I closed my last blog entry with the following comments (in italics):
While I long to be perfect, complete, lacking in nothing, I continue to wish that there was some road other than the one marked with suffering that would enable me to reach my desired destination. I fear I just haven’t learned to love the “Ways of God” as I ought yet. But why not? For surely they are all good, as the scriptures tell us:
“He is the Rock. His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness, without breach of deviation, just and right is He.” Deut. 32:4
“As for God, His way is perfect. The Word of the Lord is tested and tried. He is
A shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him.” Ps. 18:30-31
I need to do more soul searching and find out exactly why I don’t love the ways of God as I ought, so that I can do something about this “in need of correction” area of my life. I’m pretty sure I know the answer, and if I’m right, it’s not very pretty. I’ll let you know what I find out, and maybe we can find the solution together.
Well, here I am, after more than a month of soul searching, and I was right – I did know the answer all along. And, I was right – the answer isn’t very pretty. You see, to acknowledge that I don’t always love the ways of God is to acknowledge that I don’t always love Jesus as I should. No big surprise, but not something that any of us likes to own up to. However, if we’re all going to be honest with one another, I think we would have to admit that we seldom love Him as we ought – with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I must confess that I cannot always count myself even among His friends, for He said:
“You are my friends if you do what I command you.” John 15:4
“The man who has received my commands and obeys them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and disclose myself to him.” John 14:21
“If a person really loves me, he will keep my commandments.” John 14:23
As I do not always walk in full obedience, how can I claim to be His friend, much less profess undying love for Him? By the way, if you are walking in absolute obedience to Jesus, please call me; I want to come live at your house and learn of your ways. Thanks be to God, my love does not have to be hindered forever by my own deficiencies; for He is the answer to my every need, and will even supply the love I need to pour back out to Him. (Thank You Mike Bickle for teaching me that life-changing truth). He will also supply the grace and willingness I need to walk in greater obedience to Him, for He desires to perfect us.
And so, dear friends, how is it that I came to the conclusion that not always loving the ways of God is a reflection of my love for Jesus? Simply put, to embrace and love God’s ways is to embrace and love Christ, for He is God’s WAY.
Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6
I need to stop thinking of God’s WAY merely as some path set out before me. Instead, I should be thinking of God’s WAY as a person, Jesus, set before me – the one I am to follow.
He who is perfect, whose way is perfect can make no mistakes. He who has promised to “perfect that which concerns us”, and whose minute care counts the very hairs of our heads, and forms for us our circumstances, must know better than we the way to bring about our best interest and to glorify His own Name.
While I spent considerable time in my last entry expounding on the spiritual benefits of suffering, I did not share with you my greatest motivation for embracing trials. It is this – I greatly desire to rule and reign with Christ when He establishes His Kingdom on the earth for 1000 years; and we are told: “We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” Acts 14:22. All through the New Testament, the coming of the Lord was the great hope of His people, and was always appealed to as the strongest motive for consecration and service; and as the greatest comfort in trial and affliction.
With the preponderance of evidence I have presented for our consideration, that we should learn to lean into suffering on this faith journey of ours rather that cut and run; why is it that I still struggle against the ways of God?
Perhaps it’s because they don’t line up with my plans; and, after all, my plans are well thought out, are made with much prayerful consideration, and make perfect sense to me. Doesn’t God realize that His ways are often not convenient, and often interfere with all of my plans for rescuing the universe, or, at least everyone in my universe?
Maybe it’s because God’s ways are often hard on my flesh, and I have grown somewhat soft in my old age, and my flesh likes to do things the easy way.
Maybe, just maybe, I don’t love the ways of God because I’m too busy loving the wrong things.
Whatever, the reason, I must learn to do as Hudson Taylor exhorted us to do: “I must learn to think of God as the One Great Circumstance in whom I live and move and have my being, and of all lesser, external circumstances as necessarily the kindest, wisest, and best, because they were either ordered or permitted by God. If I think any other way, my trial and disappointment will be very great.”
Elisabeth Eliott said, “Many things laid on us by life, by circumstances, by the Lord Himself, are not at all to our liking. They don’t fit in with our plans, they weigh us down, hem us in, frustrate and annoy us. Praise God!! He knows that there is much in our lives that needs to be frustrated, annoyed and destroyed, and He knows just what to use to accomplish the job. It isn’t the burdens themselves that destroy us, but our resentment of the burdens.”
Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”, Matthew 11:30. Does your burden seem heavy? Perhaps you’re not in His yoke, but in one of your own making. I personally find those to be the heaviest of yokes. Perhaps you’re in His yoke, but you took it upon yourself ahead of His timing, and you’re carrying the weight all by yourself. Remember, yokes are made for two to carry. If you’re in there alone, I can guarantee that right now you’re going around in circles.
I have found the most difficult of tasks to accomplish, the most trying of ordeals to endure, are not only easier when I am confident that I am in His yoke, in His perfect timing; but there is a sweetness in the midst of trials that can be found no where else.
Watchman Nee put it best when he said, “Not infrequently, God brings His people into difficulties so that they may come to know Him as they could not otherwise do. Then He reveals Himself as “A very present help in time of trouble”, and blesses us with each fresh revelation of a Father’s faithfulness. If we could only have eyes to see the fruit of our sufferings – we would not for anything want to have missed them.”
And still, I do not always love his ways – BUT – I am learning to, and I have set myself on a course to love His ways more and more with each passing day. Not because my love for Him has yet been perfected, but because I know that I will never walk in the fullness of God’s victorious, overcoming power, enjoying His peace, until I learn to not only walk in, but to LOVE His ways. I cannot yet see the fruit that will come from my trials, but I know for a fact that the fruit will be sweet, and I don’t want to miss one single bite!
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