waits for God with the expectancy of a child.  Like the blind man on the side of the road calling out to Jesus, we wait also for Him.  With the prayer of the woman whose bleeding nearly drove her mad, we reach out to Christ.  The amazing part of God that we overlook is that He too was, as the King James translation puts it, "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not."  (Isaiah 53:3)  In the Garden of Gethsemane our Lord admitted to His disciples, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death."  (Matthew 26: 38 NIV)  God did not drop us down into a universe where suffering and sorrow continue and refuse to let them both hammer Him also.  As David silently hid in the cave with his men, Christ also huddles with us in our sorrow and pain and waits with us for it to end.  The day is coming when we shall exclaim triumphantly that we are "more than conquerors through Him who loved us" but for now the faith of many is weak and the suffering brought on by a sin marred and Satan infiltrated world stands opposed to our victory cry.  The miracle of our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection is that our Savior is not aloof and His encouragement not mere cliché.  We too shall overcome this world and in the dark of night, our Lord comes to us with a tender touch of love and comfort that somehow carries us past our sorrow and lifts our spirits with supernatural joy and peace.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.      John 14:27 NIV

The Struggle of Why

Romans 9:20 NIV

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"

Do You Have a “Why” Question For God?

Growing up, like you, I had many “why” questions for my parents…most of which I knew better not to ask.  Why do we have to have a Volkswagen bus instead of a normal car?  Why do you serve peas for supper?  Why do I have to wash the dishes?  Why can’t we watch my favorite TV shows?  Why would you think mashing the roast beef with the potatoes and carrots and peas and onions and other quasi food items, mixing them together and calling it “hash” would be a good idea?  Why can’t I watch the second feature at the drive-in too?  How come my allowance is so small?  Why don’t we take more votes when family decisions are made?  What made you think that a baby blue polyester leisure suit should be my Christmas present?  Could I get my hair cut by someone who earns his living at it?  Can we listen to something other than country western music?  Why does Dad need to know about my grades?  Can we go to Disney Land for our vacation rather than camping this year?  What “Why” questions would you ask of your parents if you could?

Perhaps you ask them why they treated you like you did, or why was your brother or sister the “favorite child”.  Maybe you would ask about a relative who was kind of strange or whether they were happily married or glad about their career choices or what they really thought of God.  We might have lots of questions we would ask of our parents if we thought it appropriate or if it was possible.  Are there “why” questions you have for God?  What do you “wonder why” about God’s dealings with you?  Do you have lots of “why” questions for Him or just a few?  What is your most important “why” question for the Lord?

Our “why” questions seem to grow in magnitude and number when the toughness of life bears down upon us.  There are a number of ways we attach causation to the difficulties and painful parts of their existence.  One is bad luck.  There is we guess some force in the universe that operates and sometimes the coin turns up heads and other times tails and when it is good luck we try to keep doing what we are doing and when it is bad luck, we scramble for ways to “change our luck”.  We wear different kinds of clothes, take a different route to work, give a homeless person an extra dollar.  We can just assume that everything that happens is random and without any sort of organization.  Jackson Pollock famously painted using random drips and drops and splatters to create his art and it represented this idea, that there is neither rhyme nor reason to life; it is just a bunch of splatters shot about by mindless nature.  There is another way to look at the tough parts of life and that is to blame it all on Satan.  Satan is the one who takes our lives apart and ruins them to satisfy his cruel fancies.  A fourth view of these rough times is to guess that God is mad at us and punishing us.  Sometimes we see God as cruel for He deals with us more harshly than we deserve.  Like Job, we know we haven’t been perfect but why does He come down on us as hard as He does?

Now we must see what the Bible says about those rough times we have faced.  Hebrews 12: 5-6 gives us deep insight into what goes on behind the scenes when painful experiences come our way.  And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." (NIV) Now what is almost irritating in this is that we are told that the very experiences that tear us apart and make us miserable and even angry should encourage us.  How can we be encouraged by the loss of our job, by the long and painful illness, by the troubles we have with our children and by the discouraging things people say to us?  It is impossible unless we have Christ dwelling within us and we understand what God is doing for us.

We must realize that there is a real possibility that we may not even be aware of how much work God has to do with us.  When David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed, he had no idea just how badly he had acted.  It is strange to consider that David, the author of so many of the Psalms in the Bible could have thought it was ok to have sex with another man’s wife and then order the general of his army to position that man on the battle lines at such a place that he would be killed.  One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"  Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.  In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die." (2 Samuel 11: 2-4, 14-15 NIV) It seems David had grown comfortable with what he had done…so comfortable that he had no qualms about marrying the woman after her husband died.  When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.  After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord. (2 Samuel 11:26-27 NIV)

This is critical to realize when it comes to the psychology of sin.  We can sin and sin egregiously and not even rattle our conscience.  There is a masking agent attached to many sins that can render the conscience impotent.  We have seen this often in our personal experiences; Christians and non-Christians alike not aware that what they have done was wrong.  We may think that they are just trying to cover up their sin by pretending they don’t see anything bad in their behavior but we would be wrong in many cases.  Like David, the sin itself has put the conscience to sleep in the matter.  The mechanism for this is beyond our discussion today but it is too ubiquitous a phenomenon to ignore.  In David’s case, he went nine months without being affected by the damage he had caused.  It was only after the prophet Nathan confronted him that David grasped the immensity of his evil acts.  “Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites...Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." (2 Samuel 12:9, 13 NIV)

Because sin damages our personality so severely and the habit of sin is so difficult to stop once it gains momentum, God chooses to intervene with those He loves.  He “disciplines” them, Hebrews 12 insists.  The word translated “discipline” means to train up, nurture, instruct, correct.  It is often used in conjunction with children; it is in many ways a family term.  In Christ, we are a part of His family and we are His children.  Because of the severity of David’s sin and the great damage it was causing among God’s people, the Lord disciplined the king ruthlessly.  He took David and Bathsheba’s son and promised David that other children of his would rise up against him in rebelllion.  That was a dreadful blow; a horrendous shot.  David prayed with weeping when the baby Bathsheba bore became deathly ill so we know it was terrible for David but God did not give in to David.  He took the child and later two of his adult children tried to wrench the kingdom from him.  The discipline of God was severe.

It takes faith to believe that a father or mother punishes you out of love.  You can’t just accept the discipline at face value as good…at least not when you are a child.  As adults or young adults, we too need faith to believe the harsh moments in our lives are part of God’s work with us done in love.  The one to one correspondence is almost never as neat and easily recognized as we saw with David.  You have adultery and murder in you.  I will take that out of you with this discipline.  Much of the time we cannot even figure out what we might have done wrong when God disciplines us.  God’s promise though is that the hard times never come because God hates us or because they just happen, always God is in charge of what we face and it is never because He despises us.  There is a second term the Lord uses in Hebrews 12: 6.  …the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." (NIV)    The word translated “punishes” means to “scourge”.  It is discipline capitalized.  No one can describe this as easy or comfortable.  Remember, Jesus was “scourged”.  We realize that there are many parts of us that God must work on with severity and we may cry when we face what he gives us.  God’s goal though is not for here; it’s that later we will be rid of every ounce of sin and settled in holiness…perfect children of a perfect God.

Our goal is comfort.  We love to be able to relax and enjoy the ride.  God’s goal is holiness.  He loves to develop perfect people.  These two goals can be at loggerheads; butting up against each other like two mountain goats.  As He disciplines you, our Lord is proving your holiness; showing you and all those watching you what sort of person you are in Christ.  He is making you strong that your strength can be transferred to those not as strong as you, making you forgiving so that your forgiveness can be transferred to those not as forgiving as you, making you kind toward those who mistreat you so that your kindness can be transferred to those not as kind as you.  My father went through special training that he might protect those who would need his strength and help.  You are being trained by God that you might of great good for those He brings into your life.  If you are not trained to be patient, someone who needs your patience won’t have it when she needs it.  If you are not disciplined to be at peace with the storm, those who face the storm may not have enough peace to get past it.  The one who grieves finds great comfort in a friend who has grieved herself.  You are not your own.  You were made by God to be a perfect friend to each one you meet.  The storm you face is for them…not just for you.

Loss Syndrome

Luke 17:32-33 NIV

Remember Lot's wife!  Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

What Have You Lost?

Loss, or the threat of loss, is one of the greatest enemies of our peace of mind.  When I was in graduate school, I was fired from a part time job as an attendant at the campus gym.  After being told I was “relieved of my duties”, I went back to my dorm room and I wept.  This was a terrific blow leveled against me.  I felt humiliated.  I wondered what my worth was as it was just a goofy little job that anyone could do…but clearly not me.  I was afraid to walk down the streets of the campus knowing students would be looking at me in a new way; I was the one fired from the gym job. I was afraid of what others now thought of me. I was afraid of how I would pay my school fees without the job.  How could I find another job as good as that one?  It felt like my world had fallen apart and I was afraid that it could not be put back together.  All I could think about in my little room while I sat on my bed was all the losses I would face now.  I had lost a great job and I had lost my sense of worth with it and possibly my ability to stay in school.  The losses were too great for me to bear!

Losses come upon us often without warning and in dreadful ways.  A good friend suddenly cuts off all communication with you.  You get sick and the days you lose can never be regained.  A ministry ends that you loved and believed would have a tremendous impact.  The career you once believed would be so great is now a dead end.  Your degree has become worthless and now you have to somehow pay off the debt you owe for your college degree.  A love you cherished fades and someone you respected so much before has let you down.  Some losses are barely noticeable and others take your breath away.  Losses seem so unfair, so cruel at times.  You had hoped for so much more but losses made you cynical and moody.  What are we to do about the losses we face?  How are we to respond to loss?

If the ancient book of Job tells us anything, it is that Satan can hurl great big boulders at us, terrifying boulders.  Some of us have felt like Job because there are boulders that have hit us squarely too.  A friend wants to talk with us and it turns out he is deeply insulted by something we have said or done.  The owner of the company tells us layoffs are starting.  The doctor calls us into the office to discuss our test results.  We make an investment and it wrecks us.  A child of ours renounces Christianity.  The boulders slam us and we have a terrible time knowing what to do with Satan’s attacks upon us.  When Satan went after Job, the patriarch did not think a bit about Satan…all he could see was the loss he encountered and how unfair it all seemed.  It was unfair and Job was right about that.

Satan is a master at bringing us loss.  Satan disrupts our plans.  For we wanted to come to you — certainly I, Paul, did, again and again — but Satan stopped us. (1 Thessalonians 2:18 NIV)  How many of us have looked forward to a holiday that when it came, fell apart!  Satan has wrecked many long anticipated events.  Satan also torments us with worries and dissatisfaction and injuries and hardships.  To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (2 Corinthians 12:7 NIV)  Satan can make our friends a stumbling block for us.  Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:23 NIV)  Who hasn’t at some time or another felt betrayed by a friend who we trusted!  That is a terrible loss and Satan is the master at taking apart friendships.  We also know that Satan turns authorities against us so that those in positions of power can be used by Satan to multiply our losses.  Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you… (Revelation 2:10 NIV) There are some losses we face that are due to our bad decisions and poor planning.  Satan even disrupts our thinking so that we go up against God to our loss.  Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? (Acts 5:3-4 NIV)  It is impossible to calculate how many bad decisions we have made because we have let Satan have sway over our thinking!

When Elijah the prophet fled the evil Queen Jezebel who threatened to kill him, he wound up in a cave and something that is enlightening for us occurred there.  As Elijah recuperated from his terrifying and exhausting flight, he was greeted in that cave by a series of horrifying calamities.  Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. (1 Kings 19:11-12 NIV)  Famously, after the fire was a whispering voice that Elijah heard which was either external to him or placed by God straight into his mind and that whisper was God.  Each of these terrifying events…the great wind, the earthquake and the fire were clearly not from God or at least God was not “in them”.  So who was in them?  Would we be off-base if we said “Satan”?  They seem to have been supernaturally caused.  It’s not like rock shattering winds, earthquakes and fires pile up together in the normal, natural realm.  Regardless of their point of origin, we do know that if we were there, we would have been frightened by it all.

We suffer many losses in our lifetimes and most we barely notice.  They may be irritating or even a bit maddening but never really frightening.  Every once in a while though, like Elijah’s wind and earthquake and fire, they are stunning and mind-numbing and we care very much about them.  And the Lord is not in those losses.  Satan is behind them and we must remember who the taker is, who the thief that robs us is…who is behind the storm we fear. 

With Jesus resting peacefully at the back of their boat, the disciples encountered a great storm.  Now this storm must have been bigger than usual because although several of the disciples were seasoned fisherman, they all were panicked by the storm.  Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!" (Matthew 8:24-25 NIV)  Let us now make a point that perhaps is unnecessary but pertinent to our discussion.  First, Jesus was not going against the Father in calming the storm.  The Son never opposed the Father in anything. His work as Savior was to put an end to the wreckage brought on by Satan and sin and in that deliverance came the calming of the storm.   Second, the storm did not frighten the disciples.  It may have been wild and potentially deadly but it was not what terrified the disciples.  What brought on their panic was the possible loss of life they faced because of the storm.  The storm itself was exciting, maybe even thrilling with the giant waves, the billowing, boiling clouds, the claps of thunder and bolts of lightning. The thought of terrific loss though made them scared out of their skulls and they could not take it.  Loss is not our problem; it is the fear of loss that we must battle.  Now how did the disciples cope with their fear of loss?  They went straight to Jesus Christ.  They did not paddle harder or duck behind the walls of the boat, they went directly to Christ.

There are two key considerations when it comes to losses.  The first is that if God is not in the losses, then the probability is that Satan is involved.  Therefore, it is not God who we blame and avoid when the storm comes that threatens to take away from us what we love.  It is Satan.  Second, the loss is rarely as grave and horrifying as the fear of the loss.  Many have suffered terrible losses in their lives and been just as peaceful and calm as Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat.  They may have been completely overwhelmed emotionally by the coming losses but afterward, they found comfort.  King David comes to mind.   He wept and fasted and begged God to intervene while his son was deathly ill but once the child died, he became calm and unperturbed.  Now this may sound cold and inhumane on David’s part but perhaps we have left out the supernatural component to loss.  Maybe David was helped by God when the loss came to pass.  Perhaps in his begging for God to not take his baby away, it brought into the event the supernatural kindness of God to comfort the inconsolable soul when the loss did come to pass.  Like the disciples who turned to Jesus when the storm raged, David went to the Lord when the storm he faced raged.

Because this world is wrecked by sin, dying is all around us and it hits us directly.  Dreams of careers die.  Marriages die.  Plans we have for our children die.  Vacations fall apart and investments collapse.  This happens and Satan is directly involved in many of these “deaths”.  We must face squarely this matter of death and dying in every realm we travel.  Friendships die and dinner arrangements die and much of what we hope to have goes up in smoke.  But there is one matter we must put into our equation of loss.  Jesus Christ is “in the boat”.  Satan may take our lunch but Jesus Christ is in the boat and when the disciples went to Him, they gained peace...a supernatural peace.  It is hard when the storm strikes to go to Jesus Christ then and there.  We are captivated by the storm and all we can think about are the losses we are going to face and perhaps we are angry with God for the storm.  We are in a way mesmerized by our fear and frustration and even anger over what is happening but Christ is in the boat.  The storm that rocks us rocks Him too.  When we turn to Him, we may not lose what we thought was lost.  He may completely take the storm away.  He can do that and He may do that.  We must have a little bit of faith but if we do, He might take our storm from us.  But if He doesn’t and He lets Satan steal something from us, He will give us peace…a supernatural peace.  Anyone can have peace when it is smooth sailing; but Christ gives us peace when the storm comes headlong into us.  You may not think you need the peace of Christ now…everything is nice and easy for you.  But the time will come when Satan will throw a great storm at you, a storm too big for your peace to handle and when He does, remember that Christ is in the boat and if you turn to Him, He will give you His peace…and you will have peace that is supernatural and big enough to carry you through whatever loss you face.

More Than A Difficulty

It is nearly impossible to get the sufferer to believe that what is happening is for good.  Etched in our personality is the determination to want none of the trials we face.  Adam and Eve groaned under the weight of Satan's temptation and refused to endure it courageously; consequently the rest of us are marred by their heritage.  For most seeds to sprout, the ground must be broken and torn apart, a violent tearing of what was settled and at peace.  Even the seed itself must be blown to bits before it can find its place in God's design.  The Lord's yoke is the most profound way He transforms us into living, breathing images of His perfect glory.  No trouble or hardship or difficult person comes to you without God's loving hand making the gate swing wide open.  The yoke is easy as long as you keep your mind fixed on Christ and do not let it be split apart by Satan's accusing and your own whining.  There is kindness and goodness and humility and patience and sincere faith and hope ready to be born in you if you will just settle your thoughts on the crucified Savior who has suffered for your complete salvation.  Nothing is finished with you; you must bear the yoke before you can move along into perfection.  The character of the yoke bearing Christian is the loveliest sight in all the universe.   Imagine the hunk of marble barking at Michelangelo for wrecking his day.  Look in the mirror.  Are you the canvass upon which Rembrandt is recklessly slopping paint or the paper that Mozart is scratching his notes?   Are you not in the hands of a far greater genius who has a plan for you that will be worked out perfectly?   "But the yoke", you cry.  Why this yoke?  The greater the yoke, the more settled your Lord's determination to make you into a masterpiece of love and glory.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  Matthew 11:29-30 NIV

What Really Is Before You

At some point you are going to be forced into the decision of your life, to fight against spiritual forces in high places or ignore them and go on as if they don't exist.  The Christian is never inept in this; unless of course he or she completely disregards Who lives within.  It is Christ in you that makes the difference in every temptation and trial you face.  You have the power to change the course of generations by giving Christ complete sway in your battle against the great enemy and all those spirits lined up before you intent to wreck and pillage your heart.  Be icy in your disregard of the insults and injustices you face but fiery hot in your hatred of Satan who is doing his best to make you a blind adversary at the moment you take your eyes off Jesus and gaze into the blinding darkness of some frustration or depressing hardship you have before you.

Nothing settles the Lordship question more firmly than hardship.  It is there that you see the thing most clearly: follow Christ or abandon Him.  Once you know where you stand, everything else falls into place.  Forgive or not.  Complain or not.  Believe or not.  Take the forbidden object or not.  As long as we waver between one or the other, hardship will work its way back into our soul and make the object clear again.  The heart of every situation that startles our sensibilities is the great decision.  Follow Christ or abandon Him.  We rarely settle this absolutely; more often we do so time and again.