Comfort in suffering: 2 Corinthians

Going through suffering is never easy. I've found it so helpful to find books to navigate my way through it: what to think, what to pray, what to sing. Matt and Beth Redman's 'Blessed be your name' (the song and the book) have been very helpful but today I'm going to focus on one of my favourite Bible books: 2 Corinthians.

I've been reading a book of daily devotionals called 'Contentment' by Lydia Brownback. Again, this is an amazingly concise but incisive book that has really challenged me. She wrote today's devotion on Paul's experience of 'the thorn in the flesh' as recorded in 2 Corinthians 12. We don't know what it was, but Paul was experiencing some form of suffering and asked God three times to take it away. Instead, the words Christ spoke to him were:

'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' (v9)

That verse really kicks against what we want to believe. Surely not, God? Surely I'm more useful to you when I'm 'sorted', when I've got it together? But that's not what Jesus says.

Brownback puts it this way: 'Our thorns are opportunities to cling to Christ... There are things about our union with Christ that we just cannot know apart from the thorns that spear our lives. You'll never know Christ's sufficiency if you spend all your energy seeking to pull the thorn out of your flesh.'

This really ties in with the whole letter of 2 Corinthians. Paul's message to the church is that suffering isn't some inconvenient truth which just has to be avoided so we can look like 'real' Christians. Actually, God uses suffering in our lives: to comfort us Himself in a way that no one else can, and to equip us to comfort others (see chapter 1 v4).

Suffering makes us see ourselves for what we really are: jars of clay (chapter 4 v7), so we trust in God not ourselves (chapter 1 v9).

We know God's salvation as a present reality, but also as a future one too:

'we trust that He will yet deliver us' (chapter 1 v10)

We hang on to the physical historical reality of Christ's resurrection as the source of our hope in our own eternal future:

'knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus... we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.' (chapter 4 v14,18)

Suffering reminds me that I haven't got it all together. I haven't figured out answers to all of life's questions. But what I do know, and what I have come to know more in suffering, is that God's promises of comfort are true. May you know His comfort today whatever your suffering is.

Finding rest in troubled times

We had a church day out to the beach the other weekend, and back when I was asking Glyn Blaize to come to speak, I thought the idea of 'rest' would be a good theme. It proved to be a very timely message as we went through a really difficult time of loss just before the day. Originally I had envisaged receiving the message from a perspective of busyness, and actually I found myself hearing it from a place of grief and trouble.

I am really thankful for Glyn's message. You can hear it here but these are my thoughts and what I took from it.

The passage Glyn chose, Matthew 11:25-28, had been sent to me by a friend a few days before who knew I was going through a tough time. Jesus' promise of rest is so vital to us at any time, but especially when you feel weary in your spirit. Glyn encouraged us that rest is holding onto God, knowing that He provides. In the story of creation in Genesis, God makes rest a priority for us. He fits it into our natural rhythm of life. Yet in our culture, we seem to binge-work and then binge-rest (I got that from Tim Chester's book on Busyness which again is massively helpful). We think somehow that to achieve rest we need to find a very quiet place of solace and just escape from everybody. But realistically, how often can we do that in a year? Whether you're a full time professional or a busy mum, there isn't much time in the day when you don't have demands upon your time. If we wait for that time alone in solitude before we can achieve rest or even just time with God, then it just isn't going to happen. We'll be frazzled and we will never feel the rest that God intended.

We need to get our rhythm of work and rest right, as a basic discipline, and then whenever sorrow or trouble comes along, we already have some space in the day or the week where we can cast it back onto the Lord. We need to take God's command to rest as seriously as we take the other commandments not to murder or steal.

Ultimately we can rest because we know that Jesus has won for us a great and eternal salvation. We can rest because we know that one day He will wipe every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21). We can rest because we know that whatever we go through now is a light and momentary affliction which achieves for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:17).

Lessons from Psalms #6 - A family that follows the Lord

There are some beautiful pictures in the Psalms of what it means to just love God and build a home around serving Him as a family.

Psalm 127 opens with 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it'. We do spend most of our lives creating our own home and family, but we have to recognise that everything we have comes from God. Our children are 'a heritage of the Lord' (v3), not one of our achievements. The question the Psalms often seem to ask is: what are you doing with the gifts God has given you?

Psalm 128 gives a picture of gospel prosperity (not prosperity gospel!!). 'Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him. You will eat the fruit of your labour; blessings and prosperity will be yours.' (v1-2) It's a principle, rather than a promise, that those who love God will live a life of blessing, though not one free of suffering. It's interesting that the picture of the godly family and their blessing is not one of isolation, but one that is part of the community of God's people: 'May the Lord bless you from Zion; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.' (v5) We're not meant to hide away trying to create the perfect home and family; we're meant to live out the gospel in community together, teaching our children by practical example of what it means to love God and others.

Psalm 1 is often described as the key to the Psalms, and the message is clear: following the Lord brings true joy and prosperity, whereas wickedness leads to judgement and destruction. I love the picture in verse 3 that the righteous person is 'like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither'. I've planted some trees in my garden recently and I was told that the main reason young trees die is lack of water. I am constantly amazed that I can pour basinfuls of washing up water on those trees and they soak it all up and seem thirsty for more! Good job I live in Wales where it rains all the time. But it made the picture in the Psalms more real to me, that if a tree is planted by streams of water, it never dies, because it always has replenishment. If we are truly going to live righteous lives and build godly families, we will constantly need refreshing from the Lord to do that. We will be constantly giving to others, so we need to be finding our nourishment in God. We can't follow God's ways and be good parents without completely relying on His strength and power. Ask God to bless your home and family, and then be prepared to obey Him.