More reflection

Just wanted to share a few more thoughts ....this time on the idea of dealing with the hurts and pains of life. I will first share a quote from a book I read earlier this semester called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, by Peter Scazzero. Scazzero actually credits the second half of this quote to another author named Gerald Sittser.

"Turning toward our pain is counterintuitive. But in fact, the heart of Christianity is that the way to life is through death, the pathway to resurrection is through crucifixion...

...the quickest way to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west chasing after it, but to head east into the darkness until you finally reach the sunrise."

In another book I read by Dan Allender called The Healing Path, Dr. Allender uses the story of Hosea's wife Gomer who was a whore to depict the "the healing path" that we must take. God takes us into the desert in our suffering and hardship to strip us of our "other lovers" who will not follow us there. These "other lovers" are the idols of our hearts and God shows us that they will not rescue us from the desert. But God will. He resorts us there and returns His adulterous bride back to Himself.

When we are honest to ourselves and to God about our hurts and pains, it is there that God often reveals Himself to us. God invites us to wrestle with Him. He can handle it. There are countless examples of this in scripture. Job and the Psalmists are great examples. Take a look at Psalm 13:

In the first stanza David is expressing his sorrow and questioning God about it:

1 How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Where then should we go after we have begun to wrestle with sorrow? It is usually one of two places. One might be to abandon faith and hope and a turn away from God. The other might be what the spirit of God leads David to do in the next stanza:

3 Look on me and answer, LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

David cries out to God in desperation. When we find ourselves is the desert, will we look to the only one who will follow after us there, or will we turn from Him and wonder of into the horizon of hopeless despair? When we turn to the Lord He reminds us of who He is and what He has done as David recounts in the last stanza. He closes in praise to his Savior.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the LORD’s praise,
for he has been good to me.

I hope this is encouraging...It has been for me.