How about our Blazers! Who would have thought! I didn't. Philadelphia comes to town tonight and they have always given us fits, mostly because of a player on their team called Andrew Miller. As Lily said, the thorn in our side has become our rose because Andrew Miller is now a Blazer.
I have written about Mephibosheth, the son of David's best friend Jonathan before. Because of misunderstandings, bad press or maybe just bad assumptions, David, the thorn in the side of Mephibosheth, eventually became his rose.
I am certainly no Mephibosheth, but I struggle and battle and wonder if I will ever experience victory, on this side of the river. I know I am supposed to look at my own circumstances and ask God what am I supposed to learn from this; patience, compassion, humility? Sometimes there can be a great chasm between knowing what to do and doing it. Before I get my emotions all duded up and ready to participate in a pity party, I only have to look at the situations of others to be ashamed.
I look around and what do I see? I don't understand why people who love God deeply, passionately and faithfully have to suffer and die, but it is a fact of life that we are all aware of. Please understand, I love story book endings so much I could not watch the end of Dances With Wolves or Brave Heart. One summer, long ago, I saw Hawaii, the Sandpebbles and Dr. Zhivago, all within a few weeks of each other. They left me depressed for almost a year, but to deny the dark and sad part of life is to bury your head in the sand. Too many Christians bury their heads in the sand already.
I am uncomfortable pulling scripture out of the Bible and applying it to myself, none the less I do it. Scripture convicts me, but it also encourages me. Take Jeremiah 29:11 for instance. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Yes, I know the author was writing to a particularly audience in a particular situation at a particularly time, never the less, I cling to that verse. For me the Bible is more than a history book.
Another passage, Romans 8:28 says, We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
Now this is a theologically loaded verse that requires much unpacking. Phrases like we know, all things, work together, who love God, are called, and according to his purpose have received much scholarly attention already. I am no scholar so I'm not going there except to say I revisit this passage weekly.
I know that God's will is not done all the time. If God's will was done our relationship with God would never have been broken. I have heard Dr. Larry Shelton use the metaphor of oxygen, a necessary element to sustain human life, to describe our relationship with God. When we are removed from the source of oxygen, at birth, we begin to die. It was not God's will that our connection to God be broken.
The pain, sorrow and injustice that fill this world are a derivative of choices made centuries before us, just as our choices affect us now, and our choices will affect those who will live after we are gone. Is this God's will? I say no, but again, using Dr. Shelton's metaphor, it is a result of sin-stained arteries and vessels choking down the passage of oxygen, God's presence.
Why does God supernaturally intervene in some situations (supernatural as in science cannot explain it), but not in others? I don't know.
When my I don't knows threaten to swallow me I take up the whole armor of God. I put on the helmet of salvation that my every thought would be captured to the mind of Christ and the belt of truth that my emotions would be controlled. I put on the breastplate of righteousness that my faith and trust in Jesus Christ would remain strong. In my left hand I take the shield of faith with which I can quench every flaming dart of the enemy. In my right hand I take the sword of the Spirit which is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, so sharp it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow and discerns the thoughts and intentions of my heart. I shod my feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace so that I will lean not unto my own understanding, but in all my ways acknowledge God, looking neither to the right nor the left, but keeping my eyes fixed and focused on Jesus Christ so I can stand. Having stood I stand some more and remember that God inhabits the praise of his people and so I praise God. In this little procedure the darkness, the storm that rages inside me is once more beaten back.
We have a little plaque that says, "Sometimes the Lord calms the storm, sometimes He lets the storm rage ... and calms his child." It says the author is unknown. Maybe the human author is unknown, but I know the original author.
I know that if it be God's will the thorn can be rose. I am trying to learn that if changing the thorn into a rose is not God's will than I will have to learn to be satisfied with the answer given to Paul. God's grace will have to be enough. Trusting God means God's grace is enough.
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