Don’t waste your trials

Don’t waste your trials

If you are an American you live in the land of planning, purpose and production.  From the basketball court to the classroom, from the boardroom to the living room our lives are managed to have some intentional results.  We make goals and pursue them.  We make a plan and strive to follow that plan for our diets, business, religious life and discipleship.  We often say, “no pain, no gain” but tend to mean, “no pain, no pain”.  We are a people that struggle with hardships, difficulties and ongoing hard work.  Our modern faith has made us seek the God of the good life.

To deal with this never ending pressure to accomplish and our desire to avoid pain, we specialize.  We may be awful at relationships or showing mercy, but we can pride ourselves on running a triathlon or working an eighty hour work week.  We may utterly fail at forgiveness but promote ourselves for our speaking the truth (harshly).  We deal with the endless pressure to control our lives with the hope of controlling one or two aspects. 

God has a plan for personal discipleship.  That plan involves bringing things into your life that break you.  God opens the doors to trials and hardships so that you can find the end of yourself, so that you can stomp and scream, shout and cry, “This is impossible!”  Because we are in a culture of intentional management we often fail to find the reward, the benefit from our trials.  We tend to think the absence of trials is the sign of maturity, when in fact they are a sign of spiritual insignificance.  (Jas_1:2; 1Pe_1:6 ; 2Pe_2:9)

 Following is a scripture.  A young man who has a good life is seeking the Lord about his eternal destination.  I believe this man is sincere, he honestly wants to encounter God and discover life with Jesus.  I think it is interesting that his first attempt is to “praise” his way in.  How often is that the case for us?  We want to enter the gates of the Lord with praise, not so much because praise is the overflow of our obedience to God, but because we “use” praise to get in close to God.  We have praise events, concerts, streaming, music all intended to bring us near to God regardless of our lifestyle or intentions.  In this text we see that Jesus deals directly with that type of discipleship.

Luke 18:18-27 ESV

(18)  And a ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

(19)  And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

(20)  You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'"

(21)  And he said, "All these I have kept from my youth."

(22)  When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."

(23)  But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

(24)  Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!

(25)  For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."

(26)  Those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?"

(27)  But he said, "What is impossible with man is possible with God."

The second thing I see in this text is that this man had lived a religious life.  He was seeking Jesus and had a history of being a good person, maybe a passionate follower of Judaism.  Jesus does not say that he lied about his history and lifestyle.  Jesus brings a trial into his life.  Do you see this?  If you want to go all the way with the Lord, what is going to happen?  Trials!

Never ever again think that trouble is God pushing you away.  God’s ways are not like our ways and trouble is the Lord putting His arm on your shoulder and whispering into your ear, it’s time to go deeper in our relationship.  In the natural our mates, our friends and those who love us often push us away.  Their action is intended to see if we will care enough for them to draw near to them.  God often is like that.  He gives us an impossible instruction, command or task so that we can be overcome by it, defeated, at the end our rope.

Do you have some issues in your life that are defeating you, pressuring you toward depression and despair?  Those are your doorway into greater fellowship with the Father.  It takes the impossible to bring us to the supernatural.  When life takes us to the place of helplessness, impossibility; we are in the place the Lord has brought us to for our eternal development.  You may desire a good life.  God has the desire for you to have a good forever.  While we all want to give effort in our service to the Lord, we must always see our effort as duty and not our glory.  If you feel good about yourself for your commitment and effort, if you are encouraged by your passion, you are like this young ruler.  Your happiest day comes when every good thing you have done is seen as filthy rags and all your righteousness as a pile of crap. (Phil. 3:8)

"What is impossible with man is possible with God."

The disciples looking on were shaken.  Seeing how hard it is to truly follow the Lord, they wondered, “who can be saved?”  In our day we mainly express following Jesus in terms of being easy, making a simple decision, improving our life and having some ongoing blessings.  Jesus presents himself and the life He gives as impossible for you.  Right now we would do well to give a shout of praise for the Christ life to be impossible, impossible for us to accomplish.

The heart of the matter is, “God has no desire for Christianity to be doable by human beings.”  To be a follower, a disciple, a believer; you are going to need the Lord.  You are going to need Him, not a little, but endlessly.  So much so that every time you can handle life on your own and have no need of the Lord, He is going to bring some trial into your life where your relationship with Him can again be renewed and your Christian humanism renounced.

For the last twenty years I have learned and relearned this lesson.  God has been patient and consistent with me as I have often become depressed with “impossible,” and God has rejoiced over it.  God is seeking for me to know Him and trust Him so much that my trials are points of connection and communion with Him.  All those Bible stories of men and women who lived through hard times, suffering, pain and rejection are examples for me to learn what God is seeking to do in my life, and in yours.  I admit that every time “impossible” seems impossible.  Every time God takes me to a place where all natural hope is lost and everything I can do on my own is full of despair.  Then, through scripture, through a friend, through a book or a sermon comes the message again. 

"What is impossible with man is possible with God."

As I write this I feel a million miles from my calling and purpose.  The situations of my life do not seem to be in alignment with what I thought God wanted me to do and be.  All my weaknesses are not only exposed, but manifesting in ongoing setbacks, failures and disappointments.  What I love to do tends to lean me away from what I should be doing and what I feel most insecure about doing become the thing I am challenged to do over and over and over again.  Time seems to be marching on, not giving me a break.  To make it worse, friends and family say I am doing OK, they fail to comfort me in my condition of being disappointed, causing me to accuse them of not loving me the way I want to be loved.  It is impossible for me to get where I feel God wants me!

"What is impossible with man is possible with God."