Farquhar's Midweek Message 8 July 2020
Scent & Suffering
Farquhar’s Midweek
Message – 8 July 2020
I love honeysuckle. I love the aroma – it brings back wonderful childhood memories playing outside. Stop. Breathe it in. Mmmm…that’s good! This year our honeysuckle plants have bloomed especially well and their beautiful scent is drifting across the garden. When I went up close to take a nose-full of the aroma I was surprised to discover that the red tubular flowers had no scent.
This made me think of how when we open our lives up as a pleasing fragrance to God, we make ourselves vulnerable to all sorts of challenges, enemies and struggles along life’s way – we face suffering. But the suffering we face is not meant to force us to close ourselves off to the world in a desire to protect ourselves. We’re not meant to make it our life’s aim to avoid suffering. Instead our life’s aim is to have every part of ourselves open to God in whole-hearted devotion. And when suffering comes our way God will use it in his purposes, if we allow him to.
It was as I listened to Romans being read to me that I saw this truth afresh. Paul says we are to ‘boast’ or ‘rejoice’ in the hope of the glory of God (5:2), and then he immediately goes on to say, ‘Not only so, but we also boast (rejoice) in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’ (5:3-5).
Isn’t that remarkable? Just as we’re to boast and rejoice in the hope we have in our glorious God we’re also meant to boast and rejoice in our sufferings! How is that possible?!
As
followers of Jesus we’re meant to be signed up to the truth that our sufferings
produce good things, things of eternal significance, within us. If we go
through our suffering with a heart and mind open to God in obedience and trust
then we can be sure that our sufferings will produce what’s promised: perseverance
which leads to a growth in Christian character, to a strengthening of our
eternal hope and a fresh appreciation of the love God has poured into our
hearts by his Holy Spirit.
God does understand how difficult our sufferings are. He knows that we will ‘groan inwardly as we wait eagerly’ (8:23) for the Day when all suffering ceases. But by His power and love he wants to use every single second of our suffering to deepen our relationship to Him and to make us more like his Son. We have to remember that in Jesus we have a Saviour who went through sorrow upon sorrow and yet his suffering and death brought about the greatest good – our eternal salvation. We need to trust that ‘In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’ (8:28). And as Paul says in another of his letters, we can be sure that ‘Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all’ (2 Cor 4:17)
So when we’re tempted to close in on ourselves and allow our sufferings to lead us down a road of discouragement, frustration, hopelessness and despair, our Gracious God wants to show us a much better way. A way he’s planned out – that will grow in us a sturdy faith and a deeper sense of his Love and Life in us.
May we encourage one another to stay open to God’s will and way even through our suffering. Pass this message on to someone who needs that encouragement. Whatever you are going through right now may God enable you to be the sweet fragrance of Life to those around you, that they too may come and find Life in Him.
Yours in Christ, the One who bears the scars through which we are forever healed.
Farquhar
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Click here if you want to listen to a song called Scars,
to help lead you in praise to our Faithful God.
