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Exchanged Glory V: God Meant it for Good
<page 183>If growth in character (also called recovery) is based only on giving up this sort of emotion, it will likely fail. We can tough it out for a while, and sometimes we need to, but ongoing obedience needs to be more than duty.
In Chapter Eight, “The Hedge of Thorns,” I described how my personality reached the point where so many of my emotions led me toward the smoking fetish that it seemed the only way to live from my heart was to indulge in the fetish.[84] I knew that this wasn’t God’s will, so I eventually chose to squelch much of my heart in an attempt to follow Him. Unfortunately, doing so cut me off from what He had created my emotions to be, and my life descended into pain.
This book has described how God restored my emotions. He slowly replaced my view of the world with His. He taught me to give up my sinful desire to grab control and so I could allow Him to shape me according to His heart. It has been His emotion stirring mine that has given me the perspective I need. God living in me enables me to experience Fun Emotions and Desires, Self-Control, Fear, Guilt, Anger, Sorrow, Brokenness, and Contentment in productive ways.
Even good emotion makes life difficult, however. Consider the following scripture:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed — always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.
Why would Paul choose to live in a way that left him hard-pressed on every side? Why would he intentionally walk into situations that left him perplexed, persecuted, or struck down? Why not stay away from trouble and enjoy the simple pleasures of life?
Paul chose the suffering that came with serving Jesus, because his heart was captured by the heartbeat of heaven. There was too much at stake to play it safe. The carnage of sin was destroying people’s lives. The same strong emotion that drove Jesus to the cross drove Paul to live a life in which He always carried about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus for the sake of others.
For the love of Christ compels us …
<page 184>Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect …
Like Jesus, Paul knew that caring might create situations that would push him beyond what he could humanly bear. He might suffer a slow and painful death at the hands of his persecutors. He might cry out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). But the love of Christ compelled him. It led him to make the same kinds of decisions that Jesus did when He was faced with our plight.
Paul trusted that his difficulties would demonstrate the excellence of God’s power. Death would work in him, but life would work in others as the Holy Spirit spoke to them through him. Though Paul didn’t intentionally inflict suffering on himself, he knew that when it came as a consequence of serving Jesus, it was intended to bring supernatural grace to those around him.
Consider the state of the world. We are surrounded by people who don’t understand their need for God. They see His works in creation, but they fail to respond. They hear His word, yet they follow their own hearts.
God looks for volunteers who are willing to do what is required to get their attention. He asks us to accept struggles that push us beyond what is humanly possible, so that those who watch can see Jesus do the impossible. Our lives become a message that says what words can’t speak. We show that there is a Heavenly Father who loves imperfect human beings enough to intervene in their lives. People see what He has done in us, and it gives them hope.
This is what I want my life to display. It is why I look for ways to share about my weaknesses, even my sexual weaknesses, so that others can see the excellence of His power. My hope is that His Spirit will work in their hearts through my story.
Seeing that this is the way God works is especially important for those who are escaping from a hedge of thorns. Our journey to freedom is part of the suffering that accomplishes the miracle of “life out of death.” As we choose to care for everyone by giving up sins that seem to cling to us like our skin, the fact that God works with us in our embarrassing predicaments makes it clear that He is willing to work with anyone. We emerge from our darkness with His character and glory, and people see the Living God in action.
Unfortunately, this process can feel insane while it is happening. We are pushed beyond what seems reasonable. We wonder if good Christians should really face what we do. We doubt that our experience could possibly be a part of a worthwhile plan, because it seems too crazy!
When we accept the journey and travel it with Him, however, our perspective changes. In my case, I can now see the value in what I faced. It taught me God’s heart concerning those who are caught in deep bondage, and it revealed His zeal to help. I also found a confidence in His love that sustains me in all of life.
I doubt an easier path could have given me so much. I stand in awe of His grace that transformed me along the way.
<page 185>How much does the Creator of the universe love the people on this planet? We all know that He loves us enough to send His Son to die for us, but He goes further. He also loves us enough to send His other precious children into trouble for the sakes of those who can’t be reached in any other way. He will allow death and life to work in us in order to touch the disobedient.
This is what we see with Joseph and his brothers. The brothers had shut their eyes to God’s glory in creation. They had failed to follow His call to them through their godly father Jacob. Nothing short of an amazing demonstration of love and power was going to get their attention.
So God took the one person who was listening to Him, Joseph, and sent him through an ordeal that revealed true grace. Joseph’s slavery, imprisonment, rise to the throne, and reconciliation with His brothers demonstrated that they hadn’t been forsaken for their sins. God loved them and was reaching out to them through Joseph. He caught their attention with a symbolic “death and resurrection” and drew them away from their rebellion.
We can be sure that this was sometimes extremely difficult for Joseph. As a seventeen-year old, he was already zealous for doing what was right. He was a man who knew how to evaluate a situation and form a plan for good. Imagine his frustration when his plans led to slavery and prison! Where he had hoped to lead his brothers into God’s goodness, he now found himself performing menial tasks in Egypt. He had to repeatedly reevaluate his hopes based on the reality of what God was doing rather than what Joseph expected Him to do.
When this sort of experience happens to any of us, we rarely come to grips with it quickly. Our hopes rise …and are then shot down. We look for an end to our struggles …and stumble onto more setbacks. We feel at peace for a time …but fall back into fuming that God should not expect anyone to endure what we face.
If we press into God, however, we discover that our only hope is to find Him in our place of Brokenness. We can’t fix what is wrong with ourselves or the world around us. Only His supernatural involvement in our lives can produce anything truly worthwhile. Our best future will be found in surrendering by faith to Him and His plan.
In the light of the huge part God must play, the part that people have played for evil seems small. Joseph expressed this thought when he said: “don't feel badly, don't blame yourselves for selling me. God was behind it. God sent me here ahead of you to save lives.” (Genesis 45:4-5, The Message). Heaven’s emotions became Joseph’s emotions, replacing his frustration with anticipation. What others meant for evil God was weaving for good.
We won’t all have dramatic rescues like Joseph’s, but that doesn’t matter. We each have unique gifts and situations that God has tailor-made to reveal His glory through us. Your story may not resemble Joseph’s, mine, or anyone else’s, but His promises are the same for all. He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), He will reveal Himself to us (John 14:21), and He will bring life out of the death working in us (2 Corinthians 4:12).
"Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol; its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; if a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised."
<page 186>Passion. That is what the bride in Song of Solomon felt for her lover. She spoke the above words to let him know the pain she would feel if he were to abandon her. “Don’t even consider leaving. I can’t imagine how I would handle it. My love for you is as strong as death. If you betray me, jealousy will burn like a raging fire. Many waters won’t be able to quench it; rivers won’t be able to overflow it. But if you stay, my delight will be worth more than all the riches of my house. I will despise everything else in comparison to you.”
That is healthy erotic love. Fun Emotions and Desires, Self-Control, Fear, Guilt, Anger, Sorrow, Brokenness, and Contentment all mix together as our entire being is poured out for another. It is a little crazy. It flies in the face of what is “sensible and safe,” but that’s what love is like.
This sort of love is a type of the emotion we find in our Creator, and it is what our hearts were designed to hold. It isn’t erotic, but it is even more powerful. Is it any wonder that when we don’t experience it, some of us turn to addiction or sexual sin as a substitute? We seek an emotional high that is strong enough to fill the empty place that is designed for our relationship with our heavenly Husband.
We need to feel what we were designed to feel …our hearts seek it. Though we also need knowledge and discipline, they are empty without a fire burning in our soul. We were created for more than the boredom of following a script, even God’s script. We were placed on this planet to know Him in His complexity and desire. Discipline is a part of that, but we can never be content with it alone. We need to share in the flame that reaches out from His heart …the ultimate reality of eternity …that we will be the bride of Christ forever (Revelation 21)!
If growth in character (also called recovery) is based only on giving up this sort of emotion, it will likely fail. We can tough it out for a while, and sometimes we need to, but ongoing obedience needs to be more than duty. It needs to be about establishing a relationship with the most stirring being in the universe – its Creator.
In Him we find the passion that gives up all the riches of His house. In fact, one time it drove Him out of the pleasure and comfort of heaven. He felt the unquenchable fire of jealousy over His separation from us. He had suffered for centuries as He endured the hopelessness of human weakness. With incredible love, He was born in a manger, lived as we do, and then hung from a cross to draw us into His arms.
It was a little crazy. It flew in the face of what was “sensible and safe,” but that’s what love is like.
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