When our expectations are realistic, they can enable us to
endure. We will even lay on a surgical table, surrounded by masked men, if we
are convinced that surgery is necessary to remove a tumor.
This same principle pertains to life. We can endure its
hardships if we are convinced that they have a good purpose and outcome:
·
It is for discipline that you have to endure.
God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not
discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated,
then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had
earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much
more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 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 12:7–11 (ESV)
When we place ourselves into the hands of God, we hope in
the Master Surgeon who guarantees His surgery as no one else can. However, we
tend to also place our hopes and expectations in less trustworthy surgeons. In Worry,
Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell writes:
·
The sum of our meaningful connections [to people
and groups] is…the key to emotional health and the surest protection we have
against the psychological ravages of worry.” (26)
“Meaningful connections” are a big plus. However, they must not become our “surest
protection.” Depending on others to such an extent is to place undo pressure on
them to fulfill our needs and leads to disappointment:
·
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man,
in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the
earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God
of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the
sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for
the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; (Psalm
146:3–7)
Ultimately, our hope must be invested in the only One who
can provide for us, the One who is working everything out for our good (Romans
8:28). Nor can we trust in ourselves. In Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon wrote
about his struggles with depression, but was discouraged about the hope he
offers – “a sense of humor”:
·
Of course, it can be hard to sustain a sense of
humor during an experience that is really not so funny. It is urgently
necessary to do so…Whatever time is eaten by a depression is gone forever. The
minutes that are ticking by as you experience the illness are minutes that you
will not know again. No matter how bad you feel you have to do everything you
can to keep living, even if all you can do for the moment is breathe. Wait it
out and occupy the time of waiting as fully as you can. That’s my big piece of
advice to depressed people.
Solomon’s advice should make Christians grateful that we
have a real and living hope, even it might take time for this glorious
expectation to infiltrate through the thick walls of our heart. It took Moses
time to re-embrace his prior hope of leading his people out of Egypt, even when
he had a face-to-Face with the Author of all hope through a mysterious burning
bush.
God had told him to return to Egypt, from where he had fled
in terror 40 years earlier, to lead His people into freedom from slavery.
However, even though Moses had become a lowly shepherd and had little to lose,
he vigorously resisted God, claiming that he couldn’t accomplish this task
since he was a stutterer:
·
The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his
mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is
it not I, the LORD? (Exodus 4:11)
If God is for us, nothing and no one can come against us:
·
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who
did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with
him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s
elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who
died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed
is interceding for us. (Romans 8:31–34)
It doesn’t matter
what our weaknesses, failures, inadequacies, and infirmities might be. Instead,
He delights in using the weakest and most broken of us:
·
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves
the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD
delivers him out of them all. (Psalm 34:18–19)
If God is our hope, let us rejoice and praise Him, even when
it seems that every chord of praise needs retuned.
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