Occasionally I hear or read something which becomes permanently filed in my memory bank. A statement from C.S. Lewis is one of those sticky statements: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” In today’s blog post I want to continue to unpack Hebrews 12:8-18. There are two previous posts in this series, which if you haven’t yet read them I would encourage you to do so. (LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES, August 21 and GOD ISN’T PUNISHING YOU, HE’S PREPARING YOU!, August 22). Verse 11 (NIV) reads, “No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening -- it is painful! But afterward there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” The writer of Hebrews may be expressing one of the great understatements of all-time, “discipline…is painful.” Like, no duh! Reflecting on my previous post: ‘preparation [training] is painful.” I don’t know about you, but I like to think the process of preparing for God’s good plans, the path he’s chosen for my life, is going to be all-good. I want the process to be one great win after another, full of lots of joy and laughs. I want to move from one success to the next big win. As the late John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” We’ve all had the experience of life going along smoothly, and then, “Bam!” and everything blows up in our face. And to state the obvious, it’s painful.
Pain is a broad topic. It can involve physical suffering, psychological hurt, relational struggles or economic [material] strain. Regardless of the source, pain gets our attention. It shouts so loudly there’s no way we can ignore it. Pain forces us to stop and evaluate our lives. Pain causes us to cry out in desperation to God. Pain reveals weaknesses in our faith. Pain motivates us seriously consider whether God wants us to persevere or make changes in the way we’re doing life.
When God’s discipline is for the purpose of preparation, training us for the next stage of his plan for our lives, it will most likely still be painful. It’s painful because things are changing in our lives and most of us are resistant to change on some level. It’s painful because we are adding to our faith, which means we have to first be confronted with the weakness of our faith. Some people see themselves as having strong faith until their life gets turned upside down, and they discover their not as strong as they thought.
Continuing our look at Verse 11, notice where it says, “But afterward…” Your pain, whatever is causing you so much turmoil today, is not permanent. You will get through this! God’s grace will be more than enough to get you through and beyond this time in your life. You may be thinking, “Then what?” I love the promise contained in this verse: “…there will be a quiet (“peaceful”, NAS) harvest of right living.” The pain you are experiencing right now, which is part of God’s preparation in your life, is producing powerful fruit.
As long as we’re stuck in a mindset that our pain is pointless, and choose the attitude “life’s not fair”, we’re going to miss out on what God is seeking to accomplish in our life, the good path he’s planned for us.
Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8) and many of us want a free-pass, or a pain-free existence. I firmly believe that if we can fully trust God is working out his good plans in our life, it would completely change our perspective when life is painful.
In closing, check out James 1:2-4: (New Living Translation) “Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. 3 For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”
Today’s takeaway: Don’t let pain DEFINE you; instead, let it REFINE you.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment