Most of us know the feeling. If you don’t you will. When we are submerged completely beneath the gravity of life and the weightiness of our sin. When the tide comes rushing in so swiftly there is no hope of escape and no idea save panic in your mind. Whether it’s work or school or family or relationships matters not, the feeling is the same. ‘Utter helplessness’ and ‘sheer exhaustion’ are the words we press in other’s ears trying to describe our feelings.
It’s the evening when you crumble into bed and weep bitterly for no apparent reason. It’s the day when chirping birds and laughing children are gongs in your ears. It’s the moments when the warmth of the sun and the kiss of the breeze feel like needles on your raw skin. It’s the time when the sweetness of melodies and the sound of a dear voice are fingernails on chalkboards.
Indeed it is the whelming, no the overwhelming flood. While our feet remain firmly trapped in the muck the ocean pounds over us and there is no apparent end in sight.
Why does God let these times happen? What’s the point? Is he just a sick and twisted kid with a magnifying glass and we are his ant farm, or just a freakin jerk?
Our thoughts may tend to the ‘freakin jerk’ answer. We see these rough times in other believer’s lives, so doesn’t that mean God is just pulling our legs for his own kicks and giggles?
No.
Religious affections.
What we love will be pitted against what we say we ‘love’. There is a reason these times are called ‘tests’ and ‘trials’ those are not just adjectives tossed to fill a sentence, they carry meaning. In a ‘test’ what you ‘know’ is shown for what you really, truly know. In a ‘trial’ what you ‘love’ is tried against the very things you practically love.
Is that explanation supposed to make you feel better about the dark depressive valley? No. Not at all.
This is:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives."
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” Heb. 12:1-13
“If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” Take heart and cling tightly to the Gospel. It is your only hope in this tempest called ‘life’.
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