02/20/2018
Do you think God has abandoned you when you are in a season of suffering in your life? Do you look to Him and cry out in anger at your pain? Does doubt come from your strife, or, even the mere endurance of hardship... or do you trust in Him all the more? There is a mystery in suffering; we wonder why God uses adversity and pain to teach us some of faith’s most valuable lessons.
“For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Hebrews 12:10-11 ESV
In today’s society, we view all pain and hardship as being counter to our good and wellbeing. Many have forgone the disciplining of children, or the use of trials to train ourselves in endurance and to firm up our character. Somehow we have lost sight of the fact that by navigating hardship it strengthens us.
I once read an article regarding how we protect our children from disease and illness to their own detriment. Today we shield them from association with anything that we think might make them sick. The problem with this strategy is that they grow up to have a body and metabolism that has not adjusted to the bugs, and viruses around us. What we would naturally have developed an immunity against as we aged is now multiplied in its danger because a simple variation in a strand of one of these diseases could very well kill us, whereas before our bodies would have fought it off, and adjusted gradually developing antibodies against all forms of illness. Sickness and the immunity it seems, builds and strengthens us, and enables us to live in this world filled with every manner of microbe, and virus.
When we endure hardship and suffering we are developing a spiritual immunity to the world around us. The pain and constant suffering we face in life strengthens us as spiritual beings. We learned from our initial scripture that holiness and righteousness are products of discipline and suffering, but there are other benefits as well. Let’s read another passage from Romans...
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:3-5 ESV
We are strengthened in spirit and faith by the trials we endure. This runs so contrary to the modern view of life, and our world today; where hard work is not the virtue it was once viewed as being, and pain of any type is to be avoided at all cost. Now our children are discouraged from getting dirty, and playing outside is almost frowned upon. Going to see a sick friend is dangerous, and heaven forbid we would want to comfort, or nurse them back to health ourselves. We have become adverse to anything that requires hardship and pain to overcome.
As humans we have always wanted to take the easy way out... we like the path of least resistance. This much is not new. We see this in the Bible as the Israelites are led out of Egypt and into the desert. They were a fatalistic and whiny bunch, and all of this coming from a people who were used to hard work and being enslaved. Don’t you find it amazing that God had to humble people that had been another person’s slave for generations?
“And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.”
Deuteronomy 8:2 ESV
Physical humbling and spiritual humbling are two different things, but learning to be spiritually humble can, and does, come from physical humiliation, suffering, pain, and hardship. Wandering in the desert as they depended on God to feed them, clothe them, provide them with water, and every other necessity, taught them to be humble before God. They became the spiritual equivalent to the animal that was taught to eat from a man’s hand, and the horse that trusted his rider enough to jump over an obstacle rather than to run around it as his nature dictated he should.
God teaches us obedience by leading us to trust in Him, and obey Him, despite what our nature would tell us to do. We have to learn to overcome our physical druthers in order to learn spiritual humility. We have to walk through pain and suffering in order to understand that God, who is leading us, will not fail us, and that with every unpleasant trial there is a joyful emerging, and celebrated strengthening.
We are in an Olympic Year in which athletes who have endured rigorous, and often painful training are competing. In these competitions a champion will arise, but for even those who fail to become the gold medal winner, there is the absolute reality that they have achieved a level of accomplishment in their sport that is higher than they could have ever dreamed of achieving otherwise. Four years of hardship and Physical training perfected the Olympic body. Spiritual training perfects the Christian soul... and the suffering we endure humbles us to new heights of holiness, righteousness, endurance, character, hope, and goodness. The big difference lies in the fact that Gold awaits every believer in Jesus Christ who worships Him in Spirit and Truth.
Are you willing to endure as you perfect your humility? Are you willing to obey as you increase in faith? Are you willing to trust as you move through the desert?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the spiritual strength that you build in me as I navigate the hardships of my life. I thank you for the pain and suffering that humbles me, and for the example of Jesus Christ who suffered beyond belief that my sin would be removed, and that I could stand before you pure, and worthy. Help me Father to trust in you without the slightest waiver or doubt as I follow you through the valleys of my greatest despair. Let my eyes remain on Jesus, and my hands be stretched out to you. Let my prayers find you even from the darkness that surrounds me, that you might shine your light towards my voice, and draw me stumbling to you once more. Merciful Father, I will rejoice when my trials have been endured, and the mourning of the night has been put behind me, because in the light of that moment I will see the face of Jesus, and step forward in faith towards home; towards you. In the light of that moment I will shout in praise and adoration saying “This is my God, Great is He! His grace knows no end, and His mercy lives forever!” And I will fall before you in worship.
Rich Forbes