Thoughts of a Ragamuffin Part 6

Thoughts of a Ragamuffin Part 6: Hassles, Struggles, Troubles

When John Calhoun was the pastor of Long Beach First and I was new to the

Anaheim District some 20 years ago I scheduled a meeting with him just to

pick his brain.

In the course of the meeting I asked what to expect, he smiled and told me to

read the first sentence in M Scott Pecks book the Road Less Traveled.

It read “Life Is Difficult.”

Rich Mullins wrote a great song about the Hassles, Struggles and Troubles of life,

he entitled it Bound to Come Some Trouble.

Rich said, “I think everyone thinks if you have struggles in your life it’s because

you’re not really filled with the Holy Spirit, or you’re not really reading your

Bible daily, or you’re doing something wrong.

I think life, by nature, is a struggle.”

(James Bryan Smith, An Arrow Pointing To Heaven, p. 105)

Today in Part 6 of the Thoughts of a Ragamuffin we’re going to once again

consider that God allows us to struggle to accomplish in our lives what

would not be accomplished if we had everything easy.

In fact without obstacles, challenges, difficulties, without trials and

tribulations we will never thrive,

we will not be able to live our lives to the full.

It’s sad but true, no pain, no gain.

We’ve all asked why Hassles, Struggles and Troubles of life?

It’s definitely a conundrum for me.

I have not been able figure it out.

There is the evil that people do of their own accord,

there are natural disasters as well as sickness.

I just can’t imagine God’s willing evil.

Bad things happen because we live in a world that is broken.

There are man made problems:

Ecclesiastes 8:10 (MSG)

“As long as men and women have the power to hurt each other this is the way it is.”

There are what we refer to as natural disasters:

Romans 8:19-22 (NIV)

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

For me a broken world is also why there is sickness and parasites.

God doesn’t will evil. (James 1:16-17)

Yet bad things happen to good people.

Then on the other hand God presents us with Hassles, Struggles and Troubles of

life to correct us and to perfect us.

God disciplines His children:

Romans 15:26-27 (MSG)

You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child. ⁶ So it's paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him.

God corrects His children:

Psalms 119:67-68 (NIV)

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees.

God matures His children:

James 1:2-4 (MSG)

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. ³ You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. ⁴ So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

Remember when dad said to you just before the spanking—

“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you?”

The scripture says:

Lamentations 3:33 (NIV)

For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

How does a person know that their Hassles, Struggles and Troubles are the result

of living in a broken world with sinful people or that their difficulties,

problems, and afflictions are God’s loving work in their lives?

That just might be the wrong kind of question to ask.

I think that as a believer regardless if our struggles and sufferings are

a natural part of life,

the result of sinful decisions,

or the direct intervention of God in our lives

that we need to exercise faith that God will use whatever

has befallen us for His glory.

Exercising faith is the only way you can possibly deal with all the craziness in this

Life.

Its faith that makes it possible for the Apostle Paul to write:

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)

Be joyful always; ¹⁷ pray continually; ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Hassles, Struggles and Troubles

Pain and suffering and frustration,

Injustice, missed opportunity, even death

Happens to everyone.

Through faith it can all be used as a bridge to bring you closer to God and a tool

for God to train and transform you.

In order to get to the place where you begin to see catastrophe as opportunity

you have to believe that God is good, that God is writing a good story,

and that in the end everything that can be redeemed and

made right will be,

and that the righteous will never be forsaken.

That’s the faith that you need to exercise.

What is the gist of God’s story?

I think first and foremost God wants to establish a righteous relationships

with you that will be enjoyed now and throughout eternity.

God’s story is what the message of the Gospel is all about.

1 Peter 3:18 (NIV)

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

Through faith in Jesus, you have access to God.

When you acknowledge that you are alienated from God,

When you believe that Jesus can reconcile you to God,

When you commit to being a follower of Jesus.

And you ask God to accept your faith

God cleanses you from all unrighteousness,

Adopts you as His own,

The Holy Spirit indwells you,

empowering you to become more and more like Jesus.

What does Jesus look like—

About 5’8” brown hair, brown eyes, wiry, beard.

Ahh—Jesus looks like love.

Love that obeys the Father,

Love that meets needs of others,

Love that manages assets well.

Love that is willing to commune with

whosoever will.

Jesus is the kind of person you like to be with if you’re a truth seeker,

if you want to live your life to the full.

There is life in His eyes,

laughter in His voice,

wisdom in His words.

As we follow the example of Jesus we will continue to enjoy fellowship with

our new family the Church,

the scripture tells us that He continually makes our relationship

with Him right.

1 John 1:7 (NIV)

if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

To be like Jesus is to be in a righteous relationship with the Father.

I think the end of the story is all things being remade as God has always

intended with the saints enjoying unity with God. (Rev 21:5)

I need to be reminded that even as I do exactly what I’m supposed to do,

Hassles, Struggles and Troubles, trials and tribulations and suffering

are a part of the deal

are part of the story,

that faith convinces me, ends well.

If someone told you that in this life

ii you become a Christian you’d get healthy, wealthy and happy,

they lied.

Rich wrote:

“The Apostle Paul was a man who was obviously filled with the Spirit,

a man who obviously had studied the Scriptures,

a man who had an authentic encounter with the living Christ,

and he prays to God and says,

‘Lord, I beg You to take this thorn from my flesh.’

Paul says, ‘Lord, I’ve been praying for You to take away this infirmity of mine

and You haven’t.’

And God looks down at him and doesn’t say,

‘Yeah, it’s because you’re so spiritually immature!’

God didn’t look at Paul and say,

‘Well, you know, if you would just get up earlier and pray a

couple more hours in the morning’ or

If you would just memorize another ten psalms.’

He didn’t say any of that.

He merely said to Paul, Hey, my grace is plenty.

My grace is sufficient.’” (Smith, Arrow, pp. 105-106)

“Even the most devout people go through times of suffering and anguish.”

(Smith, Arrow, p. 108)

I think Paul asked the Father for a good gift.

He needed whatever his thorn in the flesh was removed so he could be more

effective in doing the ministry that God had called him to do.

But he doesn’t get the answer he wants.

He gets a no.

Can anything be more confusing to a believer to ask God for something

good and not get it?

Its times like that you can really doubt that God is on your side.

Remember when we talked about love a couple of weeks ago—

I said that we often think that if a person loves us, if a person is good,

they will do everything they can to make us happy?

We have to shed ourselves of that kind of thinking.

Love meets needs, not necessarily making someone happy,

because God knows what you really need to accomplish,

what He wants you to do.

Too often I have thought that I was so wise,

I knew exactly what is needed to make things right,

and so I ask God to do what I want to fix the situation.

Only to find the He didn’t come through me.

He didn’t do what I wanted.

When God “fails us” we can get angry or disillusioned or lose our faith.

Or we go another direction and convince ourselves that God didn’t do

what we wanted because we didn’t earn His blessing.

Things are bad because I am bad.

Friends sometimes things are bad just because things are bad.

Ecclesiastes 6:1 (MSG)

I looked long and hard at what goes on around here, and let me tell you, things are bad. And people feel it.

Everyone deals with difficulty no one is exempt.

But you can’t let the Hassles, Struggles, Troubles

derail you from living your life to the full.

Rather have faith that God is writing a good story,

And continue to seek Him out in the midst of your difficulty.

Life is difficult, but Jesus said:

“In this world you will have trouble.

But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 (NIV)

“Life is not always pleasant, but life is a great gift,

and your job is to go out there and live it the best you can.”

(Smith, Arrow, p. 106)

In living it the best you can you use all those hassles, struggles and troubles

to help you lean hard into God,

to seek His grace in every situation,

to seek Him with all your heart.

You allow your pain to push you into the arms of God.

Let’s consider the pain of loneliness.

Poet Tennessee Williams said:

“We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.”

I think we all feel lonely, some of more than others.

Because of the separation and the alienation we all experience as a residual

affect of the Adams sin,

Even after we become believers,

though it is greatly lessened,

we have this pervading sense of isolation.

There is a hole in our hearts that longs for a companionship,

communion and fellowship.

In those times that you are most aware of it,

Use it to help you enter into the God’s presence.

Let the pain pull you in.

So that God can fill that intimacy gap.

Jesus said something else that is very important to our understanding of our

Hassles, Struggles and Troubles

John 15:12 (NIV)

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

As followers of Jesus we are to love like He loves.

That’s a really tall order.

If you choose to love, you are opening yourself up for suffering.

And this is even more difficult,

When you allow yourself to be loved,

There is a chance that you will be hurt.

Love can hurt because of the personal prices its willing to pay to meet the need of

the beloved.

That’s one side of risking love, the other is allowing yourself to be

loved.

Rich said, “I think everyone who allows themselves to honestly be loved is going

to be wounded.” (Smith, Arrow, p. 108)

The people who love you will eventually fail you and when they do its

going to be a wounding experience.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta put it this way

“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts,

then there is no hurt, but only more love.”

(http://www.thinkexist.com/english/Author/x/Author_4200_1.htm)

I’ve lived the first kind of hurt, love that meets the needs of others.

I have felt the that second kind of hurt, when love fails.

But this love that hurts that loves till the hurt is gone—

I’m working on that.

My tendency is to withdraw and lick my wounds.

Maybe love means you take the hits but you stay engaged.

You let the wounds and the hurt from those wounds push you into the arms

of the one who said:

John 15:13 (NIV)

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

When we love like Jesus has commanded us to love one another,

Doing what God wills just might be the reason we are experiencing

Hassles, struggles and troubles.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

Maybe we discover near the end of the story that

“in the grand scheme of life, all pain and suffering will –

if given to God, if used to push us to God –

have served to make us better and stronger disciples.” (Smith, Arrow, p. 122)

It seems to me that regardless if our hassles, struggles and troubles

are the result of living in a world that just isn’t right or

if they are because God needs to do some work in our life to make us

into the person He wants us to be,

that we can use our pain to help us grow spiritually.

“God allows us to struggle in order to grow.” (Smith, Arrow, p. 118)

God doesn’t leave us when we go through a hard time

though often our emotions block our ability to sense His presence.

God does not abandon us in our pain,

He may not rescue us out of it,

But He does provide us with the grace we need to cope if we

will but receive it.

“The long and short of all of it is that if I believe that God is good,

then I need to accept whatever happens to me in life as being a gift,

and allow Him to take some of the things that hurt,

allow him to take some of the things that sting,

some of the things that I think are going to kill me—

allow Him to take those things and make of me the person He wants

me to be.

It may not be the person I want to be,

but it’ll be the person he would want me to be.”

(Mullins—Smith, Arrow, p. 121)

So there’s bound to come some trouble in your life,

Rich would counsel you

No need to be afraid,

No need to be ashamed of your weakness or tears,

No need to be worried,

Just reach out to Jesus, and you’ll find He’s there.

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