I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. (Verses 17-18)
In the crucible is the true test of our faith. Not so much in the daily routine of life when we get up or lie down, having worked a normal day doing all the mundane Monday through Friday things that make up our lives, create our busyness and earn us the home in which we sleep, the kitchen in which we eat. But when suddenly a thing happens, blindsides us, it is then that what we deeply believe tests our metal. Sees if it's pure gold. Burns out of us the dross created in our everyday lives. When we learn that what doesn't kill us makes us better. When we see that if we'd never had a problem, we'd never know that God can solve it.
The tornado ripped through Wichita Falls, Texas, in April of 1979, just days after Bill and I moved there with our young daughters. One fifth of the city was ravaged, looking like a war zone. Only foundations lay bare glaring at a new day from amidst the debris that once was daily life. No walls, no cars, no semblance of normal. Home after home had to be rebuilt. On the foundation left when all else blew away. One wall at a time. New timber. New roof. New flooring. And finally, through the process, a brand new home on a foundation that hadn't budged despite the storm.
What happens when disease, financial reversals, divorce, abandonment or the death of someone we love blows into our lives like a tornado and strips us of everything but our Foundation? We are left with pretty much only our faith in God...like Job. Needing, possibly, to have our old perceptions thrown out, our walls torn down, or our old religious tenets reformed. What happens when we are spiritually blown away and our foundation revealed? Could it be that our God wants to rebuild us, not kill us? Discipline doesn't always mean punishment. It also means to train, teach, coach or drill. God is sometimes the contractor who has to get the shambles into shape. To take the shabby faith created in the mundane and muscle it up for the trenches. Not so we will die, though we feel like we will. But so we can live, really live, and proclaim how amazing the Builder is. So we can show off how beautiful our new home is, even though it had to be torn down to its very basest level before it could be rebuilt. New walls had to be erected, stronger than the last, bricked up against the enemy. Fortified. Months and months are required to rebuild. It's not an easy process. But when the new is come, the old but a memory, we are a brand new place.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness by those who have been trained by it. Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed (Hebrews 12).
I don't know where in the process you are today. If the walls are coming down or new ones going up. But here's the good news, if you know Jesus, you don't build alone! It is for your beauty and His great glory that He picks up the paint brush and colors your interior walls. Though the nails that are pounded into the structure you are becoming often hurt, they are necessary to hold your new home together. As the architect of your faith, Jesus has something in mind. Life! Yours! So that you will live, and not die, and ultimately stand on your rooftop declaring the goodness of your God!
In the crucible is the true test of our faith. Not so much in the daily routine of life when we get up or lie down, having worked a normal day doing all the mundane Monday through Friday things that make up our lives, create our busyness and earn us the home in which we sleep, the kitchen in which we eat. But when suddenly a thing happens, blindsides us, it is then that what we deeply believe tests our metal. Sees if it's pure gold. Burns out of us the dross created in our everyday lives. When we learn that what doesn't kill us makes us better. When we see that if we'd never had a problem, we'd never know that God can solve it.
The tornado ripped through Wichita Falls, Texas, in April of 1979, just days after Bill and I moved there with our young daughters. One fifth of the city was ravaged, looking like a war zone. Only foundations lay bare glaring at a new day from amidst the debris that once was daily life. No walls, no cars, no semblance of normal. Home after home had to be rebuilt. On the foundation left when all else blew away. One wall at a time. New timber. New roof. New flooring. And finally, through the process, a brand new home on a foundation that hadn't budged despite the storm.
What happens when disease, financial reversals, divorce, abandonment or the death of someone we love blows into our lives like a tornado and strips us of everything but our Foundation? We are left with pretty much only our faith in God...like Job. Needing, possibly, to have our old perceptions thrown out, our walls torn down, or our old religious tenets reformed. What happens when we are spiritually blown away and our foundation revealed? Could it be that our God wants to rebuild us, not kill us? Discipline doesn't always mean punishment. It also means to train, teach, coach or drill. God is sometimes the contractor who has to get the shambles into shape. To take the shabby faith created in the mundane and muscle it up for the trenches. Not so we will die, though we feel like we will. But so we can live, really live, and proclaim how amazing the Builder is. So we can show off how beautiful our new home is, even though it had to be torn down to its very basest level before it could be rebuilt. New walls had to be erected, stronger than the last, bricked up against the enemy. Fortified. Months and months are required to rebuild. It's not an easy process. But when the new is come, the old but a memory, we are a brand new place.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness by those who have been trained by it. Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed (Hebrews 12).
I don't know where in the process you are today. If the walls are coming down or new ones going up. But here's the good news, if you know Jesus, you don't build alone! It is for your beauty and His great glory that He picks up the paint brush and colors your interior walls. Though the nails that are pounded into the structure you are becoming often hurt, they are necessary to hold your new home together. As the architect of your faith, Jesus has something in mind. Life! Yours! So that you will live, and not die, and ultimately stand on your rooftop declaring the goodness of your God!
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