Update:
On Wednesday at the Elders’ meeting, we had a long prayer list of
people we know (mainly from our own congregation) who were sick, hospitalized,
or recovering. Our church is fairly
middle-aged to young families, so this is a very rare and new experience for
us. We seemed to have been hit hard this
fall and winter. We don’t understand it;
we just continue to trust in God’s mercy and grace and pray for His healing,
for strength, and for peace.
After the Elders’ meeting, Art and I decided to go into town to
eat. I drove my truck in since Art had
to head to work right after lunch. It
was nice and warm in Altoona Family Restaurant and the food was really good. I drove Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
standards for wheelchairs being pushed up the ramp, so the pitch is fairly
steep and it is about a four foot rise over its length. Since it was a warmer day, there wasn’t any
snow home and decided to see if I could get into my house by myself. I had already unloaded the wheelchair alone once
before so that wasn’t the problem. It
was getting up my handicap ramp. It is
designed according to the or ice on the ramp, so I made the attempt AND made it
to the top! Yeah! I didn’t set any speed records and about two
feet from the top I wasn’t certain that I could make it—but I did. Woot! Woot!
All that exercising is certainly paying off. Another victory and a step towards
independence!
My son, Jon, got off work early and wanted to do something with me on
Wednesday afternoon. We decided to go
see a movie. Afterwards we picked up
some stir-fried chicken from Kobe in the mall and headed home to eat it. Jon left after that and I was tired so I went
to bed early and got an extra hour of sleep.
This morning I woke up with a stiff neck muscle, so I am working at
stretching it out. Hopefully it works
out fairly soon and I am back to normal.
Thought for the Day:
We often try to make sense of suffering. Why is this happening to me? What good can come from the difficulties that
I am facing? Suffering and affliction is
painful and we want nothing to do with it, so we cry out to God, “Rescue me!”
as if this is something to avoid.
What if you knew that the difficulties and
troubles you face were actually helping you in some fashion, would you be so
quick to escape from under them; would it help you to endure what you are
suffering?
The bible says that God seeks to refine us like
silver. A common method for refining silver
is to put the metal under intense heat.
The metal liquefies and the dross or impurities separate from the metal
leaving it more pure. Silversmiths would
refine their silver so that the finished product would shine brightly and clearly
reflect like a mirror. The more pure the
metal; the more precious it was.
The bible says that God uses affliction to refine
us like silver. His goal is to refine us—make
a better people—to work out some of the impurities in our characters and in our
lives. He wants us to shine brightly as
believers and clearly reflect the image of Christ to the world around us.
Psalm 66:10 “For you, God, tested us; you
refined us like silver.”
Zechariah 13:9 “…I will
bring [them] into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like
gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are
my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’ ”
Isaiah 48:10-11 “…I have
refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of
affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.”
Psalm 50:15 “…call on
me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
As God refines us, He makes us better able to reflect His glory. Knowing that God can use the heartaches and
disasters that surround us makes them a bit less bitter and not as hard to
endure. This refining process is still
painful—but it is not a pain without purpose or without some redeeming
value. That helps me bear up underneath
what I am going through. I hope that it
helps you in some small fashion as well.
After the refining process is complete it is appropriate for us to cry out
to God for rescue. When we call upon God
for rescue, it honors Him that we have counted Him worthy and able to assist
us. So God gets double honor when we are
refined by affliction; first we better reflect His glory to the world around us
and secondly, when we call on Him for help and He assists or rescues us; we
give Him praise and honor and the world around us takes notice.
Nothing will ever make cancer, severe illnesses and disabilities, or any
kind of suffering, actually good in itself.
But if we can look beyond it and see a higher purpose it helps us to
endure suffering and come out a better person because of it. It removes some of the sting from what we are
suffering. I will be the first to admit
that when I see young children suffer or someone in extreme pain; it is hard to
see beyond it. God did not create the
world like this. This wasn’t supposed to
be normal. Illness, suffering, and
disease entered the world through our sinfulness. For now we are stuck with what we helped
create. Ultimately we only have
ourselves to blame for the messiness and pain of human existence.
If this is the life that we have to live—we might as well seek that some
good comes from it. So today I choose to
seek to glorify God as He puts me through the refining fires. I would prefer that I didn’t have to go
through them—but since I don’t get that choice—I want them to mean something
and be of value. “Purify me, Oh Lord,
and bring glory to Yourself through my life and suffering!” I hope that you will make that your prayer as
well.
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