Blessings

I recently heard a song for the first time that moved me to tears. The song is called Blessings and the artist is Laura Story. I was listening to the lyrics and contemplating how God's greatest gifts often come in the most bewildering packages: babies loved and longed for, lost before taking a breath. Loving fathers suddenly taken out of children's lives. Devoted mothers loosing the cancer battle while trying to find ways to help their young children remember them. Dynamic people of faith killed by seemingly random events. Natural disasters wiping entire towns off the map. Beautiful young ladies killed in car wrecks before even getting a driver's license. Brilliant young men with voices lost in the sea of autism. Sweet innocent toddlers whose bodies are racked with the pains of degenerative disease. All these and more can cause us to shake our fists at God and demand explanation, or worse, turn our backs to him and refuse to listen. But as I have discovered, we learn very little when life is easy, times are good, bodies are healthy, and fears are few. The sovereignty of God is one of the absolute hardest and most painful lessons I ever had to learn, and it is one that He reiterates on occasion. It is not by any means pleasant or fun when those "lesson reviews" come. But remember that Romans 8:28 tells us "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose." Notice that this passage does not tell us that all things ARE good, it says that in all things GOD WORKS for our good. He uses circumstances in our lives to bring us closer to Him, to teach us His most important lessons, and to bring glory and honor to himself. One of my favorite illustrations of this was a scene I saw once in a movie. A character in the movie had been devastated and her heart hardened by terrible things that had happened in her life. She resisted any attempts to share the word of God and was hostile and hateful to the main character. In the climactic moment she grabbed a stunningly beautiful stained glass picture and threw it to the floor, shattering it into a million pieces and declared "this is my life. This is what happened to me. You can't fix it. No one can fix it. It will never be the same again." She then stormed off in angry tears. Later in the movie, the main character presented her with a gift. He had gathered up the pieces of the stained glass picture and formed them together into a stunningly beautiful vase. The symbolism was so beautiful. The exact same materials which made up the picture, now made up an object of completely different form and function, something which could never have existed had the picture not been shattered. The message is clear. God uses our most painful and most difficult experiences to break us in order that we can be molded and shaped into something new, something more wonderful, more beautiful, more useful, and more reflective of His great grace and redemption. Consider the lyrics in Miss Story's song: "What if Your blessings come through raindrops? What if Your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near? What if the trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?" As I listened to the song I wept. I considered the words for days afterward. I thought of an area near my home where several weeks ago trains passing by sparked fires along the highway. For several miles along the road the ground was streaked with areas of charred blackened earth amidst the dry grasses of the last season. It looked horrible, ugly, and wasted in the days after the fire. But as days turned to weeks, winter gave way to spring, the sun warmed and rains began to fall, I watched something emerge. The areas which were burned are now the most vibrant lush green grass anywhere in the area. The areas which remained untouched by the fire are still brown and dead looking, the fresh growth straining to push up through the remains of the old. The fire, which was frightening and menacing, which fire fighters rushed to stop, was the mechanism God used to rid the land of the old, the dead, the encumbering leftovers from the past, and to prepare it to receive his life giving rain and sunshine. It was the destructive force of the fire that prepared the way for the creative powers of God to be displayed. God works this way in our lives also. When we are faced with our hardest challenges, our most difficult struggles, our most painful experiences, it is then that God is most at work. He is preparing our hearts, burning off the dross to make way for new and greater blessings. It is during these times that we do well to remember the last verses of Romans 8: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble of hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?....No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present, nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."