Tag: strength

Minding the Pain

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” —G.K Chesterton

God has called me to many things, and in light of the fact that I’m not getting any younger, I’m frequently asked how I do it. “Don’t you get tired?” “Where do you find the time?” “Doesn’t it hurt?” As he burned his finger with a smile while extinguishing a match, T.E. Lawerence quipped, “Of course it hurts—the trick is not minding the pain.” For us who follow Jesus, it’s more than not minding—it’s knowing—knowing that the difficulties of living God’s life on earth are grossly offset by the goodness and love others receive from Him because we were willing to take the pain for them to get it.

Go for it. He who called you is faithful and He is able.

—j

The Strong Man

Don Talley, confined to a wheelchair by a difficult genetic condition, said,

“So many afflicted people say, ‘God, if you won’t heal me, you can’t use me.’ Stop telling God what he can’t do. Our identity is in Christ, not our hurts and failures.”

He said this to thousands, after speaking to thousands upon thousands more. He still does.

I’m glad Jesus is so strong. So is Don.

—j

Stronger than Coffee

Oruel, a fictional pagan in C.S. Lewis’ book, Till We Have Faces, lashed out at the gods for their fickleness…

“I say the gods deal very un-rightly with us. For they will neither…go away and leave us to live our own short days to ourselves, nor will they show themselves openly and tell us what they would have us do. For that too would be endurable. But to hint and hover, to draw near us in dreams and oracles, or in a waking vision that vanishes as soon as seen, to be dead silent when we question them and then glide back and whisper words we cannot understand in our ears when we most wish to be free of them, and to show to one what they hide from another; what is all this but cat-and-mouse play, blindman’s buff, and mere jugglery? Why must holy places be dark places?”

I have sometimes felt the same way about God. I’m glad He’s not that way. Alistair Maclean knew it, too…

“As the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mist hides the hills, happenings of my lot hide the shining of Thy face from me. Yet, if I may hold Thy hand in the darkness, it is enough; since I know that, though I may stumble in my going, Thou dost not fall.”

He is good and He is strong. Stronger than coffee. Stronger than anything.

Hang on.

—j