Splashes Of Heaven

 At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17But the LORD stood at my side and gave me strength 2 Timothy 4:16-17......."Christ will never give us a cross so heavy that it will outweigh the grace that accompanies it." Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni Eareckson Tada may be the most inspirational follower of Christ in the last 50 years. At the age of 17 she was a tremendous all around athlete with a wonderful future. Then, in a freak diving accident, she was turned into a quadriplegic. She then entered into a relationship of intimacy with her Lord Jesus Christ that few others have known. Her life has been one of unbelievable challenges, and I recently heard her speak of one of the most recent.

She discovered that she had stage three cancer, and began chemo treatments. One day, on the way home, strapped in place in their van, she and her husband Ken began discussing suffering. She said she felt that suffering was having "splash overs of hell" entering into one's life. The conversation continued until they arrived home, when Ken asked her what she thought splash overs of heaven might be? She thought for a moment, and then said that splash overs of heaven in our lives were not those times when all was bliss and no troubles assaulted us. She said she believed they were those times when we suffered the splash overs of hell, and that Jesus Christ came to us there and comforted, assured, and gave His neverending presence and life. In a fallen world, filled with suffering, those were the places where we could most expect to experience heaven; having the fullness of Jesus Christ.

I will not even begin to pretend that I know even the barest of Tada's suffering, but I can relate with an experience of my own, and it's the reason I chose the above Scripture from 2 Timothy. I was living on a church campground in the midst of a bleak, freezing winter. I had come "home" to the cabin I was in, feeling alone and forgotten, and feeling close to despair, as I suffered the reality of a failed marriage and my having to step out of ministry because of it. Not at all "feeling like it," I sought some kind of help from His Word. My current reading had me in 2 Timothy, and the above verse is what I read. Immediately, I sensed His presence. Whether you believe what happened next was real or not doesn't matter to me. I know that it was. In my desolation, I saw in my mind myself inserted into the picture the Apostle Paul speaks of. He stood before Caesar, ruler of the known world, and he stood alone, yet not alone because His Lord Christ stood with him. As I read that I saw with the eyes of the Spirit my own situation, my isolation, my feeling of abandonment. I saw myself alone......and then I saw Him, beside me, with me, in me. Caesar represented the power of the roaring lion of this world, satan. I felt I stood before all the power of that same enemy...until I saw Jesus. And when I did, I saw all the power of that enemy against me broken.....and I knew that where I was, was not going to be where He left me, and it wasn't. The same Christ who came to stand with Paul was standing with me. Into my own splash of hell had come His splash of heaven for me.

Someone said that all the power of hell, in the form of the roaring lion Peter writes of, was crushed by the power of God through His Son, the Lamb. At the cross, in His suffering, the Lamb of God, Christ, by the shedding of His blood, conquered all the power of sin and death. The Lamb defeated the Lion. Christ at His weakest defeated satan at his strongest. Suffering and pain will be real on this side of eternity, but the Father will use it to reveal to us, in the depths of our soul, how real, sufficient, and almighty He is. In that place we'll discover what is, "the hope of His glory" in Jesus Christ. As we go through our various "hells," that is what sustains us. In the midst of them, we experience the wonder of His fullness...the splash overs of heaven into the midst of those splash overs of hell. In those places, He whispers, "Will you trust Me? Will you believe Me?" If we will, we'll discover that all the power of hell cannot quench the wonder of His heaven in our lives. When you go through hell, if you're going through now, look for His splash overs. They will be there.....if you'll just believe, you'll see.

Blessings,

Pastor O