pramsay posted on January 19, 2006 01:57 619 views
Have you ever grumbled and complained to the Lord about some things that are happening in your life? A road trip that you were excited about falls through. Someone else gets the promotion you expected to get. An ankle is busted in December and your snowboarding season is ruined. The transmission goes in your car. Your CD/MP3 player is stolen out of your truck. Your iPod falls and smashes. You lose your job. A deal falls through. A courtship is called off. You get pink eye and the flu the first weekend your girlfriend visits your family.
Don't just shrug your shoulders and say: "Oh well, I guess its the luck of the draw." or "As fate would have it...." or "I guess it wasn't meant to be...." or "What else is new?!! Nothing ever works out for me!" or "We all take our hits so I'll just grin and bear it."
Whoever wrote the long Psalm 119 had just come through a rough time. He had been afflicted, oppressed and humbled in some way. In other words, things didn't go the way he had planned. He encountered a bumpy section along life's highway. But when he got alone with God and poured out his heart to the Lord as a poet, here is what he wrote: "Before I was afflicted I went astray. But now have I kept Thy Word....It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes....I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right and that Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." (Psalm 119:67,71,75)
"Before all that stuff happened, " the Psalmist said, "I was getting off track..." I wonder in what way he was going astray? Was he spending less time alone with God? Getting a tad bit arrogant, cocky and self-sufficient? Forging ahead with his own plans? Hanging out with someone who would ruin him spiritually? Reading stuff that would defile his mind? Failing to move forward for the Lord in the path of obedience? Pushing the envelope too far? Ignoring some word from the Lord?
The Psalmist wasn't content to just dismiss the affliction as bad luck or fate or mere coincidence. I think it is obvious that he got alone with the Lord and prayed something like this: "Lord, this has happened. I'm feeling the pain of it all and I don't like it. It hurts. I can't keep back the tears and sometimes I get upset with You for allowing my life to be like this. But Thy purposes are far higher than mine and Your wisdom is always right. During this time, I want to be drawn closer to Thee. I want to come out of all this a better christian, more faithful, more obedient and of greater usefulness to Thee. I don't want to end up BITTER as a result of this, I want to end up BETTER. So please Lord, work in my life to make me the Christian I should be."
Hebrews 12:11 is a good verse to memorize, especially the last few words. I will hilite the critical words for me and you. "Now no chastening (discipline) for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness UNTO THEM WHICH ARE EXERCISED THEREBY." The pain hurts. None of us clap our hands with joy when the world is crashing in around us but out of all this trouble we WILL become more mature and more godly christians IF (and that's a big IF), IF we look to the Lord to shape us, mold us and sustain us in the trial. But IF we just plough through the rough spots, biting our lips in defiance with sheer stubborness to not give up, we will grow bitter not better.
"Lord help me to understand that when You allow PAIN in my life it is for my GAIN."