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!

Jesus: My Surrogate Mother

Jesus is the mother I never had. Yes, I did have a mother, but she wasn’t a nurturing mother. She just didn’t like children and didn’t like to hold them. I’ve watched her in my later years. She became irritable around children. They were not a source of delight for her.

I don’t blame her. I love her and miss her. She tried to be a good mother, in her own way, but she just didn’t have it in her. I knew her parents and could see why.

Nevertheless, I’ve suffered greatly from the deprivations. She confessed to me that she didn’t hold me, but propped me up with pillows and my bottle. I got the milk I needed but not the love and intimacy.

I always knew I was different from other children. Something was missing, but I didn’t know what it was. However, there was something else that filled the gap – anxiety, depression, and alienation.

I never felt worthy of love or even of someone’s attentions. It therefore made sense to me that if I was tops at everything, I’d make myself worthy of love. I’d then be able to feel comfortable within my own skin. However, this strategy didn’t work for long, and it came with great costs. Any failure would undermine my entire personhood. It would confirm the established fact that I was a looser.

This identity had become so deeply entrenched that all my highly recommended psychologists were unable to touch it. It didn’t matter how many positive messages they fed me, I was convinced that I was a looser. My feelings of self-loathing were so powerful that they now scorned any affirmations or even successes. They were no more than unconvincing whispers in a roaring tsunami.

Despairing of all therapies and human interventions, I was left with only one option – a God who promised:

• "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

However, for years, this God was highly objectionable to me. While some reject Jesus because of His objectionable teachings, I rejected Him because He simply was Jesus – a traitor and an enemy of the Jews, my people. At least, that’s how I understood Him.

I, therefore, tried out many other religions, each leaving me disappointed. Meditation didn’t work. It just left me more focused on myself – something that gave me little encouragement.

I tried to live in harmony with the land as a subsistence, organic farmer. I assured myself that if I lived in harmony with the land I would experience the peace of the land. However, this was not to be. Instead, I experienced a horrible chainsaw injury that left me bleeding to death in a pool of my own blood. I was sure that any second I would pass out from loss of blood and “Goodbye world!”

At that very moment, I knew that I wasn’t alone. I knew that God was with me, although I didn’t know who He was. I was filled with ecstacy. Nothing mattered anymore. Even if I died, I knew that I would still be surrounded by His love and protection. Covered with blood, but assured of His love, I cried out, “God, I will gladly give you everything just to know who You are!”

This cry became my life script. It also led me to my Savior and surrogate Mother. However, this isn’t a romp-in-the-rose-garden story. There was much I had to learn and re-learn; there was much that had to first be stripped away.

Despite my miraculous encounter and rescue, faith didn’t come easily to me. It required years before I could receive His assurances like a little child. Feelings of self-loathing continued, but slowly the counter-assurances of Scripture took hold. He assured me that:

• I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Gradually, through His promptings, I began to understand that my life was no longer about me, my successes, or my popularity, but about Him alone – the God who loves me and has rescued me for all eternity. I no longer had to perform well to have value. He loves and forgives me, and that is all that really matters at the end of the day.

When I fear that I am not good enough for Him, He assures me through His Word that:

• Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

I am His and He is mine. Although I don’t feel His arms around me, I know that He is there, and that is enough.

I still experience some of my insecurities – my childhood inheritance – but these only serve to make my Savior – my Surrogate - all the more precious to me.

Self-Esteem, Rubbish, and Road-Rage

I am a man of many weaknesses and failings, but I’ve learned to boast of them. Nevertheless, I’d love to be rid of them, but at the same time, I know that they are my faithful tutors (Gal. 3:22-24).

As an anxious, irritable, impatient, and angry male, I hate to drive in a car. Every yellow light becomes a personal challenge; every red light becomes a personal rebuke. Needless to say, I receive many “rebukes” in the course of a trip, and my response differs little from road-rage. When the traffic is backed up in front of me, every car is a mortal enemy.

I am a Bible teacher, and my reactions are a great embarrassment to me. I have been on the phone, while surrounded by such “enemies.” My reaction has often caused me to forget that I had been talking on the phone, as I lapsed into profanity. How humbling!

I wish I could say that I am making great strides against my sins. However, my humiliation is compounded as I pray to the One who can deliver me. Even with Him on the “phone,” within seconds, I lapse, convinced that I am the world’s greatest spiritual failure. I cannot “keep watch” for a minute.

Consequently, Paul’s prayer has become very real to me:

·        What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:24-25)

How true! In my sinful nature (“flesh;” NASB) I am a slave to sin, while Jesus is my only hope. But isn’t there deliverance in Jesus? Wasn’t it Jesus who promised deliverance?

·        To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

However, He also said:

·        “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

Okay, I get the point. I know that it’s all about Jesus, and He has His own timing. But where’s my deliverance? I am tormented by my sins and failings. However, Paul was also tormented by a “messenger of Satan,” even after he walked faithfully with his Lord for many years. However, he came to understand that this torment was necessary to keep him humble:

·        To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:7-10)

I too have learned to delight in my weaknesses, convinced that I need these horrid afflictions. I even counteract the shame with transparency, boasting that He has created great strength through them. King David confessed:

·        Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees…It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. (Psalm 119:67-71)

If David needed to learn through His afflictions, perhaps we also must be afflicted. Indeed, my Lord has taught me so much through my afflictions that I am now grateful. He has opened my eyes to the great threat of self-contentment, self-trust, and self-righteousness – the things that happen to us when our Lord allows us to go our own way. He has also shown me how destructive this threesome is to the life of the church. In His wisdom, He has placed us under His law to reveal to us our moral failures and our need for Him:

·        Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. [20] Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. (Romans 3:19-20)

We so desperately need to become “conscious of [our] sin.” Without this, it is inevitable that we will look down on others and exalt ourselves.  However, even worse, we will take our Lord and His glorious gift of righteousness for granted.

Exalting self and its complement - diminishing God - are our human default position. It’s what comes most naturally! If this is the case, we require constant reminders of our need and brokenness.

This is why I exult in my neediness. I flaunt it in front of others – whatever it takes to exalt my God, my chief delight and passion. I also think that this helps others to accept their own spiritual failures. However, this is a passion that couldn’t be, as long as I remained passionate about myself. Paul also learned to disdain self-passion:

·        But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Philip. 3:7-9)

Paul didn’t dismiss his education and his zeal for the Law. Instead, he was dismissive of any self-trust regarding these! A fruitful relationship with our Savior and a fervent embrace of His righteousness depends upon realizing that we are entirely lacking of any righteousness of our own, earned with our good deeds. Therefore, whenever this self-aggrandizing temptation arises, we must be quick to expose it for what it truly is – “rubbish.”

I pray that my Lord will deliver me from my afflictions. However, I know Him and therefore know that if He leaves me with them, He has a good purpose for this.