Keep moving ...

Hear the word of the Lord:

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness,
and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree.
He asked that he might die:
"It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life,
for I am no better than my ancestors."
Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep.

Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him,
"Get up and eat."

He looked, and there at his head was a cake
baked on hot stones, and a jar of water.
He ate and drank, and lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came a second time,
touched him, and said, "Get up and eat,
otherwise the journey will be too much for you."
He got up, and ate and drank;
then he went in the strength of that food
forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

For many reasons, Elijah is done.
The depression that has plagued him for so many years
has nearly mastered him, nearly become his god.
Which is ironic considering Elijah’s record on idolatry.
Yet still he can hear and respond to the voice of God’s
messengers; he rises to eat and to drink.

Sometimes life with God brings great power
and passion and joy – and then at other times
that same life brings the need for perseverance
and obedience and faithfulness, all in the face of
the great grief that we share with God
when we walk with God.

When we see the world the way God sees it,
when we think thoughts that are like God’s thoughts,
when we feel feelings that mirror our Master’s,
then there are going to be days of great joy,
and days of great grief.

However much grief God expects us to endure,
his awareness, and his share is infinitely more.
yet he keeps moving toward the end of the story.
On the tough days, even on the toughest days,
that is precisely what we need to do.
Keep moving toward the end of the story,
because that is where the real purposes of God,
and blessings of God, and joy of God
are going to be revealed to us,
and experienced by us.

We won't have to ask when we've come to
the end of our story; we'll know.

Keep moving toward the end of the story.

Ron

1 Kings 19:4-9 – NRSV

Hardship as discipline ...

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

Being trained by discipline; it's a strange thought, isn't it? We associate discipline so closely with punishment. It's no wonder that we're not overly fond of the imagery of God disciplining us.

I wonder what would happen, though, if we thought of discipline as a school teacher thinks of it. What if we thought of discipline as part of moral formation, part of the child-rearing process. I'm not thinking about groundings and spankings (punishment), I'm thinking of discipline that is given in order to build the recipient into a better person.

In fact, we do a pretty fair amount of this kind of discipline. Allowing a boy to miss out on some activity when he has failed to make adequate preparations would be an example of discipline. Think about when we take a group of boys to Wal-Mart and some boys have money to spend while others do not. If we are making a quick stop at Wal-Mart, we might require those without money to wait in the car. The action is not punitive, it is simply a manner of correction intended to encourage and create better money management skills in the future.

Maybe we can see the value of discipline by looking back. Although sometimes we don't understand why we must endure hard times while we endure them, later on we may recognize that we are now stronger, healthier, more faithful, etc. because of the way we were formed by "enduring hardship as discipline." Maybe there is or can be a reason in fear, exhaustion, and suffering.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

The discipline we face is always uncomfortable. In fact, when we haven't done anything wrong and we still suffer, we can even come very close to scrapping it all and forgetting about it. But sometimes our suffering can be discipline, and in those times it is also important that we hang on. In those times, we must recognize the difference between punishment and discipline. We must realize that God is treating us like his children, not as his enemies.

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
(Heb. 12:7-13, NIV)

Once more, we find that we must hold on. Again, we find a reason to hold on. If we face hardship in the form of discipline, we must hold on in order to reap the benefit of that discipline. I love the imagery here. Haven't we all been so overwhelmed that we just couldn't hardly stand up at some point? Haven't we all woken up in the morning feeling that we barely had the strength to pull ourselves through the day? On days like that, we always seem to struggle with "drooping hands and weak knees." When we hold firm, though, we see the outcome of our perseverance - growth, sharing in Christ, and citizenship in the heavenly city.

Here is a poem to help us understand suffering as development and refinement:

Mixed Metaphor
Mold me to your form
that I may pour out love like a spigot
Work me over with chisel and hammer and fire
You are the vine, I am a branch, the Father is the gardener
Impoverish me, in preparation for treasure in heaven
Humble me as your servant
Let me participate in your suffering, and so in your resurrection
Into the water, into the grave
Death is life
Suffering tears away the unnecessary things like an umbilical cord
I yearn for my birth into your realm
even as I call to you for strength
to let go of the death in my realm
Bring me to my knees, where you are
Resurrected one, create new and different life in me.

Blessings,

Greg and Tiffany