|
STAYING POWER #4
TURN THE PROBLEM INTO THE CURE
When it rains it pours. If the car won't start, it's the one time you just have to get to that meeting, and it's the day all those big bills come due. You've probably had days like that--when everything goes wrong, days when you just want to go back home, get in the covers, and start all over again.
Today we're going to talk about days like that, and about how we can better deal with the trials in our life. Our theme for this series, Staying Power, has focused on how we move forward in our lives, how we consistent progress. And sometimes it's not just direct temptation that gets us off track. Sometimes it's more blows from the side that knock us down: the every-day trials and tribulations of life.
You know, it's pretty easy to make promises to God when the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the check is in the mail. Beautiful spring days fill us with good resolutions. But what about when the rains come and we lose our keys and our credit card gets cancelled?
If you're trying to make positive changes in your life, a bad day can send you back to square one, can't it? It's those little accidents, those annoyances, that sabotage our best resolutions.
The problem is, we can get stuck in a rut of waiting for the rain to stop before we do anything. You've probably heard something this before:
"Yea, I know I need to lose weight badly, but I just can't start on that diet with all these unpaid bills to worry about.
"Yea, I know I have a problem with my temper at home, but there's not much I can do with all the stress at the office right now."
Sound familiar? The problem is that our life is never going to be entirely stress free. We'll always have worries about our family. We'll always have financial concerns.
If we're ever going to move forward in our lives, we've got to be able to move forward, right now, even in the middle of our troubles.
And guess what? The book of Hebrews shows us how to do just that. There's some wonderfully practical advice in chapter twelve. Let's look at it right now.
The author is writing to people facing serious trials---and they're about to fold. The pressure of persecution has already moved some to abandon their faith. So this is what he tells them. Chapter twelve, verses 5 and 6:
And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons:
"My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,
Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him:
For whom the Lord loves He chastens,
And scourges every son whom he receives. Heb. 12:5,6
Here we have people going through some hard times. And what does the writer say? Don't despise the chastening, or the discipline, of the Lord. God disciplines every son, or daughter, that he loves.
Now this may not sound like much comfort, at first glance. But listen, the author is actually giving us here is a marvelous way of relating to our everyday trials and troubles. They're not just accidents; they're not just minuses in our lives. God can wield them as tools to train us, to help us grow.
In other words, the "problem" can be part of the solution!
Think about physical health for a moment. Have you ever heard people complain, "We can land a man on the moon, but we still haven't found a cure for the common cold"? It does seem ironic that we've developed drugs that eliminate small pox and polio but we can't do much about the sniffles.
Well may I suggest a reason we don't have a cure for the common cold. The symptoms we complain about are part of the solution! The symptoms are the body's effort to heal itself.
Let's say we have a fever. What do we do usually? Take some aspirin. Get that fever down. Well, the fever is really the body heating up as it rallies white blood cells to fight off infection. The fever is not the problem—provided it doesn’t go sky high—it's part of the solution.
Why do we feel tired and have to lay down? Because the body needs more energy to fix what's wrong with us. Be still for a while, it's telling us, let me work on this. Feeling tired is not the problem; it's part of the solution.
Friends, Hebrews is telling us this: the trials and troubles that afflict us can be part of the spiritual solution. God can use them to heal us, to help us grow. But if we just complain about the symptoms, if we just try to medicate them away, we won't make any progress.
It's like ignoring the symptoms of a cold, refusing to rest and give our bodies a chance to work. We just get sicker---and the symptoms have to get louder.
Now let's look at verse 11 in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. This is a wonderful promise for those days when everything seems to go wrong. It's a great verse to memorize. Let me read it from the New International Version: "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Heb. 12:11 NIV)
We need to be trained by our trials. They're trying to teach us something; so find out what it is. To put it simply, we can either complain about our troubles, or learn from them.
A general named Metaxas ruled Greece in the 1930s. Once he was invited to test a new "flying boat" at an air base. He took the aircraft up for a short flight and was coming in for a landing when the base commander sitting beside him said politely, "Excuse me, General. It would be better to come down on the water. This is a flying boat."
Metaxas was about to drop this wheelless plane on a runway. Quickly he gunned it upward and circled around toward a lake. The general maneuvered the flying boat down nicely and skied to a stop. Switching off the engine, he turned to his host and said, "Thank you, Commander, for preventing me from making a stupid blunder." With those words he briskly opened the aircraft's door, hopped out--and sank into the water over his head.
General Metaxas still hadn't quite got it right. You know, it's nice to be rescued from disasters, but unfortunate if we still haven't got the point after its over. The New Testament tells us to rejoice when we encounter trials because God wants us to come out of those experiences as new people, better people---and not sink in over our heads again as soon as we reach what we assume is solid ground.
Do we learn from our trials, or just complain about the symptoms? That's the question.
Maybe that persistent headache is trying to tell you something about your work habits. Maybe those unpaid bills at the end of the month are trying to tell you something about how you spend your check at the beginning of the month. Maybe Johnny's behavior problems at school are trying to tell you something about what's going on in your home.
We can learn from our trials, or just complain about the symptoms.
The men crammed into the hold of a Japanese prisoner ship in 1945 were undergoing the fiercest trial of their lives. They'd been suffering from hunger and cold for some time. Many were skeletal survivors from the Battle of Bataan. Many were wounded.
A young soldier named Sidney Stewart left a record of their ordeal. But what stands out most in his account is one man who stood above it: Father Cummings.
Each evening that dreadful ship became peacefully quiet. Even the cries and moans of the wounded were stilled. Because each evening Father Cummings raised his voice in the dark and led the men in the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father who art in Heaven, Hollowed by Thy Name...." His words hung over them like a benediction and they had a few moments of peace.
For a while, Sidney Stewart had lost his ability to pray; he'd felt that God had abandoned these men. But those words gave him faith. "I felt that God listened," he wrote, "that God watched us and that God cared."
Father Cummings died as he had lived, repeating the Lord's Prayer. With his last ounce of strength he forced these words through his parched lips for all to hear: "Thy will be done--on earth--as it is--in Heaven."
Sidney Stewart would survive that terrible voyage. But not as the same young man who had entered World War II. He had witnessed an unforgettable display of faith. And so Sidney received the gift of faith, a faith that would follow him all his life.
The trials and troubles of life will push us in one of two directions. Little everyday irritations or wrenching tragedies---they all push us one way or the other. We're either made smaller or made greater. We either bang away at the obstacle or turn it into a tool. We either complain about the symptoms or learn from the trial.
Hebrews offers us a way to make progress. The troubles in your life don't have to send you back to square one again. You don't have to wait for things to smooth out before you take that necessary step. Start right now. Make straight paths for your feet. Begin to exercise those weak limbs. Let God teach you and train you through your troubles. And you'll reap a rich harvest of peace and righteousness.
|
