The
pain started on Friday and progressed throughout the day. I dismissed it as
indigestion. It would go away after a good night’s sleep. It did not. The next
day the pain was still there; at times even more intense. I worked my way
through the morning, fulfilling my obligations. I went home a little after 2:00
PM, ready to give in and consult the doctor.
As
we pulled up to Urgent Care, things looked eerily quiet. The parking lot was
empty. My first thought was, great, they’re already closed. Fortunately, I was
wrong. We walked into the empty waiting room and the cheerful receptionist
signed me in. In short order, I was being examined. The doctor ruled out some
of my fears, and prescribed a course of strong anti-biotics.
Sunday
morning finally dawned, after a rather sleepless night. I felt drained and the
pain was still with me. I crawled out of bed, dressed, and headed off to
church. Throughout the early hours of the morning, as I went through my last
minute preparations, the pain was consistent. As I walked down the hall, to
pray with the Worship Team, I wondered how I would make it through the morning.
As I
walked off the platform after the third and final service of the morning, I
realized that I had not experienced the pain while I was preaching. I had some
mild discomfort between services, but nothing significant. I walked back to my
office, opened the door and was seized with a cramp. At that moment, I
acknowledged that God had given me the strength I needed for the time I needed
it.
The
Apostle Paul faced far greater distress than I am facing. He pleaded with God
to take it away, but God refused. Instead, God gave Paul the gift of grace.
Here is his story.
To
keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great
revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to
torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he
said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my
weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's
sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
God
used Paul’s weakness to make him even stronger. Paul came to realize that no
matter what he would face, the grace of God was strong enough to overcome it.
He did not have to fear the future. He could be bold, and he was very bold.
Paul refused to allow the obstacles before him to stop him from pressing on
toward the goal of serving Christ. So, near the end of his life, in prison,
with his death on the horizon, he could still live with confidence.
I
want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of
sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to
attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not
that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I
press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers,
I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward
the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ
Jesus. Philippians 3:10-14
No comments:
Post a Comment