Our associate pastor was back at church for the first time since he was stabbed 37 times (I believe that is the correct number). He stood up and spoke briefly to thank everyone for their prayers and gifts. Seeing the humility and brokenness and compassion and love in him was a shock to me. He has always been a man of God, but the man that I saw today was a man who had suffered, had softer, gentler features. He spoke about the work that God had been doing in his life, and how thankful he was that the whole situation happened, because God used it do bring about a lot of awareness into his life of how to be a better husband, pastor, father, etc. I became keenly aware of the courage and faithfulness to God that had been challenged to rise to, and how he met the challenge and something beautiful came of it.
As I watched and listened, something began to click in my mind. If we will allow God to do things His way, He will bring about the character development, spiritual growth, and death to selfish desires that we all long to have in our lives. You may ask “why do we long for that?” Because that is what brings real peace and joy.
Recently I have been reading “From Dream to Reality” by Jerry Nance, currently the Global Teen Challenge President. It is the story of God calling him to work with Teen Challenge in Florida and the challenges and miracles he saw along the way. One of the disappointments he faced was putting 15k down on a building they were needing to purchase to move, and then the community shutting them down and they were not allowed to move there. They ended up losing that money. I was greatly offended at God for “wasting” that hard earned, hard raised, money. But today something new dawned on me and I realized in a new way that God uses disappointing circumstances to refine us to trust Him and die to our desires and become surrendered and broken before Him. He uses situations like that to remove the crippling pride from our hearts, and to replace it with a death to self and a surrender to His ways.
When our executive pastor was stabbed in his home, it was very disappointing for us, who believe God would always protect pastors from something like that, and I am sure it was disappointing for him when it happened, but God can do powerful things in our lives through disappointing circumstances. The story is not over until God says it is over.
Romans 5:1 – 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope.