What to Do When it Hurts

1996

If you really want to find God, He’ll save you in that condition, but He won’t prosper you in that condition, because He fills us up with His power and His life when in weakness we boast in that weakness. We don’t moan in that weakness. In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul said, “I asked God to take away this pain. I wanted it gone. I asked Him three times.” And God said, “No. You’re missing the point, Paul. If you’ll go on doing My will and if you’ll go on pressing forward...And Paul said to the Corinthians a little earlier, “Curses on me if I don’t serve you guys with my life and with the Word of God and caring for you and loving you. Curses on me! Woe to me if I don’t do that.”

Well, the thing that was going on in his heart was that in the process of dealing with this pain and this agony he was feeling, he decided by revelation he saw that Christ Himself was crucified in weakness, not in strength. He went on to say that in 2 Corinthians 13. No chapter breaks. It was all one thought. What he was saying was that it’s okay to feel pain. That doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It doesn’t mean that something is terribly wrong. That might just mean that God wants His power to rest on you and He only lets power rest on those that are crucified in weakness rather than strength “lest any man boast.”

He doesn’t want us to be pompous and prideful and muscle-flexing, mighty, valiant soldiers. Until we get that straight in our heart that the grave is a place of hope. That it’s a good place to be. To boast in our weakness rather than to moan in our weakness, hope it goes away so eventually I can maybe be of some use to somebody else and focus outward. No! This isn’t so it can go away so you can eventually be of some use to someone else. It’s in the midst of that that you need to say, “God, I love You. I’m boasting in this weakness. I rejoice that my name has been written in the book of life. I rejoice in that fact and I’m not going to turn back. I’m going to look for others that no doubt hurt more than I do and need to experience Your love.”

In that context, He brings a word to sustain the weary. When you’re not looking out for yourself, “Will somebody please give me a word to sustain my weariness?” But instead you’re laying down your life no matter how you feel, boasting in that weakness. Then and only then the power of Christ can rest on you. As you’re praying for your friends, God can do something special in your life. That’s a thing that’s got to turn in a lot of lives around the world. That has to turn a channel in an awful lot of lives.

If I had to pick the top ten things that had to change in order for Christianity to fill the face of the earth with the glory of God, that would be one easily in the top ten, maybe in the top five. We’ve got to know what to do when we hurt. We’ve got to know what to do when we hurt. Do you turn inward? Or do you turn upward and outward to the glory of God? Full force, right in satan’s face. Boasting in our weakness, boasting in the fact that we feel like we’re dying inwardly, but renewed day by day as we call on the grace of God.

And it is day by day! You don’t get a great big truckload backing into your driveway. “Now I’m okay for the next month.” It’s day to day. You’ll experience God’s grace, you’ll taste the powers of the coming age, and it will be a little bit fleeting. Because as soon as this time has passed and this opening is passed to do God’s will and to see, to care, to love, to serve, and the opening is passed and you go home and you just want to cry. Satan says you’re a hypocrite, and you say, “No. I’m a servant of God. I’ve been bought by the Blood of the Lamb. Here are His scars. I bear them on my own body for His sake. I boast in my weakness, satan. I don’t run from it. I boast in it.” In that context, God can do miracles.

We need to get it in our head what the victorious Christian and the victorious church look like. It is not a bunch of heroes that can quote the Bible left and right all day long and can prove all of their enemies wrong. It’s people that are willing to suffer and die in humiliation, that rise up to love and to serve in the midst of their own pain. To look outward and not inward in the midst of that pain and to boast in it. And then and only then does the power of Christ rest on us, not unto ourselves, not that I can feel like, “I’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit, glory hallelujah” but so that other people can be touched by the grace of God. That’s what it’s unto. It’s not unto anything but that.

You take care of others. God pours out His grace on you as you pour out His grace on others. It’s not something where you’re just sitting there like a big dish waiting to drink in so that you can pour out. You give out of your want, you give out of your poverty and God then allows you, a crucified person, one standing in humiliation and pain, to be able to do things that all the valiant warriors in the universe could never pull off. That’s the thing that humiliates the principalities and powers is the cross. They’re Triumphed over on a cross (Col. 2).

That channel has to turn--what do you do when you hurt? The answer to that question will determine an awful lot about ultimately how many gifts you’re able to lay at Jesus’ feet on that last day. One of the things that satan loves to do with temptation is to shove it in our face. You’re tempted with bitterness, you’re tempted with lust, you’re tempted with greed, you’re tempted with laziness, and you say, “Ah, I’m a lazy, greedy, lustful, wicked person.”

What you don’t understand is that those snares that are left in your life are some of the only opportunities you have to give gifts to Jesus. Those are not negative things. I don’t view those as negative things anymore. If I decided to just go for it and run into this temptation, that’s negative, no doubt about it. But what if instead I’m tempted to be lazy or resentful or lustful, and I look right at Jesus’ face, and I say, “Jesus, I want to offer this to you. I could gratify my flesh right now and continue to dwell on this thought or take this action or spend this money or do this thing. But I want this to be for you.

A very tangible gift. This money I was about to spend on myself, this little trip I was going to take just to fill up my eyes with the lust of this world at a shopping center or some stupid thing to gratify my flesh or some vice or something out there, looking in the mirror at myself.

To take that moment in time and rather than say, “Ah, I always do this. Here I go again, tempted to resent.” Look at it for what it is. It’s one of those snares that God allowed to be left in your field that gives you an opportunity to give a gift to Jesus. I’ve had a grin come on my face so many times when, if anyone was looking at me in some setting or another from a cross country meet to wherever where I’m tempted to be resentful or tempted to feel something about some comment that someone made somewhere or some imposition, something like that, some frustration, something at 4:00 in the morning when I’m trying to do a Calderon Brothers job on the computer and my memory zaps out on me and I have to redo tons of work at 4:00 in the morning. The temptations that could come at a point like that are opportunities to grin.

I actually literally do grin at those moments when I handle it properly. When I look right at this thing and I say, “Oh. I know what this is. This is an opportunity to offer Jesus a gift.” And in very tangible, concrete terms, I turn my face towards Jesus and tell Him that this money I’m not spending on myself I’m giving to you. It’s not, “Well, I shouldn’t really do that. I ought to do this instead.” That’s not sustainable. That’s willpower. You can’t do that. You will be back. You will buy that thing.

If it’s not a gift that you’re giving to Jesus, your eyes will go back, your mind will go back, your wallet will go back, you will be back. Because willpower cannot sustain you in things like this. But if you will, in a concrete fashion, take that temptation to be resentful and each time say, “Hey! Another chance! Third time in 60 seconds! Another gift I can offer to Jesus. We’re racking them up here! satan, you’re killing yourself!” Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Why? Because he doesn’t like Jesus to get gifts. He isn’t going to torment someone that just keeps giving Jesus gifts! Resist him and he will flee from you. It’s really okay. We’re not threatened by anything. Not even our own weaknesses, not our own sins, not our own failures. We’re not threatened by anything. They are gifts that we offer to the Messiah.

Be careful how you hear. What are you going to do next time that temptation says, “Bang! You’re a terrible person. Bang! You’re never going to make it. Bang! You’re a resentful person. You’re worthless. You’re not going to be able to do anything for anyone else because you’re so worthless.” What are you going to do? Is what we just talked about, if in fact it’s not the words of men but the Words of God, going to be your choice? But if in fact that’s what it is, are you going to change? Will the next time this temptation to have a pity party comes your way, will you do something different than what you did last time, by choice? Will you offer gifts to Jesus?

Will you stretch out your hand to the weary instead of looking in the mirror and wondering who is going to come speak some word to you? What are you going to do? Will you make choices that reflect a change of heart, a renewing of your mind? We’re transformed by the renewing of our mind. Will you make choices that match the truth of God? Will you be careful how you hear these things rather than, “That’s a nice thought,” and then go right back to the way you handled it before?