Joni and Friends Daily Devotional
July 6, 2012
Dear Robin,
Two Lenses
Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.
Lamentations 3:32-33
The Lord took no pleasure in my broken neck. Like any father who has compassion on his children, it pained His heart to see me hurt. Yet at the same time, it pleased the Lord to permit my accident. My spinal cord injury was something He sovereignly designed in and for His good pleasure.
God's ways are so much higher than ours, He has the capacity to look at the world through two lenses - through a narrow lens and a wide angle one. When God looks at a painful event through a narrow lens, He sees the tragedy for what it is. He is deeply grieved. In Ezekiel 18:32 he says, "I take no pleasure in the death of anyone." God feels the sting in His chest when a child dies of cancer or a husband is killed in an accident. However, when God looks at that same event through His wide angle lens, He sees the tragedy in relation to everything leading up to it, as well as flowing out from it. He sees a mosaic stretching into eternity - it is this mosaic with all its parts, both good and evil, which brings Him delight.
In the span of a single verse, the Bible asserts "the Lord brings grief," yet "He does not willingly bring... grief." God tried this out on Himself. He willed the death of His own Son, but He took no delight in it. God saw how Jesus' death would demonstrate His incomprehensible mercy, as well as bring His people to glory. God often wills what He despises because - and only because - He has a wide angle view on the world.
Lord, too often I have only a narrow-lens view of my world - give me your perspective and may I rejoice in the beautiful mosaic I will one day understand.
God's timing is always perfect, and this is just one of a billion examples of how He gives us what we need at the exact moment we need it.
Tonight I am giving my testimony at a Titus 2 fellowship the women in our church are having. All week I have prayed and asked the Lord to show me how much I need to share, and how much I need to leave out. I only want to focus on the parts that will show how glorious, loving, gracious, merciful and forgiving He is.
It's all about Him, not about me.
I still have no clue exactly what He wants me to share. If I focus too much on how I have no clue of what I'm supposed share, I get all knotted up in my stomach and start getting anxious. This is just another one of those times when I'm going to have to walk in faith. If He gives us grace for each and every moment, at the exact moment we need it, surely He will give me the exact words He wants me to say.
This devotional helps answer a question I've been asked many times. I don't believe in coincidences. I believe in a sovereign God who ordains all things. A God who has a plan for every circumstance in my life. He's my Redeemer who will use everything I've ever done, every experience in my life for His glory and my good.
So it's no coincidence this devotional popped up in my email this morning. God ordain it.
I do know that part of my testimony will include being diagnosed with CIDP. I'm just not sure what parts of it or how much I need to focus on it. I do want others to know God did not make me sick. He's not the one who struck me down and caused this long struggle for the past 4 1/2 years. Nor did He cause all of the other yucky stuff in my life.
However, He did allow it. Honestly, that's hard to swallow sometimes. How could my Heavenly Father allow horrible things to happen to His children?
I don't have an answer.
But I do know that hard things in my life are the things that have shown me how glorious He is. I've experienced His mercy and grace. I've been forgiven of horrible things. I know His love for me.
I know it sounds crazy. On one hand I don't understand how He can allow devastation, but on the other hand I see His glory.
The best way I know how to explain it is this ...
My depravity deserves hell. But He loves me so much that He sent His Son to die for my evil, wicked sins. He paid my ransom. He rescued me. He saved me from hell. Instead of burning for eternity, like I deserve to do, I will spend my eternity with Him.
That's mercy like no other. A forgiveness I will never fully comprehend.
And because He loves me, He gives me the grace to endure the hard things in this life.
And He uses those hard things to show me more and more of His love for me.
God doesn't delight in our suffering. He doesn't want us to suffer, but because we live in a fallen world we're going to hurt. Paul tells us that in this life we will have pain, we will have tribulation. But as we suffer, we will understand more and more of the sufferings Christ. The suffering He chose to endured for us, and it's through our suffering we become more like Him.
"When God looks at a painful event through a narrow lens, He sees the tragedy for what it is. He is deeply grieved. In Ezekiel 18:32 he says, "I take no pleasure in the death of anyone." God feels the sting in His chest when a child dies of cancer or a husband is killed in an accident. However, when God looks at that same event through His wide angle lens, He sees the tragedy in relation to everything leading up to it, as well as flowing out from it. He sees a mosaic stretching into eternity - it is this mosaic with all its parts, both good and evil, which brings Him delight."
In 1 Peter will are told that although we may suffer for a little while ...
I asked in Sunday school last week why uses the phrase "for a little while". His "little while" and mine don't match up. It seems like my suffering has lasted a long, long time. It was explained to me he is using "a little while" in comparison to eternity. I suppose if you look at it that way, this is such a short time of suffering compared to the glory that is yet to come.
I long for Heaven.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
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