Great faith is
exhibited not so much in the ability to do,
but to suffer.
God breaks us. Did you know that? There is a saying that
God won’t give us more than we can handle, but it’s not true in the way people
think. There is so much in the Bible about His refining fire; God purifying His
people. Did you read that? Refining FIRE, the burning away of impurities. The crucible.
The Crucible.
Very early in 2014 I heard a story on the radio. I think
it was Chuck Swindoll. Long before the days of accessibility for the physically
impaired, his friend went to university with a blind classmate. After witnessing
the effort it took his classmate to do what came easily to everyone else, he finally
asked him where he found the resolve. How did he cope? He responded with
the following account:
He had lost his sight in his early teens. For months he was
depressed: refusing to eat, to speak to anyone, he shut himself away in his
room. One day his father came to him and informed him that the shutters needed
to be put up on the house and that it had to be done today. He expected the
task completed by the time he was to be home from work that day. The son was so
angry. How could his father demand such an impossibility? Didn’t he remember he
was BLIND?! He was so angry that he decided he would attempt it; maybe if his
father came home to his spectacular failure he would be forced to beg his son’s
forgiveness. Yes, he thought, maybe I’ll even suffer some injury that will be
sure to rouse remorse and sympathy in this cold-hearted, demanding father.
So he stumbled to the garage, felt around for ladder and
shutters and proceeded to hang all of them. It was hard going but was completed
that day, as required.
He said that his father had done him the greatest service
that day. Absent his father’s demand, he would never have tried such a
seemingly impossible task. But by the end of that day, he realized he could do
so much more than he ever imagined, and the world began to open up to him.
The most amazing thing? His father had never left. He had
not gone to work that day. He had stayed beside his son the entire time, within
his arm’s reach. Ready to catch him if he had fallen or slipped or needed help.
He was there even though the son couldn’t see him.
That story kept coming to my mind for the rest of the
year as I struggled with God in my crucible. In my head I knew He is like the
father in the story, calling us to task and equipping us. But my heart didn’t
believe it. I was like the blind son, so angry at Him, demanding He help me in
the way I wanted help.
Suffering.
For me, 2014 was full of change and a lot of tough
stuff. It year was my first full year of marriage, I started my work as a
lawyer, I had a really hard pregnancy that resulted in two fabulous little
boys. We moved, four days before they were born. The boys were born healthy,
but I was not. My recovery took long, hard weeks and I still am struggling with
the baby blues, not to mention the work of two babies! Amidst it all, there were personal struggles
that to discuss would break the confidence of others. It was the hardest year
of my life. My crucible. (And yet, you
see the gentleness of God, His provision: a wonderful husband, healthy boys, a
new home, a great job.)
This year humbled me. Slowly I lost the ability to DO. I saw
ugliness in myself. I began to realize I set my value based on what I could
produce, what I achieve, how good I look to others, and whether certain people
accept me. It was a series of very painful experiences that brought me to my
knees and revealed all this to me. Painful. The burning away of impurities. As these
events crashed into me, wave after wave, I felt like a complete failure. A failure
to others, and to God. I thought my purpose in life was to give Him glory by
what people could see, that my life would show what God could do. But all
people could see was someone who was falling apart. Oh, and someone who wanted
her own way and enjoyed strife. Yuck.
Reading through my 2014 journal is an unpleasant yoyo of
my attitudes towards God. And understand, previous journals are FULL of lists
of answered prayers, of words from God, of times of visions and refreshing. There
is hardly any of that in this year’s record. For most of the year I was angry
with Him. Why was He letting all this pain happen to me? When would it get
easier? Above all … WHY wouldn’t He help me?
I was so angry like the boy putting up shutters.
Why was God letting me struggle? Couldn’t He see me failing? I needed Him and
He just kept letting it get harder. It had been hard for so long.
Surrender.
Then, just a few weeks ago my Mom spoke words of harsh
comfort. I wanted to be felt sorry for, to be coddled. To be COMFORTED.
"Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy
multiplies kisses." (Proverbs 27:6)
She said that I had to let go, that I had to surrender. That
I had to release and accept this new life. Accept that I couldn’t achieve in
the same way anymore. My needs put aside, and meet the needs of others: my
boys, my husband. And it was then that I saw through my self-pity. My anger at
Him that He wouldn’t help me. My demands that God HELP me make things like the
way they were. I was angry because I wanted MY way. So even though I didn’t
FEEL it, and no magic happened when I did it, I surrendered to God. I just
said, Jesus, take this ground in my heart that does not want to be ruled by
you. This wild outlaw country.
For the next few days, I chose surrender over and over. When
things would happen that I didn’t want to happen, when I didn’t get what I want.
And then, truth came.
"The Truth will set you free." (John 8:32b)
I had felt like such a loser. That was what I heard in my
head again and again. That I am a loser. “Look what I can’t even do. What I can’t
get done, the way I act, the way I cry, the way I can’t DO.” Most of all I felt
like a loser to God. That He would listen to me because He HAD to, but He was
really just not that into it. Like when you are talking to that annoying person
at a party and you are looking around the room for someone more interesting,
someone better. I was that annoying person.
And then I had a thought. Well, it wasn’t mine, it couldn’t
have come from my exhausted, battered brain. It is this. What if God getting glory looks NOTHING like what I think it looks
like? What if every time I choose to do the right thing, angels sing? What if
in my house (that looks like a bomb went off) Jesus is smiling and singing and
His glory fills this place? What if what seems like me being a failure is the
most beautiful sound to Him? That when I want to freak out on Mitch, I choose
to love him instead, God is glorified.
It may sound obvious to you, but it was a REVELATION to me.
You see, it means that I’m not a loser. I am not valued
by what I can do, or see or even be. I am valued by a whole other yardstick
that I don’t even understand yet. But it has something to do with Jesus DYING
and LIVING for me.
I don’t know what God is doing, not really. I am still in
this. Every day is hard. Every day the heat gets turned up. Every day I am
given more than I can bare. But He is HERE and my faith is alive despite the
suffering. It is made alive in the suffering.
Today I was listening to the song, "Wedding Day," by the
City Harmonic. It says,
“This is the story of the Son of God, dying on a cross
for me,
and it ends with a bride and groom and a wedding by a glassy sea.”
And I thought, I am in the MIDDLE of the story. And the
middle is always the messy, tough stuff. Sometimes it looks like all is lost. But
we know the end; we read the last page. And so death has no sting! I am not
asked to physically die for my faith, dying like a martyr or being hunted down
by ISIS, but I am asked to die every day to my desires, my own “needs,” my own
selfishness. To surrender my will in humility. And it’s TOUGH. But it’s not the
end of the story! How small will these sacrifices seem when we are singing and rejoicing
and downright partying beside the Glassy Sea! We will be there in perfection,
with our best friends and with Believers from throughout the centuries. How much
JOY will there be on that wedding day, when Jesus is finally joined with His
bride, the Church. Ok, I don’t know all the theology behind it but my spirit
LEAPS at the thought of it. Of the vision of the greatest gathering in the
history of time and outside of time.
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses
surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so
easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before
us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of
faith, who for the joy set before Him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Joy.
So for the joy of the end of the story, I endure the pain
of me dying to myself. It’s nothing compared to the sacrifice Jesus made for
me, but because of my selfishness, it is really, really hard. But despite my
desire to sulk in my room like the young man in the story, He walks with me
until I am ready to be shown that it’s me that is getting in the way. It is my
WAY that needs to be surrender. And for the JOY set before me, I surrender.
2015.
No one knows what this year will bring. If I have learned
one thing it’s that small lessons prepare us for big ones. Will this year be
full of sacrifice and surrender? Or full of joy? I think, it is likely, both.
