The more anxious and fearful we are, the more we try to
control those things that threaten us—being late, making a bad decision, rejection,
failure, or letting someone down.
A little anxiousness is a good thing, but out-of-control
anxiousness, worry, and fear are hard to endure. To make matters worse, we also
worry that we cannot turn them off as our Lord instructs us (Matthew 6:25-34).
Besides, we are not in control. Instead, our Lord is! “I have been crucified
with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”
(Galatians 2:20).
The good news is that our Lord is greater than our
weaknesses and infirmities. He even uses these to make us into His bridesmaids.
He even used an affliction—Satan’s thorn in the flesh—to mold Paul. Our Lord
wouldn’t even hear Paul’s cry for deliverance:
·
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for
you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the
more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For
the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2
Corinthians 12:9-10)
God is greater than any of our weaknesses or infirmities.
Knowing this enabled Paul to even boast in them.
We need to regard suffering, even those things that might be
regarded as pathological suffering, as God’s positive building blocks rather
than negatives, which laugh at our efforts to overcome them. If we can view our
struggles through these eyes, we can better accept them with a “yes—another opportunity
for us to be strong in the Lord” rather than an “oh no!” This understanding had
enabled Paul to boast rather than moan.
It also had enabled me! I am now 45 years in the Lord.
Consequently, I can look back to see what the Lord has accomplished through my
weaknesses. Suffering my weaknesses and infirmities forced me to trust in His
Word rather than in my own strength and understanding:
·
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do
not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he
will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
I want to be pampered by the Lord! Therefore, I’d rather
trust in His guidance and oversight than in my feeble attempts at control. We
need to adopt Paul’s God-given understanding:
·
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his
grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of
them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians
15:10)
Our lives belong to Him. Therefore, I must not take the
credit or flagellate myself with the blame. Instead, I need to remind myself of
how much He loves me:
·
but God shows his love for us in that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been
justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of
God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his
Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
(Romans 5:8-10)
This logic is persuasive. If Jesus paid the ultimate price
for us when we hated Him, how much more can we be confident of His love now
that He has already suffered for us, and we have been eternally reconciled to
Him!
Knowing the how much He loves me makes me giddy (Ephesians 3:19). Just
remember how it was like for you when you found out that your love had been reciprocated
by your beloved! It fills in the places of pain and emptiness. Showing the extent
of His love for us had been the climax of all history. It was also the moment
of Jesus’ greatest glory:
·
And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for
the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of
wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears
much fruit.” (John 12:23-24)
Jesus’ suffering had become the moment of His greatest
glory. Why? The Cross proved His love for us greater than anything else could.
(Credentialed historians all agree that Jesus had been crucified!)
Years before, I wasn’t able to shake the doubt that perhaps
God might be a sadistic deceiver who had created us for His entertainment.
However, it was the Cross alone that was finally able to convince me that He
really loves me!
Love is the greatest power. Through love, mothers sacrifice
their lives for their children, husbands for their wives, and soldiers for
their countries. However, Jesus suffered for those who had hated Him.
Our sufferings and weaknesses are nothing compared to the
joys of eternity, which our Lord is accomplishing in our lives:
·
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self
is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light
momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all
comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that
are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are
unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
How then do we endure the decay of our utter self? By
looking at the joy set before us, as Jesus had:
·
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of
our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him
who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not
grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:2-3)
I think that we are all prone to grow fainthearted as we
struggle against our weaknesses and infirmities. This struggle is also
humbling, but humility must precede our exaltation:
·
“For everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:11; 18:14;
Matthew 23:12)
Paul had been humbled so that he would also be exalted. We
all must go through this process, but how can we endure? By looking towards
Jesus, our beloved Savior.
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