Dear Friends,
Have you ever dealt with the feelings of despair, loneliness, betrayal, disappointment with God, or spiritual numbness? I have. I've dealt with each and every one at one time or another in my life. They are not fun. They hurt deeply. And depending on the depth of the struggle (or its cause) it takes a long time to move beyond them. In a fallen world where things are not as they should be, it's not uncommon to have to walk through such times – often more times than we would like.
That's why I offer you this excerpt from a very good book by Carole Mayhall entitled, "Help Lord, My Whole Life Hurts." I heard they changed the title in more recent years but cannot verify that. It made sense when the person told me, after all, who would want others seeing them buy a book with that title! Yet, her insights (after going through a very painful time where she and her husband saw a thriving ministry die though lies, slander, betrayal, and a rejection which drove them to despair) are profound. There are few who could not benefit from reading her book. This selection has to do with what she learned from that painful "stripping" process. Enjoy.
"Come let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us. He has injured us, but He will bind up our wounds." Hosea 6:1
"In stripping away all the props of self, personality, and gifts, God made us realize the total nothingness of ourselves and the total everythingness of Him. We talk much these days about needing to feel good about ourselves. And when we see how much God loves us and cares for us, we can feel how worthwhile we are. But sometimes God wants us to know, feel, and understand that without Him we can do nothing (see John 15:5). NO THING! I hope one lesson on this will be enough for Jack and me, because though vital, it was devastating.
God uses failure to soften us, because the hurt of defeat makes us sympathetic with the weaknesses of others. How can I be judgmental of others when I myself have failed? We must believe that God permits failure – that a loving God permits hard things, because the hard things bring the greatest victories, the deepest lessons, the most lasting changes.
Hannah Whitehall Smith wrote in "The Christian's Secret of Happy Life":
‘To the child of God, everything comes directly from their Father's hands, no matter who or what may have been the apparent agents. There are no "second causes" for them. Second causes must all be under the control of our Father, and not one of them can touch us except with His knowledge and permission. It may even be the sin of man that originates the action, and therefore the thing itself cannot be said to be the will of God; but by the time it reaches us it has become God's will for us and must be accepted as directly from His hands. No man or company of men, no power in earth or heaven, can touch that soul, which is abiding in Christ, without first passing through His encircling presence and receiving the seal of His permission... Nothing can disturb or harm us, except He shall see that it is best for us and shall stand aside to let it pass.’
You see, we are 'successful' when we are steadily becoming the unique person God intends us to become, and when we are doing what He asks us to do. If this is an accurate definition of success, and I believe it is, then that success can and will at times include failure.
One author says,
'Disappointments have forced me to wrestle with the truth that I can never fully figure God out and that I cannot put Him in a box. Hard times have made me realize I should not even pretend to know all His reasons for allowing me to go through what I go through. Frustrations cause me to trust Him even when I don't understand. Elusive success forces me to live by faith and not by sight'…
James Means says,
"I have observed that God sometimes deems it necessary to remove from me the external signs of His blessing in order that the pressure of darkness might prompt me to a new level of trust in Him. In God's reckoning, descent is the path to ascent, to suffer is to find freedom from suffering, to taste darkness is to approach eternal light, to become weak is to become strong. Each agonizing moment is essential, or God would not allow it. To be counted worthy of suffering is to enter an entirely new realm of spiritual experience. My suffering is seen as instrumental, not accidental, to the purpose of God."
We often fail to see the necessity of struggle and failure, because we fail to see that its purpose is to make us more humble, compassionate, loving, and increasingly dependent or reliant upon God. It's our struggles that help kill the ugly monster of self-exalting pride, fill us with empathy, and help us (like Paul) to rejoice in our weaknesses. It's our struggles that make us more gentle and understanding of others, as well as making us less critical and less controlling.
As much as we may hate trials and hardships while going through them, they do produce in us things that easy times simply cannot produce. In fact, at times the only hope, or promise (Rom. 8:28-29) that we have to cling to, is the promise that in the end they will mold and form us into the likeness of Jesus. Something only a true believer would even want, and a thought that gives us the strength to persevere through them.
For Those Who Struggle With a Love Comes To Us in That Form, Pastor Jeff
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