WELCOME WHAT HUMBLES AND HEALS

·       “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the people of Israel.” (1 Kings 21:25-26; ESV)

However, when King Ahab heard God's judgment against him, he humbled himself, and this made all the difference. Therefore, God informed His prophet Elijah:

·       “'Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house.'” (1 Kings 21:29)

Humility is so important before our Lord that He reversed Himself entirely regarding the worst of Israel's kings. It’s also important for us! Even the greatest of God's servants had to endure the severest  humbling experiences. After God had deprived Job of everything, he was angry with God, but even he had to be humbled so that he'd repent of his pride and rash charges against his God:

·       “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:4-5)

·       “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:5-6)

Paul had to be humbled with a "messenger from Satan" to prevent him from becoming proud (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Clearly, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5)

I, therefore, must welcome and even embrace those things that humble me, however painful and discouraging they may be. Although Satan means them for evil, our Lord uses them to heal and conform us into His image.

And, by the way, don’t be surprised if these humbling experiences don’t make you feel cleansed but filthy and totally unworthy of anyway good from God. That’s what humbling is all about!

TRYING TO DEAL WITH SUFFERING

The Bible doesn't sugar-coat suffering. It lays it out before us, even showing us what to expect - that we too will bring indictments against God:

·       “Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression? For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground. Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” (Psalms 44:22-26)

While the Bible doesn't endorse our accusations against God, He certainly wants to show us that they are normal. God didn't approve of Job's understandable accusations. Instead, He denounced Job for them:

·       “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 'Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge'?” (Job 38:1-2)

·       “Shall a faultfinder [Job] contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it." (Job 40:2)

Job had been suffering so much that we shouldn't be too quick to indict him because of his accusations, but God certainly could and did.

The Psalmists also brought indictments against God and so do we, sometimes against our will. I pray that He remove or at least soften my character defects so that I would not utter what I shouldn't.

However, we also need to know that our suffering serves a very good purpose in the hands of God, who works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). Otherwise, we tend to become overwhelmed by grief.

I am amazed at the life of Paul, arguably the greatest missionary. However, God had made him suffer more than others. He had been beaten on 49 occasions, sometimes even left for dead. On top of that, God allowed Satan to afflict Paul with a thorn in his flesh so that he would not become conceited.

Paul made reference to his shameful affliction:

·       “You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 4:13-14)

Evidently, this "bodily ailment" had been so severe and obvious and perhaps even shameful that he thanked the Galatians for putting up with him.

These are the prices we pay when we are given a readiness to serve the Lord fully. It makes me think, "Without such afflictions, would I not become proud?" If Paul would have succumbed, I have little doubt that I too would fall had I not been given my humbling afflictions.

Paul had learned a valuable lesson from his afflictions:

·       “But he [God] 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)

The road to Christlike-ness is the road of affliction. This is the lesson we need to learn - over and over again! May we all readily accept and even boast in our weaknesses.

BEING HUMBLED

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Humbling is always painful. Humbling shows us that we aren't the good and sufficient people we want to be. However, we need the humbling. As I am humbled, I marvel, all the more, at my Savior who loves me and provides for me despite my unworthiness.

 The Apostle Peter was also humbled. He had denied the Lord three times. The Lord appeared to him a third time by the Sea of Galilee as they were fishing and miraculously filled their net with 153 fish. After eating, He asked Peter three times if he loved Him. This disturbed Peter, probably because it reminded him of his humbling threefold denial of Jesus.

Peter was humbled, but humility was a necessary ingredient for his glorious calling - "Feed My sheep."

But with such a calling comes more brokenness and glory - martyrdom, as our Lord had promised Peter:

* “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, "Follow me." (John 21:18-19; ESV)

I want to follow Him, but I have learned that I do not have what it takes, but my Lord does. If He can grow His most fragrant roses with manure, He can use us!

Confessions: Struggling to Truly Trust in God

It seems that when we most need to trust in our Savior, trust says, “hasta luego, baby,” abandoning us to our torment. I presently face the prospect of losing all my teeth, and I don’t know which way to turn. I try to trust that the Lord will guide me, but I am experiencing obstacles. I reason within myself, “God has let others down – How can I know that He won’t let me down also?” In light of this concern, can I truly embrace His promises like:

• Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:6-7)

However, instead of peace, I have been experiencing torment. I sought God to understand how I could fully trust Him in light of the disappointments I see among Christians. While many of the brethren reaffirm that they have found God completely trustworthy, I remain haunted by those few cases where I can find no redeeming explanation for their tragedy. I’ve repeatedly asked my Lord for wisdom in this area, but it seemed that none was forthcoming.

Perhaps I was not yet open to the wisdom that He was giving me. I was repeatedly reminded of the famous passage from Proverbs 3:5-8:

• Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

Perhaps I have been leaning too much to my own understanding. I had been allowing my understanding – “insisting” that I first have to have an answer to my question before I would commit myself to fully trusting Christ – interfere with trust. Consequently, instead of finding “nourishment to [my] bones,” I was reaping the torment of fear.

While our Lord promises that He will liberally grant wisdom (James 1:5), He doesn’t guarantee that He will answer our every question. Peter had asked Jesus about the fate of John. Jesus answered hypothetically: ““If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me” (John 21:22). And even with only this minimal response, the disciples misunderstood Jesus and concluded that Jesus would return before John died. Clearly, we cannot handle certain knowledge, even glorious knowledge.

Years ago, before I knew Christ, He encountered me in the midst of a pool of blood. I was dying from a horrible chainsaw injury. In an instance, He revealed Himself to me. Suddenly, I knew that He was love, power-to-the-highest, and that He would see me through this debacle. I was so certain of what He had revealed that when my surgeon informed me that I would have to immediately begin exercising my half-cut-off wrist, I blew him off, certain of this unknown God’s sovereignty over my life. Even though I had been correct about His sovereignty, I made a wrong assumption – that my efforts didn’t matter at all. As a result of this, I lost the mobility of my hand.

We cannot handle some knowledge without it mishandling us. Therefore, in His wisdom, Jesus withholds it from us until we can handle it. Instead, faith and trust must be our source of light and evidence (Romans 11:1). This certainly doesn’t mean that wisdom and evidences are for naught. God gladly provides us with evidences (Acts 1:3; 2:22; Deut. 4:34-38; Exodus 4) and encourages us to seek wisdom.

However, there are doors that wisdom alone cannot open. I had been standing in the dark outside of one such door, demanding an answer before I would step into the light of trust. God had been giving me an answer, but I wasn’t hearing it.

God had also been giving Job such an answer, but Job too was having a hard time hearing it. The prophetic Elihu tried to bring his problem home to him:

• Why do you complain to him that he responds to no one’s words? For God does speak—now one way, now another—though no one perceives it. (Job 33:13-14).

Why wasn’t Job perceiving God’s answer? I think that, often, it is because we think more of ourselves – our own righteousness and reasoning – than we ought. Consequently, we are not always receptive. Job was convinced that God had treated him unjustly. Consequently, he was only responsive to proving that he had been righteous. He therefore required a divine confrontation to knock some sense into his head. God had asked him a series of questions regarding what he knew and what he could do (Job 38-41). It soon became apparent that Job failed on every account. If Job could not answer any of God’s questions, why did he feel confident in his indictment of God? The conclusion was inescapable – Job lacked the wisdom and knowledge by which to bring any indictments against God! Job therefore confessed:

• “You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:3-6)

There is nothing the matter with wisdom. However, when we have too high of a regard for our own “wisdom,” we lose receptivity, like a dirty pair of eyeglasses. Job had had too high regards for his own reasoning. Ironically, this prevented him from trusting in God and hardened him against hearing. However, God mercifully chastens us with our own opinions to show us how our pride and its prickly fruit cost us:

• “He [God] may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, to preserve them from the pit.” (Job 33:16-18)

The more we trust in ourselves, the less we trust in God. Unless our Lord chastens us, it is inevitable that we will lean to our own tragic and depressing understanding, and with this, away from God’s comforting understanding.

How could I trust in God in view of certain tragedies that I couldn’t reconcile with such trust? I had unconsciously assumed that if I couldn’t reconcile trusting in God with these “tragedies,” I couldn’t really trust in God. In this, I had been placing too much trust in my understanding. I was committing the same fallacy as I have often accused the atheists of making. I would tell them:

• Just because you fail to find a purpose for suffering, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. Instead, it is just possible (understatement) that God’s wisdom might be greater than your own.

In fact, God often warns us that He will place us in situations where our understanding will fail us – like when He asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22) - and where our faith must be exercised to a greater extent:

• Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12-13)

These trials turn us away from a self-trust and a self-focus to a God-only preoccupation, and I know that I – and you too – need trials. Without them, there is a great risk that we will become too comfortable in this world and will not “be overjoyed” when He comes back for us. Lord, thank You for the trials!

Why is Life So Difficult, even with our Savior?

We usually don’t associate mercy with pain, frustration, and disappointment. Instead, we’re convinced that if God loves us, we will feel good and triumph. That’s been my expectation, even though Scripture continues to warn me against this thinking.

Hosea suggests that if God truly does love us, He will limit our rations. When He doesn’t, and treats us as if we’ve just won the Lotto, oddly, we rebel:

• I [God] cared for you [Israel] in the desert, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me. (Hosea 13:5-6) 

We have a problem. We think that we know what’s best for us. As children of God, we know better than to pray for the Lotto or material fulfillment. However, we can’t understand why God allows us to continue to languish in the midst of certain sins. We pray:

• God, if You really love me, why do I continue to struggle against these ugly lusts, fears, and irritations. Why don’t You make me more Christ-like so that I can show You off to the world. Instead, I’m struggling with myself.

Here are some reasons why we continue to struggle:

1. Israel became proud when their needs were met and forgot about God. Even having our spiritual and emotional needs met would have this same effect.

2. Our unmet needs bring us closer to God, teaching us to rely on Him. Paul wrote that he had suffered so that he wanted to die. However, this happened so that he’d trust in God and not in Himself (2 Cor. 1:8-9). He learned that it was only through his afflictions that he became strong in the Lord (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

3. It is only through suffering and longing that we become more Christ-like (2 Cor. 4:10-11). King David thanked God for His afflictions, because, through them, he had to resort to God’s Word (Psalm 119:71).

4. Afflictions make the mercy of God real (2 Cor. 1:5). The afflictions also equip us as ministers of the Word (2 Cor. 1:3-4).

5. Afflictions are like oil. They spread grace and salvation. 

Actually, I trust that we are growing daily (Rom. 8:28). However, we don’t see it. Our Savior will not allow us to see it, lest we become proud. It is only upon His return that our eyes will be opened to what He has promised (1 John 3:2-3). Meanwhile, He will open the eyes of others, who might experience us as a sweet savor of our Lord (2 Cor. 2:14-15).

I have to admit that I often become quite disgusted with myself. However, there is a glorious purpose behind this. It serves as a growth hormone. Each time I become disgusted, I grieve over my sins. I am turned to His Word and am uplifted by what I see – that He loves me despite my unworthiness. His promises of forgiveness and love caress my heart as a chorus of birds in the fresh morning air. They encourage me to take the next step:

• No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

I might not see it, but He does, and that’s the important thing!

Suffering: A Gift or a Curse?

Suffering is a reality of life, especially the Christian life. In fact, rarely have I met a Christian who isn’t suffering, some intensely. And it is understandable and natural that we ask, “Why me, God?”

However, in order to answer this common and perplexing question, we need to make a distinction between the suffering and our understanding of it. Interestingly, for some, the suffering can be unbearable; for others, it is entirely bearable. What makes the difference? The way we understand it! If we understand our suffering as something necessary and therefore good, it becomes bearable. If we understand it as a curse, it feels like a curse.

Two friends both contracted incurable illnesses. One regarded it as a curse, a sign of God’s disfavor, and he experienced it as a curse. The other regarded his illness as a sign of God’s love and faithfulness and therefore regarded it as a blessing. He understood that God disciplines His children out of His great love, and therefore saw his disease as a gift from God (Heb. 12:5-11).

But is it really a gift or are we just conning ourselves? According to Scripture, if we want to reign with Christ and bear His image to the world, we must endure suffering (2 Cor. 4:10-11). Paul was arguably the greatest missionary known to the church. However, he had to be prepared for this great work and honor through extreme suffering.

In the process of persecuting the church, God struck him down with blindness. Then He instructed the faithful Ananias to lay his hands upon Paul to heal him of his blindness. Ananias complained that Paul was the leading enemy of the church. However, God revealed that Paul was His chosen one and that Paul would have to suffer terribly for Him:

•  But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” (Acts 9:15-16)

However, Paul learned to value his suffering:

•  Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked…I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.  Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.

The suffering seems to have produced great compassion in him.

•  Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? (2 Cor. 11:24-29)

Nevertheless, he pleaded with God to remove a certain unnamed affliction. However, God informed him that He wouldn’t, and that by doing so would have an adverse affect on Paul. He subsequently came to understand that when he was weak, it was then that he became strong in faith through the grace of God (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Consequently, he came to regard suffering as a gift and not a curse.

I too have come to regard suffering as a precious gift. However, this understanding didn’t come until after decades of suffering depression, followed by panic attacks. Only in retrospect did I come to see that the suffering served to release me from psychological imprisonment unto a faith and a reliance upon Him through His Word, as David had reflected:

•   It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. (Psalm 119:71).

Paul also explained that suffering served as a trainer to show him the foolishness of self-trust and the necessity for God-trust:

•  We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.  Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Cor. 1:8-9).

Self-trust is our natural default position. Only the fires of suffering can consume it and the arrogance that self-reliance breeds.

Surgery can be painful, but it is also necessary. It can be a blessing. God’s mysterious surgery is also a blessing. To regard it as a curse is to misunderstand both God and His ways. It’s also to make the suffering far worse.

Miracles: We Don’t Know what we Need

Life is tough! Why doesn’t our God nourish us with a steady stream of miracles to encourage us through the doubts and doldrums? On top of our perplexity about this, we must also suffer the taunts of the atheist:

• “Well, if you’re God really cares about saving us, He’d provide us with enough miraculous evidences so that we could believe in him and not have to suffer hell.

However, even though Scripture assures us that we already have enough evidence (Rom 1:18-20; 2:14-15; Acts 14:17; Psalm 19), it never seems to be enough. However, Jesus instructs us that we are blessed with this miracle-lean diet.

The Apostles, with the exception of Thomas, had been blessed with a miraculous and unexpected visit by the risen Christ. He suddenly appeared to them as they shivered with fear behind locked doors. To prove to them that it was He, He showed them His pierced hands and side, and they rejoiced (John 20:20).

However, when they reported this visitation to Thomas, he stubbornly refused to receive their testimony. Instead, he insisted that he should be granted the same visitation. Otherwise, he refused to believe.

Amazingly, Jesus condescended to grant the defiant Thomas his request. Thomas then believed. However, Jesus reprimanded him:

• Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29) 

Who was it who believed without seeing? Everyone had seen! It seems that, after the humiliation of the Cross, seeing was necessary for believing. All had abandoned Jesus and even the faith. The Apostles were running scared! They needed the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to restore their faith, and that’s exactly what they had been granted:

• After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

Besides, those who subsequently came to faith did so through the miracles performed by the Apostles’ (Acts 2:43). Who then believes without seeing? Us!

Right afterwards, John refers to those who would believe, not on the basis of seeing, but on the basis of apostolic testimony:

• Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

There would be a change. John wrote his Gospel so that we would believe. He didn’t anticipate a plethora of future post-resurrection appearances. Instead, faith would thereafter rest primarily on Scriptural – testimonial - evidences rather than on seeing miraculous evidences.

This sounds like discouraging news – a step in the wrong direction.  However, Jesus assures us that “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29)! How can this be?

This certainly doesn’t mean that we will never have miraculous evidence. Before I was brought to faith in the Messiah, I had a miraculous Divine encounter as I was bleeding to death from a horrible chainsaw injury. I was so overwhelmed by the presence of God that nothing mattered to me but Him and that He was there to protect and love me.

I was miraculously rescued and spent the next four days in the hospital. Meanwhile, I knew that this unknown Savior was with me. Therefore, on the following day, when my surgeon instructed me to exercise my half-cut-off wrist or loose its mobility, I blew-off his instructions. I knew correctly that God – whoever He was – was all-powerful. Therefore, I wouldn’t listen to the surgeon.

Miracles can prove costly. I was foolish. I made a wrong assumption - even though I was given a strong dose of God’s truth during this encounter - and lost the mobility in my hand. Although I needed this miraculous encounter, I lacked the knowledge to handle it. I didn’t understand that although God is omnipotent, this doesn’t negate our responsibility to act prudently, as I had wrongly assumed.

Subsequently, I came to a faith in Christ. However, I never had another encounter. I certainly wanted one and prayed for many, but it was not to be. Consequently, as I experienced great trials through my faith-walk, I began to believe that I had made a wrong turn somewhere, or perhaps God didn’t love me I had initially believed. I needed miraculous reassurance, but it wasn’t to be found.

I therefore had to settle for what I had regarded as “second best” – the Words of God. However, these seemed to be a poor flimsy substitute for the “real thing” – an encounter with God Himself. Often, reading the Bible seemed hollow and sometimes confusing, but there was no other place to turn.

In retrospect, 36 years of it, I now see that this – depression and a miracle-lean diet – is exactly what I needed to enable me to absorb that growth-food that we all require but fail to esteem.

If I had been able to live out my Christian life by the seeing of the miraculous, I would have gladly done so. However, what gladdens us is not necessarily good for us. The Apostle Paul warned us that “we walk by faith not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). Why? When we grope our way through the painful “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” we learn valuable lessons. David thanked God for these:

• It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. (Psalm 119:71)

Why do affliction and a miracle-lean diet grow the most fragrant roses? Because they teach us to turn from self-trust to God-trust:

• We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Cor. 1:8-9)

A miracle-rich diet breeds complacency, and complacency does not breed a self-examination that humbles and ultimately edifies. We are made to eat humble-pie until we learn a necessary lesson – that it’s all about our Savior:

• But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Cor. 4:7-10)

We do not know what is good for us. We think that winning the Lotto will make us happy, but it usually destroys those it touches. We are convinced that miracles will grow us spiritually. However, a miracle-rich diet is like living in a palace where we never learn and are never challenged to grow and dig deeper. It’s like feeding an Olympic athlete on a diet of ice cream and cake. It’s to be surrounded by gold and not growth-promoting clay.

Peter was chosen by His Lord to feed His sheep. However, Peter had to first know what it was like to live in a jar of clay. He needed to have his self-confident wings clipped by denying his Lord three times. This taught him humility. However, that would not be his last lesson. Jesus promised that he would grow old and loose his self-sufficiency along with his confidence, and then face martyrdom (John 21:18).

Our reaction is “Why me?” Peter asked about John - whether he too would have to suffer martyrdom? We want the answers. We want to walk by sight and not by faith. We want to be in control, but jars of clay are not supposed to be in control.

A miracle-rich diet makes us fat and self-satisfied. It answers all of our questions and doesn’t force us to dig deeply into the word for answers. We cannot handle all of the blessings that our Lord wants to ultimately give us. Money can make us proud and self-satisfied. Success leads to self-trust. A steady diet of miracles can numb the mind and growth. No wonder that we are more blessed without them.