I both hate and love when God exercises His sovereign right to take me to the spiritual woodshed. I know it’s a sign of His love for me (see Hebrews 12:6), but it still stings.
In the past couple of weeks God has revealed some sin in my heart that needed to be dealt with. I know we all enjoy a juicy confession (as long as someone else is doing the confessing), but I have space limitations here and the particulars of my transgression are more silly than scintillating.
Suffice it to say God used a trivial circumstance to show me that no matter how boldly I proclaim that Jesus is Lord of all my life, sometimes He’s not.
My “woodshed” experience was generally related to my bad attitude over losses in my life, particularly losing the ability to do some things I’ve really enjoyed over the years. I think how we handle both blessings and hardships may be a good indicator of whether or not we really have laid down our lives, “taken up our crosses” and followed Christ (see Luke 9:23).
Over our lifetime, we gain and lose a lot of things—weight, health, relationships, possessions, money, knowledge, abilities, memories, opportunities, and status, to name a few. And those losses and gains test our character and faith.
When we’re blessed, are we humble enough to be thankful to God, “from whom all blessings flow,” or do we take the credit?
When we suffer loss, can we still say, “… yet I will rejoice in Him” (see Habbakuk 3:18)? That’s especially relevant to me now as I’m ankle-deep into my ’60s and sorely tempted nearly every day to over-focus on what I’m losing, particularly some abilities that once erroneously formed the foundation of my identity.
We all learn early on what earns us the affirmation we crave. Two of those things for me were sports and music. They earned me some “attagirls” which then became a false and rotten foundation for my security and sense of worth.
Jesus said if our lives are built upon anything but the “rock” of His truth (see Matthew 7:24-27), our foundations will wash away when the inevitable storms of life hit. Well, age and a rebellious body are the storms that seem to have slammed into my life. And while that rotten “performance” foundation in my life has taken a beating, a situation arose a couple of weeks ago that revealed it wasn’t completely gone. And it needed to be.
It was like “The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be” was playing in a loop in my head and God and I were both tired of it. He needed to show me that in this particular area, I wasn’t believing His truth and I wasn’t really okay with how He was orchestrating my life.
The thing is, even as I’ve had to give up some things I used to do, God has opened up a whole new thing for me: to be certified as a biblical counselor so I can serve in our church’s counseling ministry. But can I be honest? It’s HARD.
It’s not nearly as fun to get down in the messy trenches with people and their problems as it is to smack tennis balls or play my guitar and sing. No one applauds after a counseling session. But it’s where God has me and wants me, and I need to be okay with that.
Total obedience to God’s will needs to be the sure foundation of my life. All other ground truly is, as the hymn goes, sinking sand.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”— Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:24)