Tag: trials

Does Your Sickness Bless You?

“A man was lying there who had been sick for thirty-eight years.”

John 5:5

That’s an incredibly long time to be sick. It must be difficult to be an invalid year after year, with no real hope of ever being healed. This passage describes the scene, (see John 5:1-15). Apparently there was a large group of invalids waiting for the stirring of the waters. That misplaced hope was all they had.

I’ve often wondered why Jesus didn’t heal them all. Why just one when there were so many?

Perhaps the issue was their spiritual state. Most were focused on the pool, they felt that this was their only hope. They could see nothing else. So many today are distracted, we look at those things that might save us instead of looking at Jesus.

Perhaps Jesus would return to the Pool of Bethesda on another day. We’re not told but we know Jesus did quite a few miracles that aren’t recorded. (John 21:25.)

It was the Sabbath, and the healing violated the religious rules of the Pharisees. Jesus refused this man-made edict, and did the will of God. This decision meant healing this paralyzed man.

God doesn’t make mistakes in dealing with His own children.

Our Father does His will, and as believers we must trust in Him and what He promises. By faith, we however believe in His goodness and love. We reject the lies the evil one tells us about our spiritual Father.

My confidence is that He knows in which school I will learn the best lessons

He knows what experiences are necessary for me to grow up. Knowing this doesn’t make it easier, but it does make it eternal. There’s a graduation day coming soon.

We have no power in ourselves to do Christ’s will, but if we do begin to obey what He asks the needed grace is given. Young people often say that they are afraid to enter into a Christian life because they can not do what will be required. In their own strength, they cannot. Plain and simple. 

Human strength in itself is basically inadequate for what life throws at us.

I’m convinced that sick-rooms should be seen as holy places, especially set apart for believers who are becoming more like Jesus everyday. It’s hard, but we remember that God has summoned us there for some special work upon our souls. We must be very careful here or we will miss the good He wants us to receive.

It’s really only those who are trusting Christ and crying out for grace that become blessed by their sickness. I hate to say it but as a believer I’ve found pain to be the best teacher I ever had. I’ve also wasted these opportunities.

But even in that hard place, look for His lessons.

“Too many invalids grow discontented, unhappy, sour, and fretful. Sickness oftentimes fails to do good to those who suffer. There are few experiences in which we so much need to be watchful over ourselves and prayerful toward God.

Be sure to keep the sickness out of your heart, and keep Christ there with His love and peace.”

—JR Miller

Crooked Kisses

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“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”

Luke 7:34

God, in some profound way accommodates Himself to your ‘sickness.’ He will never turn away from you.

We discover that Jesus has a beautiful quality–He becomes quite tender and gentle around any spiritual disease. He gravitates to the broken and sinful. His love for sinners is a fact we must consider over and over. It’s absolutely critical that we recognize this.

And if we can only understand this, it’ll change us forever.

In his book Mortal Lessons (Touchstone Books, 1987) physician Richard Selzer describes a scene in a hospital room after he had performed surgery on a young woman’s face:

“I stand by the bed where the young woman lies. . . her face, postoperative . . . her mouth twisted in palsy . . . clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, one of the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be that way from now on. I had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh, I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut this little nerve.”

“Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to be in a world all their own in the evening lamplight . . . isolated from me . . private.”

“Who are they? I ask myself . . .

“He and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously. The young woman speaks. “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes,” I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it,” he says, “it’s kind of cute.”

“All at once, I know who he is.”

“I understand, and have to lower my gaze.”

“One is not bold in an encounter with the divine. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers. . . to show her that their kiss still works.”

This is your Savior. He has always been there for you. He is seeking a kiss of spiritual intimacy.

But if you think somehow you are getting to be a great kisser, or you think maybe you’re looking desirable, I feel sorry for you. For it’s He who wraps himself around our hurts, our brokenness, and our ugly and our ever-present sin. He loves the unlovable. He kisses those who shouldn’t be kissed.

I guess I’m starting to know who I am.

I need Jesus so much to love me like I really am: brokenness, memories, wounds, sins, addictions, lies, death, fear….all of it. (Take all it, Lord Jesus.) If I don’t present this broken, messed-up person to Jesus, my faith is dishonest, and my understanding of it will become a way of continuing the ruse and pretense of being “good.”

God truly loves the unlovely. I am learning this. Slowly. Far too slowly.

He is passionate about those who have been disfigured by sin. And for those playing “make-believe” and are trying to find some sort of ‘spiritual Botox’ are not being truthful. Only by clinging to Him can find real healing and true acceptance.

For some reason, and I don’t really understand quite why, but He delights in kissing lips that are crooked.

I’m glad because that is really who I am.

“God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.“

     Henry Ward Beecher

Deeply Hurt for a Reason

Pastor A.W. Tozer seems to have gotten a hold on something here. Those who step into discipleship or ministry will inevitably be hurt in some significant way. I wouldn’t say it was a ‘given’, but it seems to be the common path we must take. We must be aware–but often we can’t or won’t understand. This is hard and we’re easily confused.

God really isn’t our problem.

He loves us and saves us and He really wants to bless us. He is all goodness and grace. He has no evil intentions concerning you, and certainly has no desire to see you suffer in a crisis of suffering or trial. Even in times of temptation, He simply views it as a step to strengthen us–He never is out to trip us up.

I really think that the issue is us.

Our old nature–the sinner inside, delights in things like pride and selfishness (even in religious matters). Some of the most difficult people I have ever had to work with were in places of oversight within the Church!  May I suggest something?

Could it be that the problem isn’t that we are too weak, rather, it is because we are too strong?

God’s intention is ‘to bless greatly.’ But my pride and self-will must be left at the door (repeatedly). My old nature cannot truly work in the Kingdom. Only when these issues are dealt with (repeatedly) will humility and brokenness transform us. Quite simply, there is no way around this. God uses broken things. We must be broken as well.

“It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume.”

“It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.”

Vance Havner

Becoming broken often takes years of trial, temptation, and affliction.

But God is patient. He’s not in any hurry.

You will ‘log-in’ many hours in the desert. Many of His best soldiers have been recruited from that barren place. The Holy Spirit is our best guide through the difficult loneliness and aridity of this place. He will guide you, and comfort you.

I sometimes teach at a local Bible college–I love Song of Solomon and choose to teach it whenever I can. Here’s a verse that has encouraged me over and over:

“Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?”

Songs 8:5, ESV

“Before God could bring me to this place He has broken me a thousand times.” 

Smith Wigglesworth

What Could Have Been

What do you regret? As a believer it is already forgiven.

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.”  

~Fulton Oursler

Regret is something that can really damage our lives. My dictionary defines regret as, “to feel remorse for, or to feel sorrow over something.” It’s often a difficult emotion for us, resulting in a paralysis of sorts. It is the personal sorrow about one’s behavior in a certain situation, that can be overwhelming.

There will always be a deep sense of loss for “what could have been.”

I regret many things, it seems my mind works as an active recorder. Future life continues its relentless advance, and there is from the past a constant awareness of darkness, failure and sin. Because the future comes at me so fast, I never really have time to reflect on the past.

There are some who have no idea what I’m talking about.

I might as well be speaking Chinese. But there are others who will “spark” on what I have just stated. Regret for many of us, is savage and bitter.

Not a day goes by when the voice of darkness doesn’t speak to us. My thinking is that it may be more reasonable to take a baseball bat across your femurs, and dealing with broken legs, than handling regret that has gone vicious and viral.

We think “about what could have been.” We imagine life without regret, of things we might have done not having this dark burden. However, these possible choices are things we can never be sure of.

In my younger days I dreamed of attending college, and then going to seminary. I really thought that I wanted to be a pastor, in some small Lutheran church in the Midwest. But this would never happen. It was just an aspiration, a dream. And it wasn’t reality (even though I wish it had been).

I assure you there are far more nastier and blacker regrets, there are things of which I am profoundly ashamed. But my point is this, they exist, they do unsettle us, and the present moment is corrupted by my past behavior.

I once read an interview with a prominent psychiatrist. He said something that connected with me. “Over 80% of mentally ill patients could be released from treatment if they only understand that they were forgiven.”

Regrets can be so strong, and so crippling that we will sometimes try to destroy ourselves.

You are not unique or alone. There are millions of sincere Christian believers who face what you are facing.

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

1 Cor. 10:13, NLT

I must tell you that there is a spiritual war. Satan is the enemy of our souls. He will bring to your mind fear and confusion. In scripture, he is called “the accuser of the brethren.” He has a diabolical ministry to bring you down. He operates out of pure hatred.

He will never show you any mercy.

We must develop a more scriptural method of wrapping up our minds in God’s Word. It stops and deadens the spiritual radiation from the enemy. The Word has tremendous power to halt the enemies attack. The only way to survive all of this is to dress up yourself in spiritual armor.

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

Ephesian 6:13

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