Heart Tracks - Don't Waste Them

"What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this reason I came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name." John 12-27-28...."The storms reveal the lies we believe and the truths we need." Susie Larson..."Suffering either gives me myself, or it destroys my self." Oswald Chambers

There is a "theology of suffering" that few of us are willing to learn. It is human to seek to avoid pain, and most spend their lives, even in His church, trying to find ways to escape it. That mindset has given rise to a kind of counter theology that, if not blatantly, at least subtly suggests that suffering will have little, if any place in the life of one who is really committed to "following Jesus." The church is constantly inviting people into a faith that offers minimal pain and sacrifice and maximum reward and pleasure. His Word invites us to enter into "the fellowship of His sufferings," but such a message has found little place in the western church. Kingdom rewards are offered in abundance, and those rewards can be ours even while we ignore His cross. Some have said that we've entered into a faith system that believes that in Christ's sufferings, we who believe upon Him are spared any similar kind of suffering ourselves. Can we call this teaching and belief system what it is? Heresy. False doctrine. And worst of all, the presentation of a counterfeit Christ, one who wants us happy and fulfilled at all times. And then He takes us to heaven.

Larson said that suffering reveals to us the lies that we have believed, that we may receive the truth we (desperately) need. I was at breakfast this morning with some brothers in Christ, and one told of a fellowship he knew in the Texas town where he pastored. The fellowship was built upon the working of miracles of healing, deliverance, and other manifestations of His Spirit. It attracted large numbers of people. Then, the wife of one its most prominent members became seriously ill. The church leaders gathered around her to pray, expecting her to be healed. She died. At the funeral, the elders of the church surrounded her casket and prayed, expecting her to be raised to life. She wasn't, and she was buried. Let me say that I believe that He is a healing God of miracles. I believe too that He still raises the dead. I do not believe that He has promised to spare all of us from not only disease and death, but also the sorrow and pain that will accompany both. That church in Texas, once so vibrant, began to erode as the people could not come to grips with a God who allowed such pain and suffering to enter into the life of their fellowship and themselves as well. Eventually, the church died. They are not alone in that response. Many walk away from God in the midst of their loss and suffering. They miss what He means to do in and through them in their heartache. All they see is their pain. They're blind to what He means to add on to them in the midst of their loss.

I know something of suffering. I know what it is to feel that even another breath will be too painful to take. I know what it is to ask "why" in the suffering, even to be angry with Him in it. I know what it is to just want it all to end, to just wish Him to take me away and out of this life, just so the pain will be over. He did none of it, and because of that, I also know what it is to come to know Him, have deeper fellowship with Him, in the midst of it. To enter into the fellowship of His suffering and be made more whole because of it. To have the many lies I had believed dispelled as He replaced them with His truth. To see Him glorified through the healing and wholeness He brought in the midst of the sorrow. I would never wish to return to that pain, but neither would I wish to give up all that I came to know and be in Him through it.

I don't like pain any more than I ever did. But if, no, when it comes, I have learned that if I will trust in Him, cling to Him, He will not only lead me through it, but deeper into Himself as well. I will learn things there that could not be learned anywhere else. We live in a fallen world, and pain and suffering are very much a part of it. If He's allowed you to enter the furnace of suffering, He will be with you in it, and He will not leave you there. He'll bring you out. But while you're in that furnace, do not miss the wonders He'll reveal there. They're real. They're yours...and His.

When I journeyed through my own "valley of the shadow of death," I sought in every way I could to find His comfort and hope in the walking, especially through prayer and reading. In that search, one book the Spirit led me to was Paul Billheimer's "Don't Waste Your Sorrows." In it, I discovered that He did have purpose for me in the darkness and pain. I found the hope I sought, but best of all, I found a new, deeper revelation of Him. Sorrow and pain will be visitor's to our lives. As Chambers says, they will either make us (in Him) or destroy us. When they come to you, don't waste them. Let Him use them to lead you to a deeper life in Him than you ever thought possible.

Blessings,
Pastor O