Allowing God to Shape us through opposition and Trial

What do we do when life Is HARD.

Allowing God to Shape us through opposition and Trial

　

I could start off with beautiful quotes, flowery words, or scriptures on what we need to do to pull it all together when times are hard. And if you are looking for that, stop reading right now! These stories have nothing to do with a perfect life only full of “happily ever afters“. At moments you are going to feel like you are being slapped in the face because these stories are about the hardships of life and how we either grow bitter or better through them. This isn’t a feel good pep talk , although if you take these words to heart you will feel better. But we have to lay down the attitude of self entitlement. The “should have been’s” are killers. We find ourselves fighting through hard times because we stand around feeling entitled to a better version of what we have.

Have you ever started a sentence with “God if you loved me…” Chances are you feel entitled to something better. Or how about the words… “It must not be God’s will for me to have Joy, Peace, Love… because all I ever feel is pain, hurt, rejection.” We take our bad days and our worst moments in life and we throw them at God or others and we say, “No, I am not going to suffer, I am not going to sacrifice and I am not going to carry those burdens because it is too much, too uncomfortable, too heavy, too scary, to ugly… Thank goodness Christ didn’t say those words to God as he took on the punishment for us and dies a brutal and torturous death.

Don’t waste your trials! Let me repeat this phrase and I am going to keep repeating it throughout these stories… DON”T WASTE YOUR TRIALS! If there is any great tragedy among the modern church it is that we do not understand the beautiful transformation that comes as we bare our soul to Christ and become one in his suffering. We have lost our ability to allow trials to shape us because we have become entitled heirs to a kingdom rather than children who want to know their Father. To know Christ means being a part of the suffering that he endured.

I grew up always waiting for “My” testimony. I would listen to these great stories about people who walked away from a life of drugs and prostitution into Christ’s redeeming love and I would wonder, “Who is going to ever listen to me.” I have never been there or done that! My trials had not come yet but even the ones that I had gone through seemed small in comparison to what others had weathered. I always made it about me and my story but the truth is that Christ’s life is the testimony, His testimony is what we live for. His sacrifice is what we hold on to.

So often we sit and cry out to God about our miserable lives and it must seem like a child crying about a hangnail in comparison to God watching his only perfect son be tortured to the point that he cried out “Why have you forsaken me.” We need to position our eyes upon the cross because whatever it is that we think we can’t endure, Christ already suffered more and conquered the grave. We have a savior that literally went to Hell and back, so when we sit pouting with our arms crossed or prostate on the ground crying because we can’t take any more, we need to remember that Christ is for us, and when he is for us… Who can be against us.

Trials can be Man made, Devil made, God made, or just plain “old maid“. We tend to think that since God could remove those trials if he wanted to that he must not like us very much when he asks us to go through them. People often say If there is a God then WHY this or that. I am here to say that there is a God and he is not afraid of your questions. I used to struggle with the character of God because I watched something happen that seemed so awful to me that it seemed like God must not care. I would like to share that story because I feel like when it comes to death we have a very worldly perspective, we don’t understand the beautiful eternity ahead for us and so we hold onto this world so desperately.

I was about twenty nine years old, God had always come through before in ways that I could understand meant that he loved me. I saw him heal diseases that were crippling. I saw him free people of demons. I saw him perform miracle after miracle in my life that to me equaled his love. And if healing and life equaled love, then death most certainly seemed to be the opposition of that. I had lost grandparents but somehow it seemed right for them to be with God because they had lived full lives. But this was a pain I could never have prepared myself for.



My sister was pregnant with their second child, the pregnancy was filled with complication. The baby had down syndrome, congenital heart problems and fluid was filling up in the heart and lungs. We watched my sister go through some of the most dangerous and painful procedures to keep little Joshua’s heart beating one more day in the womb. She went into labor early and for several beautiful days he graced this world with his innocence. The day he passed I watched my sister hold him and smile. She never once blamed God or shook her fist, even after she had to painfully allow her milk supply to dry up while not having a baby to comfort, hold and nurse she continued to radiate a joy, peace and love that I not only didn’t understand, I selfishly resented. I didn’t understand any of my family, they all just thanked God for the little bit of time they had with him.

I was bitter, I wanted to understand but I didn’t want to ask God why? I guess I figured that asking why was a sin, but more likely it was my pride, my questions proved that I didn’t know something about God, that I didn’t trust him and that I didn’t have faith. I allowed that bitterness created by my unasked questions to wedge a gap of communication in my heart towards God. Several years later I found myself in a place where I needed that wedge removed. I was reading about God’s love and I just felt confusion and hurt.

In a much needed moment of revelation I felt him say to me that it wasn’t in asking “why” that we sin, it is our heart and motive behind it that matters. Two people in the bible came to my mind,: Mary the mother of Jesus and Zechariah the father of John the Baptist.

Luke 1:18-20 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” His pride and doubt got in the way. while another person with questions Mary the mother of Jesus asked of God but it was not motivated by doubt but by a desire to know God’s will.

Luke 1:26-38 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.



I knew that I needed to ask God “why“, but that my heart needed to be right before him as I did. I cried to God, “Why did you take Joshua? I don’t understand how this is love. I have seen miracles, I have seen love in action and now when it was in your power to act… you removed your miraculous hand. I don’t understand.”

He said, “My little one, I love Joshua so much. I Am, I am all knowing and I chose to love him by sparing him from all the pain he would have endured in this world. He will never know the physical pain of his abnormalities or the extensive surgeries he would have endured, he will never know the unkind words of an ignorant person, he will never know the pain of being out of my presence. Am I not a perfect father? Who will love him more than me? I love him so much more than you know.” I broke… all of my resentment and the walls that had been built on what my definition of love was, it all broke down. I knew that it was my desire for Joshua to be here because of my selfish wants and needs, but that Joshua was being loved by a Father who would always know exactly what he needed.

In the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead, Jesus was not moved by Martha’s anger and accusations toward his character and failure to be there, but those same questions put into humble grieving words by Mary, moved Jesus to tears and he called forth Lazarus from the grave. In my moment of honest grieving, Jesus spoke to my pain and I was taken out of my death like slumber. We can know that God’s character is good and that he loves us. God is looking out for us. This world is not perfect and what the enemy doesn’t take from us, he tries to distort God’s character and make God look like the bad guy. But God is good. God is Love. No matter how bad it looks if we come to him with questions out of humility instead of prideful anger that accuses his character, I believe we will get answers.

My sister is one of the most amazing people I know, she is a hero of faith to me because she allows the pain of her circumstances to draw her closer to her savior rather than let it drive her further away. In the bible we see two specific people who should have struggled with joy who seem to have it in spades; David and Paul.

David, was exiled and pursued by a King who wanted him dead for years, all while knowing that God had anointed him King. Hiding out while his resume includes slaying a giant, delivering a nation from captivity, killing a lion and a bear with his bare hands and all of it with the miraculous power and anointing of God over him. Now he was hiding in caves and running for his life, and still the joy of the Lord was his strength and song as he wrote the Psalms.

Paul was imprisoned, beaten, ship wrecked and brought before the law and yet counted it all joy for the cause of Christ. While in Jail he sang songs to God of praise! He sang until the earth moved, literally; an earthquake broke him free, but instead of seeking freedom from his chains he waited on God. Acts 16:22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

Is our comfort more important than our character? David and Paul both had the right to accuse God’s goodness, because if God’s goodness is based on our circumstances than they both should have been in a position to question God. But instead they chose to worship and praise him because they knew he was above all things a loving God.

I will say it again. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TRIALS! Like those who have allowed the character of God to become known to them, they held on to his goodness in the midst of hard times. Great joy is to be found in those moments, despite our circumstance God is able to give his peace, his love, his joy to us! There are moments when God uses his great love to do miracles and free us from the things that afflict us. But it is equally miraculous when he allows us to be strengthened and refined by our trials. We can grow bitter or Better. Our strength will fail, it was never meant to hold the weight of our burdens. Christ’s strength never fails. Instead of wallowing in a pit of self pity and preservation, cry out to God with a joyful praise, allow him to pull you out as you sing songs of his goodness, his faithfulness and his love.