IF WE THINK THE STRONG DON’T FEEL PAIN, WE KNOW LITTLE OF WHAT STRENGTH IS ABOUT. Soldiers know that courage is not the absence of fear, but fortitude in the face of fear, and those who are truly strong understand that strength is not the absence of pain, but nobility in the face of pain. The strong are those who deeply experience pain without giving up either their reverence or their gratitude. Rather than going AROUND pain, strong people go THROUGH it. There is no shortcut to any place worth going to.

We normally think of “skill” as the ability to do “difficult” things. If because of natural talent a person finds himself easily able to do things that are difficult for other people, that may be somewhat impressive. But how much more impressive it is when someone has the drive and the discipline to do things that he himself finds difficult. In a similar way, it would be no great accomplishment for a person to bear an emotional pain that he didn’t really feel. But those who open their hearts and feel the pain this world can inflict, still maintaining a gracious respect and gratitude toward God — those are the folks with an admirable strength!

When we’re suffering, friends frequently remind us that God’s intent is not to shield us from all pain, but to strengthen us so that we can deal with the pain in the right way. Do we really believe that? Perhaps what we believe is something slightly different: that God will help us find a kind of “strength” that will anesthetize us so that we won’t feel the pain quite so much. Perhaps we don’t really trust God to help us acquire REAL strength, the kind that protects us without deadening our hearts and rendering us unable to feel what we need to feel.

The immense spiritual strength that Jesus possessed involved much more than mere anesthesia. He not only felt the full range of emotions that are the lot of humanity, but He felt them intensely and vividly. We should aspire to a strength that is no less alive. Genuine discipleship to the Son of Man will not turn us into unfeeling robots. It will teach us to feel what God feels.

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full” (Marcel Proust).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

WE COMMONLY MAKE TWO MISTAKES WITH RESPECT TO LIFE IN CHRIST. Either we ourselves underestimate the value of what is truly good about it, or we misrepresent that goodness to others, portraying the Christian’s life as something other than what it is. The great gifts available in Jesus Christ — the forgiveness of sins and the hope of heaven — are of incalculable worth. It took the death of the Son of God to make these gifts possible, and we err greatly if we ever undervalue them. But we err no less if we misrepresent what the Christian’s life is like in a world damaged by sin. “There is no escape from an aching soul, only denial of it. The promise of one day being with Jesus in a perfect world is the Christian’s only hope for complete relief. Until then we either groan or pretend we don’t” (Larry Crabb).

The tools are surely available in the Scriptures to build a better life in this world than would be possible by any other means. As Paul put it, godliness is “profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). But even at its best, the Christian’s life may involve great sorrow and difficulty. It’s true that God offers to sustain us THROUGH the pain, but it’s not wise to pretend that the pain doesn’t hurt.

Sometimes, though, we do pretend. In our pride, we conceal the heartache of deep needs that God allows, for the time being and for our ultimate good, to remain unfulfilled. And in our pride, we also cover up the reality of our continuing struggle with sin.

Yet the problem is not always pride. Often it is the popular but mistaken doctrine that we can obtain complete relief and total joy right now, and that if we hurt emotionally or if we struggle with sin, then we’ve just not reached the plateau of happiness where more committed Christians live. We may be suffocating in a “spiritual” climate where pretense is rewarded and honesty is frowned upon. If so, we’re missing the very thing that can draw us toward a richer taste of God: a deeply felt, realistic acceptance of the imperfection that yet remains within us.

“One result of extricating ourselves from the tangled complexity of life is simplistic preaching that fails to deal with life as it is. Rather than penetrating life with liberating truth, such preaching maintains a conspiracy of pretense that things are better than they are or ever can be until Christ returns” (Larry Crabb).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

THE MOST FERVENT DESIRES THAT WE BRING TO GOD IN PRAYER OUGHT TO BE DESIRES HAVING TO DO WITH HIS GLORY, HIS PURPOSES, AND HIS WILL. Too often, the only question on our minds is whether God is working things out the way we wish. Rarely do we concern ourselves with the more important question: whether what is happening redounds to the praise of God’s glory. Properly understood, prayer is about God, not about us.

Like the disciples, we all need to say, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). But learning how to pray is not simply learning more effective ways to ask for what we want. As we learn to pray, we must learn to want the higher things that relate to God’s rule and His righteousness, and we must learn to want them for higher reasons than those that usually motivate us. Both our requests and our reasons for making them indicate how far along the road of spiritual growth we’ve traveled. As we learn to seek God more diligently, the less selfishly we’ll pray for what we want from God and the more genuinely we’ll desire what God wants for us.

Much of modern prayer is characterized by what can only be called a “demanding” spirit. Conditioned as we are to think that “feeling good” is the main thing in life, our dealings with God tend to revolve around His ability to do whatever will make us feel better. But this utilitarian approach just kills the communication that God seeks from us. When we think of no more than God’s usefulness to us and, in effect, threaten to quit believing if He doesn’t straighten out every one of our difficulties, we’re being childish and shortsighted, if not outright blasphemous. God is not Santa Claus, and real prayer has to do with far more than whether He is giving us what we want. To “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” means, among other things, that we lay aside our demands and simply trust God to give us what we need — giving thanks that His gifts always result in His greater glory.

“O Lord, let me not henceforth desire health or life except to spend them for you, with you, and in you. You alone know what is good for me; do therefore what seems best to you. Give to me or take from me; conform my will to yours; and grant that with humble and perfect submission and in holy confidence I may receive the orders of your eternal providence, and may equally adore all that comes to me from you” (Blaise Pascal).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

THE GREATNESS OF GOD FAR EXCEEDS THE LIMITED WAYS IN WHICH WE SEEK HIM. In all the good things that grow out of love, it is we who are limited, not God. If we enjoy but little of the bounty that is available, it is because our hearts have been hampered by our rebellion against Him. We experience no more than a small measure of God’s greatness, sometimes because of unrepentant sin in our lives and at other times because our vision of God is so inadequate. We need a greater comprehension of what is really possible, a deeper desire for what can be ours.

One of the realities of sin is that in alienating us from God, it also stands between us and the help that He could give us. And there is not one of us so free of sin that we don’t need to hear Isaiah’s words to Israel: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1,2). The principle embedded in this text is just as important for the devout Christian as it is for anyone else. Sin — any sin at all, however “small” — hinders God from blessing us fully. So if our experience of God seems meager, we may need to quit waiting for God to answer our prayers and understand that He is waiting for us to repent of the sins that keep Him from doing so.

But another tragic truth is that fallen creatures, even forgiven ones, have only a shrunken knowledge of God’s nature and His power. Even if we’ve grown a little in our vision of what could be ahead for us, we still have much to learn. Our God is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). He is eager to lift us to planes higher than we can yet imagine. Our need is for a bigger desire, a greater sense of what can happen if we’re willing to submit to God as He purges away the things that hold us back.

“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never” (Soren Kierkegaard).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

WHY DO WE LOVE GOD? Is it because His attributes so often result in benefit to us personally or because He is simply worthy to be loved? Do we love God for His sake or for our own?

An utterly honest appraisal of our hearts will often reveal that our seeking of God has been more a seeking of certain blessings from God rather than a seeking of God Himself. Very few of us are not indicted by these words from Thomas Merton: “They respect God as a Master. But their heart does not belong to Him. They are not really interested in Him, except in order to insure themselves against losing heaven and going to hell. In actual practice, their minds and hearts are taken up with their own ambitions and troubles and comforts and pleasures and all their worldly interests and anxieties and fears. God is only invited to enter this charmed circle to smooth out difficulties and to dispense rewards.”

But a “true love of God must begin with a delight in his holiness” (Jonathan Edwards). Our devotion to God must be akin to Job’s. Although Satan sneered, “Does Job fear God for nothing?” (Job 1:9), the truth was that Job’s faithfulness reached far beyond the benefits he had been receiving from God. When every other reason was stripped away, Job did what was right simply because it was right. He loved God because God deserves to be loved.

It may help to try to look at love from God’s side. Can we imagine our plight if, in deciding whether to love us, God had ever asked the question, “What’s in it for Me?” If any part of His love depended on our ability to “help Him solve His problems,” there would be no love! Apparently, He loves us because we are His creatures, simply for our own sake. And we are to love Him because He is our Creator, simply for His own sake. Love’s joy has to do with giving, not getting. The moment our main focus shifts from the Beloved to ourselves, true joy begins to disappear. “Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with you, not to avoid the calamities of this world, nor so much to attain the joys of heaven, as simply for love of you” (Thomas More).

“Love for God springs from His own excellence rather than from our need of Him” (James M. Houston).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

THE MORE DILIGENTLY WE SEEK GOD, THE MORE WE WILL UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAISING HIM. To praise God is to acknowledge His greatness, not only by FEELING a deep desire to honor His excellence, but also by EXPRESSING that desire. “Worship” is the word that most accurately describes this act of praise to God. Because He is God, God is to be worshiped. Both in our hearts and on our lips, there is to be a song of gladness for all that God is.

While it is certain that we don’t praise God as we should, our problem is not simply a failure to praise Him; it is a failure to appreciate His WORTHINESS to be praised. If the word PRAISEWORTHY can rightly be applied to any being, surely that being is God. His intrinsic nature is such as to DESERVE the exaltation and adoration of His creatures. In the majestic throne scene in chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, the striking emphasis of the entire vision is on God’s worthiness to receive worship. This note is sounded in the exultant praise of the twenty-four elders around God’s throne: “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Worthy art Thou, O God! O how worthy!

As personal beings created in God’s own image, we have a built-in need to praise our Maker. We don’t often recognize that need for what it is, but the almost tangible sense of rightness and goodness that is present in moments of real worship ought to tell us that the adoration of God fills a very deep need within us. We have been made such that praising God is a joy to experience, as well as a duty to fulfill. But how intensely we experience that joy depends on how deeply we have sought to know God’s worthiness, and also to know our debt of gratitude to Him. There will never be a day so dark that the brightness of God’s glory does not deserve our praise. “Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life . . . let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator” (William Law).

“To the ear of God everything he created makes exquisite music, and man joined in the paean of praise until he fell, then there came in the frantic discord of sin. The realization of redemption brings man by way of the minor note of repentance back into tune with praise again” (Oswald Chambers).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

THE VAST RICHES OF GOD’S MAJESTY ARE SIGNIFIED BY EVERY WORK OF HIS CREATION, FROM THE VERY GREAT TO THE EXTREMELY SMALL. There is nothing about the natural environment that God has designed to surround and support us that does not show His greatness — if we have eyes to see and hearts to understand.

The more urbanized our culture becomes, the more difficult it is for us to keep in contact with nature. Our automated, technological way of life cuts us off from the primary evidence for God. It is no coincidence that deep faith in the reality of God is more widespread in agrarian communities, where people interact more with the marvelous things that God has made and less with the things of man’s making. The farmer who has a chance every morning before the sun comes up to rub his hand gently along the side of his milk cow, feeling her heartbeat, has an eloquent advantage over the executive who knows little more than the feel of his computer keyboard. The less daily contact we have with what God has created, the more difficult it is to think of God as we should.

Or perhaps our habitat’s powerful statements about God don’t impress us because they are so commonplace. We’ve seen sunsets on many occasions. A flower is nothing new. We saw the snow fall so many times last winter we wished we’d never see it again. And that ingenious raccoon who gets into our garbage can is nothing but a nuisance. At some point, we simply quit paying attention. Even the most amazing things cease to amaze us.

But the vast, eternal sweep of God’s wisdom, love, and power remains, waiting for us to open our eyes wide with the wonder that was so easy when we were children. The thunderous surf pounds the rocky shoreline every day. The clouds billow and continue their lazy drift across the blue sky. The aged oak welcomes the sparrows into its branches. The deer lifts his antlers and sniffs the wind, his ears alert. A clear stream tumbles noisily down the mountainside while the massive peak above silently surveys the earth for miles around. Everywhere, and in all things, the creation scintillates with the glory of its Maker.

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God” (Gerard Manley Hopkins).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF OUR LIFE’S “JOURNEY” IS LARGELY DETERMINED BY THE “MAPS” OF REALITY THAT ARE STORED IN OUR MINDS. If our maps are wrong — if they don’t accurately represent the “territory” as it really is — we’ll be misdirected and end up far from where we need to go as human beings. In the end, we’ll be disappointed with our “destination” if we’ve based our actions on erroneous ideas about what is true and real. Our perceptions of reality are very important. They need to be as accurate as possible.

But if we can see that our maps, our “paradigms,” are important in life generally, can we see how crucial they are when the specific subject is God? If by “theology” we mean the “study of God,” there could hardly be a study of more PRACTICAL importance. A. W. Tozer was right when he argued, “It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives, we must begin to think of God more nearly as He is.” To have maps of THIS territory that turn out to be wrong is to have a problem of eternal proportions.

None of us can say that we are entirely free of this problem. Even at our best, the tendency is for us to worship not the Creator, but creatures of our own desire. To some extent, all of us have involved ourselves in idolatry, which is the worship of something other than God as He truly is. So the question is not whether anyone presently has a full knowledge of God, but whether we are moving in that direction. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Growing in our understanding of God requires honesty, humility, repentance, diligent study, and a host of other demanding requirements. But there can be no eternal life for us if we fail to set the knowledge of God as our highest goal and pursue it with wholehearted passion.

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us” (A. W. Tozer).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

JUDGED BY ANY WORTHY STANDARD, KING DAVID WAS A GREAT MAN. But the best part of his greatness was something nobler and stronger than we might expect, and it came from a source we may find surprising. David’s understanding of both his strength and its source is reflected in this honest prayer to God: “Your gentleness has made me great.” This is an intriguing statement, full of interesting implications concerning our concept of greatness.

Our world sorely needs a redefinition of greatness, does it not? Despite what many people think, power and authority alone do not constitute greatness. Nor do talent, skill, and accomplishment. More is involved, obviously, than wealth, worldly recognition, and fame. These things may often coincide with greatness, but they themselves do not define a person as great. All such things are to human greatness what clothing is to human beauty.

We don’t have to know much about David to recognize that in addition to all the “trappings” of greatness, he possessed some attributes that went much deeper. One of these was the patient, compassionate use of the power at his disposal. Not many “great” men would have spared the life of Saul, as David did when he could have easily done away with his worst enemy (1 Samuel 24). Where did David learn what he knew about true greatness? How did he acquire such strong love and powerful patience? The simple, magnificent truth is that David had learned to treat others as God had treated him: “Your gentleness has made me great.”

We can’t seek God rightly if we’re seeking wrong things for ourselves. In particular, if our intentions are based on brute-force concepts of human greatness, we’re on a path that leads away from God, not toward Him. Now and then we need to redefine our personal concept of what greatness is and where it comes from. It is nothing less powerful than God’s GENTLENESS that can make us great. And when it has done so, our own gentleness will be the strongest part of our strength.

“Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right use of strength” (Henry Ward Beecher).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com

WHAT CAN WE POSSIBLY GIVE THAT WOULD BRING PLEASURE TO GOD? Not one of us has ever given to Him anything that was not flawed or incomplete. Is there any offering within our power to give that would not offend the majesty of God? It seems almost presumptuous to think of our “giving” to Him. And yet, we’re not only encouraged to give, we’re encouraged to believe that our gifts are truly significant to our Creator.

The very desire that we have to give to God is, of course, a response to His love for us. John wrote, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us . . . We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:10,19). In any giving between us and the Creator, it is always God who takes the initiative. Whatever we give is only a giving BACK to God. “For all things come from You, and of Your own we have given to You” (1 Chronicles 29:14).

It remains true, however, that we can give to God. And although our gifts fall short of the perfection He deserves, the wondrous truth is that God is still ready to receive them. Jesus went so far as to say, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). The Lord is eager to enjoy our sincere hospitality. He is pleased to dine at our table!

Even so, it takes a certain courage to offer ourselves back to God. We are tempted to think that none of our feeble efforts to love God will make any difference to Him. But they will indeed. When we continue to offer God whatever we can, getting back up after each defeat and resisting the devil’s suggestion that we ought to give up and quit, what we’re offering to God is a loyal heart. And not only does God find real joy in this gift, He surrounds us with the strength to move forward. “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

“God hears no sweeter music than the cracked chimes of the courageous human spirit ringing in imperfect acknowledgment of his perfect love” (Joshua Loth Liebman).

Gary Henry – WordPoints.com