Sometimes we live in darkness. We suffer and it’s hard. We mentally accept God’s grace and His love for us, but in our heart we remain untouched. Pain saturates everything it seems. We seem to go through the motions, but deep down we’re convinced that we’ll never find the light that so many claim to have.
Have we been cursed?
Pain fills our life. We live with something that is persistent, and our hope is a day when it’s all over. Psalm 88 is our Psalm. Nothing is sugar-coated. It is raw and unabridged. It’s pain under a microscope. That Psalm is yours.
I once admired the earrings my friend, Ann, was wearing – they were square, smooth, flat, and made of gold. When I remarked how beautiful they were, she replied, “They’re yours!” Ann then proceeded to take them off and put them on my ears! Humbled by her gift, the earrings became a treasure. Once while wearing them at work, one slipped off my ear – looked but couldn’t find it, so I wheeled to my office door to ask for help.
That’s when I felt a clunk-clunk-clunk. The earring was impaled on my tire; it was ruined! That weekend I took it to a jeweler and asked, “Sir, can you make this mangled earring look like the smooth one?” He rubbed his chin and said, “I can’t make that one look like this one… But I can make this one look like that one!” He then took a mallet and hammered the smooth, square earring into a mangled mess! At first I was horrified, but now I realize that the misshapen earrings reflect the light more beautifully than when they were ‘normal.’ It’s a lesson reflected in this timeless poem:
When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, and skill a man, When God wants to make a man To play the noblest part, When He yearns with all His heart To build so great and bold a man That all the world shall be amazed, Then watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects, Whom He royally elects; How He hammers him and hurts him, And with mighty blows converts him Into shapes and forms of clay Which only God can understand While man’s tortured heart is crying And he lifts beseeching hands…
Yet God bends but never breaks When man’s good He undertakes; How He uses whom He chooses, And with mighty power, infuses him, With every act induces him to try His splendor out, God knows what He’s about.
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“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you cross rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned, nor will the flames hurt you.”
Isaiah 43:2, NCV
There is a unique immunity that is given to the simple disciple. Believers find that suddenly they have been inoculated against a reality that others can’t understand. Passing through the waters, we find the divine presence. We discover it and find that it covers us.
Daniel tells us of three men dropped into a super-heated furnace. Surviving was impossible, and yet they felt no heat or flame while inside. That is a tremendous thing for believers to understand. (Daniel 3:19-27)
Having Him to cover us is a profound thing. There are many reasons this should not be happening to us, and not given any serious thought. And yet He appears out of nowhere and declares that we are completely immune to every attack against our desperate souls.
Jesus watches over us. He concentrates His focus on us, and we find a strength that is almost absurd, something that doesn’t make any sense at all. He covers us from all the ugliness that could be focused on us. A barrier is put around us. His care protects us and shields us from insidious attacks on our very vulnerable hearts.
Isaiah 43 declares that there is a protective grace that surrounds our soul.
We encounter a sense that He is there and that He will not let anything happen to us. This security is not from anything we produce, maintain or manufacture. He brings it to us without any logical reason. It’s called “grace” and it gives us immense protection.
This world generates a lot of ugliness. We must enter and pass through a whole lot of difficulty and pain. Water and fire, in abundance, are things that will happen to us. We will deal with these things, and work our way through them. One thing needs to be understood, His spirit in us resists being controlled by sin.
We travel through intense times when our faith seems ludicrous when it seems weak and illogical. But somehow we make it, and we will pass through this and other challenges. He intervenes and brings us safety and strength. We are indeed survivors, and we pass through all evil and darkness without being scorched or singed.
“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”
“We all carry about in our pockets His very nails.” –Luther
“I am proud of the good news! It is God’s powerful way of saving all people who have faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.”
Romans 1:16, CEV
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
Romans 1:16, ESV
What is it that holds you back?
Is there a significant issue–a new boat or your next vacation to Disneyland? Would that keep you from following Him? Would you trade Him, for that?
So many of us are “chicken” when it comes to witnessing Jesus Christ. We ‘cluck and duck’ when the subject of God or religion is raised. We hope no one is looking when we ask God to bless our food in a public place. Honestly, most of the time the issue for us is the fear of rejection. (It’s funny but some have never really gotten past the intimidation we experienced in High School.)
The saints who watch us from heaven, have got to be astonished at our embarrassment of Jesus, (Heb. 12: 1). They look and wonder at the way we act, when so many of them have suffered deeply. They have been repeatedly, and deliberately hurt for Jesus. But yet we’re arguing about padded pews and the color of the carpeting in our sanctuary.
“For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Mark 8:32, ESV
I suppose we must learn again the spirit of the saints who are suffering for the sake of the Gospel. This very minute they are in prisons, in torture, in abuse all because they profess a love for Jesus Christ.
Could it be possible that God is calling you to leave your comfortable Christianity behind and tell someone that Jesus loves them and wants to save them. Will you do it, or will you be too ashamed? Let this be the present now that you bring the light of Christ to your dorm, your neighborhood, your apartment building, your baseball team, or wherever God has placed you. Let Him use you for His glory!
I suggest that our faith will activate God– your fear switches on the influence of Satan.
“Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety.”
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Broken Believers 