There are a lot of potholes and bumps in life’s road. Where is the smooth level path that I
want to cruise on? Why doesn’t life go the way I want?
Can doubt and struggle and life not going the way we want or expect be the beginning of a
path that leads to mature character? When my relationships don’t give me the joy I want and
when it seems that others don’t really value me, could I be in a place that will help me be
shaped more like Jesus?
Am I willing to see the hardships and disappointments in my life and recognize them as
painful and sad - notice the truth about them - and then be willing to sit still in that
uncomfortableness, recognizing it as the attention focuser, the needs magnifier that will
deepen our yearning for the better that God is building in us?
Of course, no one should stay in unsafe situations of abuse and none of us should seek to sin
or remain in sin, but the troubles imposed on our lives, those unsought thorns in our lives
might be the key to us developing into what we were made to be.
To really benefit from trouble it must be named. Problems brushed aside or swept under the
rug have little positive impact. Ignored they still hurt and also cause our emotional and
relational skins to thicken. But if I plainly admit the truth and say that what that family
member said felt like a punch in the guts, that that missed promotion made me angry, that I’m
really tired of doing all the things on my church calendar – then I can understand the impact
of the hardship and let it unearth something deep in my soul.
James the brother of Jesus understood this. Or at least J B Phillips, the British translator of
the last century thought he did. Phillips translated James 1:2-4 like this:
When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives my brothers, don’t
resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test
your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on
until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find you have become men of
mature character.
James writes with an assumption that is essential to our living and understanding life. He
believes that God is up to something all the time and that the something is good for me. To
demand that life go my way or to pretend that it does leaves me as the determiner and director
of my life and its good. And I wasn’t made for that role. If I never come to grips with the idea
that I’m not the director and that I don’t have all the answers, I can’t change. But if I allow
trouble to humble me, to slow me down to a listening pace, to grab my attention by the lapels
and focus me on both my neediness and God’s desire for my betterment, then there’s great
opportunity to grow into exactly what God meant me to be.
What a painful process! But in my own life I have seen that I really only move in response to
a desire. And I rarely sense a desire when I think I am satisfied. When I really start to grab
for something better is when I am dis-satisfied. Then I yearn, and then I learn.
God didn’t make us to be self-sufficient. He didn’t intend us to be more determined to
determine what is good. He made us to rely on him in relationship with him. And he didn’t
make us to do that alone. Our brains were made to process better when we are in
conversation with someone else. A good listener, especially one that can help you see God’s
presence can be the critical key to recognizing the deep yearnings that God is stirring in you
on the way to shaping you to be like Jesus.
Really, to be human is to be wounded, weak, wicked. We were made vulnerable. Until we
acknowledge these deficiencies in ourselves, we are incapable of seeing God as he is. Our
shape & our problems do not define God, but our shape and problems do help us see and
experience him as he is: he forgives; he provides; he binds up. I don’t experience God acting
this way when I am taking care of myself. But if I pause and ponder as trials come, I might
notice that our lives with their troubles are designed to tell us that God loves and that we are
loved. And that is a great beginning point (or continuing point) for a journey to spiritual
maturity.
- Joey De Graffenried- Advisory Council