Many of us have people in our lives we pray for to receive salvation. A phrase struck my soul and heart mightily today in that regard.
My younger son recommended Jack Deere’s “Even in Our Darkness: A Story of Beauty in a Broken Life” to me and I’m just now getting around to reading it. I have more books to read than I can count, especially on my e-reader, and even more that I want to read; but I digress.
Jack was recounting how he privately accepted Jesus as His Savior without really understanding how or why. The change in his life proved the truth of the transaction. At one point in his story, he said God had “slipped in through the crack of an open wound.” Reflecting on this observation, I realized that’s how it happens more often than we imagine.
Pain urges us to change as few other things. Being comfortable is likely the biggest hindrance to new directions for behavior and life choices. Conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit yields realization of the connection of wrongs to their consequences. But conviction comes by realizing the pain of experience is a hindrance to feeling good about our lives and our selves. Trading pain for joy seems an obvious choice but getting through the change is not always a quick or easy process.
In thinking about people I know who need the grace of Jesus, it is their pain and anguish for themselves and their relationships that often grips me. I realize that I sometimes make the mistake of asking God to change their situation when the prayer they need me to ask for is the realization that the pain is optional. Instead I should ask that they change their relationship to God from resistance to surrender. In my own life, God continually uses circumstances to move me from sorrow to joy, from pain to healing of soul or body, from lack to abundance by accepting the truth of His Word. The result of surrender to God and acceptance of the sacrifice of Jesus is freedom – from pain, anguish, and sorrow. And we never have to return to the burden of the past.
Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. New International Version (NIV) 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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