November 15 – Hardship Happens (Hebrews 12:1-11)

“Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.”
(Hebrews 12:7)

IN WORD:
Trials come, and we plead for relief. Circumstances oppress, and we pray for deliverance. Health, relationships, work, and just about everything else in our lives grow difficult, and we ask God to straighten them out. We don’t like the pressures of life, and we lift every anxious thought to God, as we should. But we forget a guiding principle: Hardship is part of the program. It grows us up into maturity. There are things that God wants to do with us that cannot be done in a perfect environment.
We view discipline as God’s remedial recourse for a Christian who has gone far astray. But it is more universal than we like to think. It comes not only to those who have failed, but to those whom god is preparing for greater success. It’s what a father does for his children, and it’s what our Father does for us. Only those who are already perfect can avoid the trials that God allows — which means no one can. The trials will come, and God will let them stay for a while.
We don’t like pain. We ask God to take away every reminder that we live in a broken world, but He won’t do it. We will live out our days with some scars, or sometimes even with open wounds. We cannot become ministers of His grace otherwise. We can’t even learn it for ourselves until he puts us in great need of it. If we are to represent our merciful Father in a broken world, we must actually live in that broken world. We must know the needs that require mercy, and we must know them from experience. There is no other way.

IN DEED:
Do you constantly ask God to clean up every messy area of your life? To brighten every dark corner and to dress up every shabby appearance? That’s ok; our concerns are His concerns. But don’t expect perfection. The perfect world we crave is for a future glory, not for now. Ease and comfort are not usually His prescription for us, because they will not prepare us for that future glory. No, God will leave us reminders of brokenness to serve as reminders of His grace. Endure those reminders well.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” -E. H. Chapin-