On Affliction

Sometimes, God's word & teaching comes and rests easily on us. For example, "you are loved with an everlasting love..." Incredible teaching...and easy to take to heart.

Other times, the Word comes with difficulty, and is not at all easy to take to heart.

For example, consider this, from the amazing Psalm 119:

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word...It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
(Psalm 119:67, 71)

This is one of the biblical passages & concepts that's not difficult to teach in Sunday School. But it is most difficult to teach to those questioning eyes looking back in the mirror every morning. (Aside: it seems that one of the things the Lord is doing for/to/in me these days is helping me examine my own teaching to make sure I don't teach too easily nor with excess difficulty. And to make sure I genuinely believe what I teach and try hard to practice it.)

Here's John Piper on 5 ways affliction is good for us:
(quote begins)

1. Affliction takes the glibness of life away and makes us more serious so that our mindset is more in tune with the seriousness of God’s word.

2. Affliction knocks worldly props from under us and forces us to rely more on God which brings us more in tune with the aim of the word.

3. Affliction makes us search the scriptures with greater desperation for help rather than treating it as marginal to life.

4. Affliction brings us into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings so that we fellowship more closely with him and see the world more readily through his eyes.

5. Affliction mortifies deceitful and distracting fleshly desires, and so brings us into a more spiritual frame which fits God’s word more.

I pray that we will not begrudge the pedagogy of God.
(quote ends; entire blurb found here in an article called God's Painful Exegetical Help)

Join me in praying for these lessons--and others--to be completely learned by me while in this desert. Selfishly, I'd like to learn these lessons quickly, so we can get on with life after & without this disease. *sigh* But I really do pray that I would not "begrudge the pedagogy of God."

Personal Update:
--I'm driving now!! (*faint applause, as at a golf tournament*)
I felt like a 16-year-old with a brand-new license yesterday; perhaps we take simple pleasures too much for granted until they are taken away...
--Feeling pretty good, though still quite tired
I think the tiredness is a general malaise due to 6 months of tests, wondering, emotional roller coasters, and a bit of fear tossed in.
--On the verge of being caught up at work
In fact, by the end of today, I should be pretty close to there!
--Going fishing today, weather permitting
(or perhaps despite the weather!) Way, way overdue...
--Spent a great day yesterday hanging out with a buddy from high school who lives in CO.
He flew down to see his Dad in Ft. Walton Beach, and drove over here to see me. We hung out much back in HS days...jazz & marching band, class, juvenile delinquency, the works. It is a great honor and blessing that he took the time & $$ to rent a car & drive over to H'burg for a few hours hanging with me.

OK, work break's over.

With Love & Hope in the midst of God's school,
Mike