Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I woke up as per usual this morning and whilst I lay in bed longer than is good when one wants to get to work on time, got to work. Work wasn't the hard thing about today, the hard thing, the C thing was an appointment I had partway through the day where I needed to ask someone for a few thousand dollars back because a specialist had seen the work that they'd completed on me and said a) it was shoddy and b) it needed to be redone c) more work also now needed to be done.
The thing which gets me is this: while I've been praying (and others have been praying more than I have) maybe what God wanted to do in me was deeper than just the healing we've been praying for (although, still praying for that...) maybe the work that God has been doing on my character has been, to him, that's been just as or more important.
On wednesday, the day I saw the specialist, I read the following from Holy Trinity Brompton (and it sums up what I'm getting at better than I could!):
Hard Times
Smith Wigglesworth was a remarkable man. He was born on 8 June 1859 to an impoverished family in Yorkshire. As a small child, he worked in the fields pulling turnips alongside his mother. He also worked in factories. During his childhood he was illiterate. In 1882 he married Polly, who taught him to read. He often stated that the Bible was the only book he ever read.
He was a plumber by trade but had to abandon it after he became too busy with an amazing ministry of preaching and healing. There are even accounts of people being raised from the dead through his ministry. Yet he said on one occasion that he would rather see one person saved through his preaching than ten thousand healed.
Life was not always easy for Smith Wigglesworth. He went through hard times. He wrote, ‘Great faith is a product of great fights. Great testimonies are the outcome of great tests. Great triumphs can only come out of great trials.’
The Bible is very realistic. We live in a fallen world. Everyone goes through hard times. Some people find themselves in circumstances that make life hard pretty much all of the time.
1. Affliction and smears
Suffering is never good in itself, but God is able to use it for good. C.S. Lewis said that ‘it is [God’s] megaphone to rouse a deaf world’. The psalmist says, ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word’ (v.67).
The fact that he was going through hard times did not make him doubt God’s goodness: ‘You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees’ (v.68).
Criticism is never easy to receive. Unfair criticism is even harder. He writes, ‘Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep your precepts with all my heart’ (v.69). The attack has come from the arrogant, those whose ‘hearts are callous and unfeeling’ (v.70). Yet, in the midst of this, the psalmist finds ‘delight’ in God’s words.
He is able to see that God has actually used his affliction. ‘It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees. The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold’ (vv.71-72).
God sometimes uses ‘affliction’ to build our character. One image used by the New Testament is that of disciplining children. The writer of Hebrews says that ‘Our parents disciplined us for a while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness’ (Hebrews 12:10).
Peter uses a different image: that of a metal worker refining silver and gold. He writes that his readers may all ‘have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials’ (1 Peter 1:6). He goes on to explain why God allows this: ‘These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed’ (v.7).
Lord, thank you that as we look back on our lives we can often see the way in which you have used the hard times. Thank you that we do not need to be concerned when we are ‘smeared with lies’. Thank you that we need not be surprised by the arrogant, whose hearts are callous and unfeeling. Rather, they should drive us closer to you and cause us to delight in your words. Thank you Lord that the words of your mouth are more precious than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.
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