Tag Archives: hardships

MOLLY AND ME – FEAR

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Molly has developed an irrational fear.

For some reason that I cannot understand, she is terrified of my fly swatter. Whenever I swat a fly (and they come in droves, uninvited, when I start to cook dinner) or kill a mosquito, she runs into my neighbour’s house (I live in a granny flat on the property of my son’s parents-in-law) and jumps onto her lap for protection.

Now, Molly has never been abused because I bought her from a breeder at the age of 6 weeks. I have never disciplined her physically, so she has no reason to be afraid of me. In every other way, she trusts me and is affectionate towards me to the point of being clingy at times when I have been out for a while.

Once again, she reminds me of many believers, including me in the past, who mistakenly believer, through ignorance, that difficulties and hard times in our lives mean that God is punishing us for something we have done. We are afraid of God; we don’t trust Him because we think that He is waiting to give us a hard time because of sin.

Satan has a field day in our minds. We hear his accusing voice when we have sinned and we believe the guilt we feel because we are ignorant of the truth. What is the truth?

So now, there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And, because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death (Rom 8:1-2 – NLT).

When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the penalty for all the sin of all people for all time. God is not angry with us when we sin, but sin does disrupt our fellowship with Him. We must acknowledge that He is right and we are wrong when we have sinned and receive the forgiveness and cleansing of the blood of Jesus that He freely gives us (1 John 1:9).

Why does God allow us to have hardships in our lives if it is not punishment for sin? The writer to the Hebrews gives us the answer.

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? …Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines is for our good, that we might share in His holiness (Heb. 12:7, 10 – NIV).

God passionately longs that we trust Him so implicitly that we never doubt His love, even when we go through hard times. It is in the difficulties we face that we learn that, in all things, He is working for our good that we might become like Jesus, the perfect Son who always trusted His Father’s love, even when He was crucified.

How can I communicate to Molly that I love her and that I would never do anything to hurt her. She does not understand my language and I cannot speak “dog”! I can only demonstrate my love by showing her in my actions that whatever I do is for her good – even to killing the flies that contaminate her food.

But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8 – NLT).

God wants us to trust that love when trouble and hardships come so that we live our lives every day without fear.

And, as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So, we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love (1 John 4:17-18). 

 

MOLLY AND ME – DISCIPLINE

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At fourteen months, I guess it’s normal for Molly to have a little trouble with discipline. Like all human children, she also has a mind of her own.

The problem, though, is that she doesn’t know what is good for her. If she had her way, she’d chew every old bone, or bit of discarded food she finds on the pavement when we take our daily walk or, worse still, she’d sample every bit of rubbish that smells “good” to her, no matter whether it is harmful or not.

Fortunately for her (and for my peace of mind, I might add), our home is inside a walled garden from which there is no escape. She is never allowed outside the property except when she is securely under my control with harness and leash.

She sometimes obeys my commands like, “Sit,” when there is a treat being offered or, “Take your bone to your bed,” when I am on my way out and she gets a bone to chew while I am away. However, like a young child, she still falls short on obedience most of the time.

Why is it so important for her to learn to obey? An unruly puppy, like an unruly child, is a danger to herself. If I allowed her to do as she pleases, she would not last long in this world. For example, small as she is, it is her ambition to take on every dog in the neighbourhood, big or small, Fortunately for her, apart from my control, they are either behind a high wall and a strong gate or held securely on a leash by their owners.

Humans, from birth, have an inbred capacity to destroy ourselves. It all began with Adam. Lured by the promise of being “like God”, regardless of what God had instructed him, he fell for the lie that doing his own thing was good for him… and our world as it is today, is the result.

Believe it or not, God knows far better than we do what is good for us. Since He is our Creator and He loves us with a passion we will never understand, the whole world of us, good or bad, He has set the boundaries within which we can live in peace, safety and happiness. However, like self-willed puppies and toddlers, we test those boundaries because we neither love Him more than ourselves nor trust His love for us.

Discipline… obedience… trust… these are closely linked together. The writer to the Hebrews encourages his readers to trust the Father enough to submit to His discipline because, not only does He want to save us from ourselves but in doing so, He is slowly transforming us from wayward and unruly brats into sons and daughters who resemble Him and are fit to live in His presence

eternally.

…Have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as His 

children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when He corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes each one He accepts as His child.

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as His own children.Whoever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?

… Since we respected our earthly father who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits and live forever?

For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in His holiness. (Hebrews 12:5-7; 9-10) 

In all animal society, there are boundaries that each generation must learn in order to survive in the wild. Molly is only a dog. She knows nothing of God and His love for her but, like all creatures, she must submit to my discipline if she is to live with me in peace.

I you and I are members of God’s family, we are serving our apprenticeship on earth for an eternal home with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. How important it is for us to submit to the hardships that are part of daily life and trust the Father to work in all things for our good so that He can prepare us to live with Him forever.

 

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Plus Or Minus?

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PLUS OR MINUS?

It’s amazing, isn’t it how many minuses life dishes out and how few pluses by comparison, so it seems. When you look back over your own life, as I do over mine, what stands out for you? Hard times, tough experiences, bitter memories or reverses of one kind or another? Dark shadows across the landscape of your life?

I can think of the many days, weeks, and months of hardship and suffering I endured which I would have exchanged for better ones any day. After my marriage, I had four sons in quick succession, four in four and three-quarter years, all single births. For a while we lived in a new area where we had no telephone. I had no car – we could only afford one – and I was housebound with four young children.

My husband not only worked all day but he spent most evenings, and often deep into the night doing his “ministry” which left me alone with my children and unable to make contact with the outside world if anything went wrong.

My fifth pregnancy, a longed-for little girl ended in a stillbirth at thirty five weeks. In a fit of rage during which the umbilical cord went into spasm and formed a clot, my baby died in my womb. Shortly after that, we moved to another town where my husband had accepted a call to pastor a small church.

For a while, things went well but the unfinished business of my husband’s childhood haunted our relationship. During our stay in that town, I lost two more pregnancies; my husband was voted out of the church and had to seek secular employment; we sent my eldest son to boarding school because he was unhappy in the local dual-medium school and we as husband and wife became more and more estranged because of the anger which masked his emotional pain.

Once again, we had to move because my husband had alienated himself from his work colleagues. He was excellent at his job but his emotional pain from early childhood kept him from forming meaningful relationships. A post became vacant in the town where my eldest son was in boarding school. We moved there and were able to bring him back into our family circle.

Unfortunately, his years away from home had alienated him from us and he, too manifested a great deal of anger. Our family life was turbulent, to say the least. It was painful for me as a mother to watch unresolved anger eroding the family’s bonds, one child damaging another through anger and aggression and to see a father slowly destroying any hope of true father/son togetherness because he did not know how to be a father.

The outcome was inevitable. When three of my sons were out of the house and the fourth close to completing his schooling, I was thrown out of my home, leaving my youngest son in his father’s care. I filed for divorce but I had no home to which to take my son. I lived for a while in the nurses’ home near the hospital where I worked and for six months house sitting for a doctor who worked at the hospital.

This sounds like a bleak picture, doesn’t it?

The Apostle Paul made a statement of ringing assurance to which I can say, “Amen’” with all my heart.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

As painful as many of my life experiences have been, with hindsight I can say with confidence that God turned them to good. He is in the business of restoration, from the reverses in our individual lives all the way to the restoration of all things at the end of the age.

How could I have felt and known the greatness of God’s love in the midst of my loss had He not allowed me to go through it? How could I have experienced the many times He provided for me when I had nothing if I had not gone through tough times? Even the property I prayed for, debt free, to run a Bed and Breakfast and the expertise to be a business woman with no training or know-how were miracles of God’s loving provision. He turned my minuses into pluses.

He turned every tragedy into a blessing which has enriched my life, given me ever-increasing confidence in His love and goodness and enabled me to minister to others in their pain. The mountain peaks of suffering, pain and loss have been transformed into vantage points from which I now view the panorama of God’s greatness – love, mercy, compassion, miracles, healing and renewal.

My sons are now husbands and fathers. God is taking each one on his own journey of restoration – fathers learning to father their own children as they respond to the revelation of God’s love for them; brothers experiencing reconciliation and the joy of being family again. My life has been renewed as the Father has loved me and revealed that love through a loving family, both my own blood family and the blood-bought family of His children.

How much richer our lives would be if we anticipated good things to come out of our painful experiences instead of becoming hard and bitter when our lives go “pear-shaped!” I am learning, instead of sitting down in a bundle of misery and bewailing my hardships, to declare with confidence, “God will turn even this to my good and His glory.

And, best of all, I know that, in the end His plan is to restore in me and in you the beautiful image of His Son, Jesus.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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