broken record

Scott’s sick. Again.

Scott’s in the hospital. Again.

We need to pray for Scott‘s health. Again.

In recent weeks yet another ambulance crew carried me from my home where once again I brushed up against the cold bosom of death.

Yesterday, glory hallelujah, my wife carried me from the hospital, still alive and well, God having shown himself — again — faithful to deliver me from yet another close call.

Charles Spurgeon said, “He who has been with us in six troubles, will not forsake us in the seventh.”

I’m imagining you through my screen and telling you with all sincerity that there has never been a trial or a problem or tribulation or hardship or difficulty that God has not come through for me and delivered me. It is true his deliverance does not always come at the exact moment or in the exact way I thought, but I have never been forsaken and he has always shown his redemptive purposes in setting me free.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;

2 Corinthians 4:7-8

Through it all, through everything, he’s shown himself faithful and there’s no end to how grateful and in awe of him I am.

This is my story.
And, yes, this is my song.
I’m praising my Savior all the day long.

For obvious reasons, the book of Job has been a regular read for me. I’ve often turn to its pages to remind myself that God is sovereign through all of my hard times.

When you come to Job 23:14, it reads,

“For he will complete what he appoints for me,

and many such things are in his mind.”

Which could be paraphrased to mean:

“He has many ways to refine us – and He’ll use them anytime, anyway He wants.”

Here’s my story in 6 words:

Broken.
Blessed.

Grieving.
Grateful.

Waiting.
Worshipping.

My suffering was good for me,

because through it I learned your statutes.

Psalm 119:71

David referred to himself as a “broken” man. As bad as that is, he still knew a secret: the word he chose (‘âḇaḏ’) is the same Hebrew word used when God put Adam in His Garden and told him to “tend” it. It’s the picture of breaking up the sod and clods of dirt, using a hoe or rake. Poured into those crevasses and furrows and holes is the fertilizer needed to grow fruit and grain from fertile soil.

David was saying, “He fills my broken places with His Life and I rejoice in my afflictions because I know my dying is my living!”

David recognizes he might be broken, but he’s not a LOST CAUSE. He’s not unfixable, not unredeemable. He has greater value when he submits to the Lord’s plough.

Everything you suffer, all you’ve lost, whatever breaking you’ve endured, is working in you a lush harvest that will bring life to others!

A few years ago, my Sandy had the opportunity to travel with a high school choir to Italy for competition. On one particular off-day they did some sightseeing and visited Venice and “The Bridge of Sighs.”

There’s a long history with this famous place in Venice but the thing that most sticks out is the bridge connects a prison with a palace. Back in the day, the prisoners were led across this bridge after their sentencing in the palace and they would have to look through the narrow windows of the bridge on their last look at freedom. They would “sigh” in sorrow as they were led away in chains to their cell where they would live out the rest of their days.

Your trials feel like a prison. You ask God, “Why am I still single?“ “Why am I depressed?” “Why can’t I ever seem to get a break?” “Why can’t I get past this?” You wonder if he has abandoned you. You question his goodness. Some days you feel as though you’re serving hard time. It’s very much a prison to you.

The Lord invites you to “sigh” and surrender and believe he is going to escort you from your cell and lead you into a palace of blessing.

In a way I am still on the prison side of the bridge but, like Paul and Silas, I am singing at midnight… so it feels like I am on the palace side!

Let’s go back to our scripture we considered first.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous…

That tells me trials are a necessary part of our discipleship. That message doesn’t always draw a crowd, but it’s undeniably true. There are so many manys on our journey with Christ. We’re all like broken records.

The Hebrew word “affliction” is often translated in the Old Testament as “evil.” It is also translated “bad.”
“Wicked.”“Mischief.”

Take heart, sisters and brothers; when bad befalls you it comes from an enemy that despises you. This means you are in the safe embrace of Someone who loves you.

Scott’s sick. Again.

We gotta pray for Scott. Again.

Scott’s got another wound.

Trouble for the Mitchells. Again.

James says life is “hole-punched” with trials. Paul said “it is through many hardships we come into the kingdom.” He told the Corinthians he “faces daily pressure” and “anxiety.” David said, “every night I flood my bed with tears; I drenched my couch with my weeping.”

You can’t walk with Christ and not feel the blows. Romans tells us we “died with him” but we also “suffer with with him.”

Paul Miller writes of his daughter Ashley who died at age 42 of stage-4 colon cancer. Before she died Ashley told her bible study group:

“I cannot talk about cancer without talking about Jesus. I cannot talk about my trials without Jesus. I equate it to eating a Reese‘s – Jesus is the chocolate and suffering is the peanut butter – they just go together.”

Paul E. Miller, The J-Curve, 310-11

But wait. The second line of our verse makes the first line worth it: “But the Lord delivers him out of them all.”

Peter said even if you’re “grieved by various trials” you can “rejoice” (“dance for joy”) in this: future glory (and oftentimes present) will be much sweeter to you than you can even imagine.

Soon and very soon, the record that’s been skipping and repeating and jumping and scratching will stop and all our agains will be wiped away and his eternal never again will be our forever anthem.

This is our story, this is our unbroken song. Amen.