TROUBLES AND HURTS

This past week has been a very difficult week and one of which I pray, may not have to be repeated for a long time. It has been a week characterized by both defeat and victory in my life. What I am continuing to learn is this: the difference in the people whose lives are characterized by victory, triumph and rejoicing as opposed to those whose lives are characterized by depression, self-pity, defeat and bitterness lies in what they did with the hurt and trouble that came their way. While what I have learned, has not been a new lesson or new truth to me, it has been a strong reminder of what sin in me can do, if I do not deal with it quickly. There are two ways that we can receive the wounds, hurts and troubles that come into our life. One is God’s way, and the other is the world’s way. Paul told the Corinthians in chapter 7 of II Corinthians that, the wounds and sorrows which are born in God’s way brings a change of heart, in which we do not regret, but the hurt which is born in the world’s way brings death. He is saying that when you bear your wound God’s way, it brings about a change of heart. That means that it brings about such a transformation of your heart, which is the control center of your life and the steering wheel which turns your heart one way or another, to see the truth and enables you to be refreshed and restored to peace and joy in those pangs. He says if you bear this hurt the world’s way, it will produce death in you. Death to your sweet spirit, to your joy, to your happiness, to your relationships and to your very life if you allow it. Paul is telling us that if we bear those things God’s way, while we may have some pain in them, we will have peace with no regret. We can learn through them and with the right heart attitude, even begin to welcome them because of the results they will produce in us.

The Corinthian church had been greatly troubled and had gone through a great deal of tribulation. Paul wrote to them concerning all their pain, wounds, hurts and troubles that they were experiencing by not only rebuking them, but encouraging them as well. He wanted them to understand the importance of having a repented heart and the difference that it would make in their lives. He wanted them to see the difference between happy people and unhappy people, between people who are rejoicing and people who are down and out. Sometimes we will have to work through our pain and it may take a while. But when we get to the other side, we realize that the effort was worth the enduring of it. Paul used the word tribulation that indicates “being pressed down”. That word indicates anything that comes our way causing pressure of any kind that bears down on our soul and brings us terrific grief. It can be any kind of pain, physical, emotional or mental, any size or color. Paul gives his personal autobiography of the tribulations that he had experienced throughout the book of 2 Corinthians. He emphasized to the Corinthians, that not only they but he and Timothy themselves had received a great deal of various kinds of pressures and troubles. So he talked to them as one who personally understood and was uniquely qualified through his own personal tribulations, to encourage them. You would be completely astounded if you knew some of the deep wounds, hurts and troubles of the people that you encounter every day. The difference between some of those people is not the absence of trouble, but the attitude towards the trouble that comes to them. If the Bible makes anything clear, it is that trouble and hurt come to everybody. The outcome from those troubles depend on how they deal with them. This is one of the reasons that we become downcast and troubled and our happiness becomes depleted. It is because the peace and contentment of our heart has been slaughtered because we have responded to our pain in the world’s way and not Gods.

I am often reminded whenever I go through rough times in my life of 1 Corinthians 1:3-5, which states, “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforted us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounded by Christ.” I know that apart from my own tribulations I would be worthless to God in helping others walk through the same troubles that I have had to walk, unless I myself have traveled in their shoes. When pains of trouble, distress or hurts, pressure of any kind come our way, it simply means that God is up to something in our lives. Through these troubles, He is perfecting his eternal plan in us. The best way to bear it, is to realize that it is a minister sent from God to do a good work in us. Once God has helped us walk through our own pains He tells us to turn to others who are hurting and encourage them as well. God is the God of all consolation and the prerequisite to His comfort Jesus said was to mourn, thus “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.” The word actually means one who comes to stand beside us, to champion our cause, to encourage and strengthen and comfort us. Maybe I should say it like this, someone who comes to stand beside us in our time of need, to take up our cause, making it His cause, and stays there to encourage, strengthen, and comfort us while we go through them. If God never allowed me to have a problem, then I would never know the things that He could not solve in my own life. God does not simply enable a Christian to endure a problem, but He gives us His peace to rejoice in it! Philippians 3 talks about, “that I may know the fellowship of his suffering” the word fellowship here simply means sharing alike. We are going to suffer all kinds of troubles, some for our faith and the stand that we take for Christ. Some troubles will come our way because life happens. Christ has shared our kinds of troubles and we must respond to them in a way that is pleasing to Him and is beneficial to us!

Loving on you today sweet friend!
Bren