Good morning,
I
got a great grandma story this week. A 4 year old granddaughter was
sitting on the floor near a window. As the sun moved into the right
position, the light from the sun became bright and hot. The little gal
complained to her mom that the sun was too bright. Her mom said,
“Honey, if it’s too bright, move somewhere else.” This glowing
granddaughter came back with a different solution. She said, “No, I
want the sun to move.” I laughed, but then it struck me how much that
statement was like our modern day churches. When the heat of cultural
change gets hot and uncomfortable, instead of changing our position and
outlook on what God is doing, we pray fervently that God will make the
bright light and heat go away so that we can keep enjoying life as we
know it. When Paul wrote the letter to the struggling church at Rome he
was writing to a group of people who were coming under increasingly
difficult challenges. What Paul suggested was very important for all of
us to hear.
His first point was that we who are God’s children
belong to the God of the universe. God never looses any of his children
to any set of circumstances or pressures. God knows all about the
pressures that we are facing, and he knows how these pressures will
teach us to trust our Heavenly Father and bring glory to his name. The
glory that comes from our suffering now is a very valuable part of our
sharing in the Lord’s suffering and in our Father being able to reward
us eternally for our faithful service in eternity. It is the Holy
Spirit who gives us the strength and wisdom to go on through life now,
not our determination to do the right thing no matter what. The best
part is yet to come. After we get home, that is to our eternal home, we
are going to have the awesome joy of sharing in the glory that Jesus
has been given by the Father to share with us forever. Our Savior wants
us to learn to keep our focus on his directions and on the glory that
we will share with our Father instead of the discomfort of the heat.
Lord, please keep us from making the mistake of wanting the Son to move,
and be a willing follower as the Son leads us on through the rest of
time.
Romans 8:17 And since we are his children, we are
his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory.
But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. 18
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal
to us later.
Roy Wisner
