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| Here's a picture of our car when I let a friend drive it on our road back in December. And yes, it's stuck. Rookie: ) |
OK. When I got up this morning it was 53 degrees... in my kitchen!!!! What’s up with that?! It’s only the beginning of Winter here in Brazil and we’re already miserable. It’s been raining off and on for a couple of weeks and it’s been cold too (40’s-50’s). You may be saying, “Jim- you’re just being a bit overdramatic aren’t you? Because 50 degrees isn’t that cold.” Well my response to you is... well, I won’t tell you my initial response was because I’m a Christ follower on the mission field and all that good stuff, haha. But you’re right, 40-50 degrees isn’t that bad- ‘when you have heat!’ We have no heat in our house or in our car. So when it’s that cold outside- it’s that cold inside as well.
Not good: (
But it gets even better. After I got over the initial shock of the cold morning, I went outside to rinse the car off before I drove to church (it had a ton of mud on it from the roads) when I noticed that my front bumper was hanging off. It was yet another part of my car that had fallen prey to the bumpy roads (that resemble the surface of the moon) here on the mountain. Now, not only do I still have my front headlight taped on (it had fallen off last year because of the bumpy roads), I also have my bumper wired onto the front of my car. I mean, seriously? Talk about having every ounce of pride stripped away from your life. I was already driving something that I’ve had in the shop at least 20 times in the last year and a half. I’ve had the engine rebuilt once, I’ve been driving it without a 3rd gear for the last couple of months, it has no heat, no defroster, no horn, no radio, every door handle is broken, it has a cracked windshield, the gas gauge doesn’t work, the headlights are so dim that it’s dangerous to drive at night. When I had it in the shop last week they told me it needs a new clutch... and now I’m rigging the bumper back onto the front of the car with a piece of electrical wire?! Give me a break, Lord!
To say that I was frustrated would be an understatement. Then that’s when I started thinking about how it wasn’t fair. I started thinking about how, here I was... giving my entire life to Jesus by living here in a foreign country with minimal or no comfort at all. Everything is inconvenient and difficult and it seems like there’s always something negative happening. And things keep getting more inconvenient by the day.
So, seeing how my frustration level had reached an all time high- I just decided to throw a party. That’s right a party... a pity party, that is. And, as I drove the 4km down the bumpy road that leads to the highway, I just kept thinking about how unfair that it really was. This isn’t what I signed-up for. And God just let me stew in my pity for a few minutes and then it happened. He reminded me of a scripture. Don’t you love it when that happens? And no it wasn’t one about being thankful or one about being able to do all things through Christ (although they could’ve also applied). He reminded me of the people in Hebrews 11.
This is a chapter in the bible that some call ‘the heroes of faith’ or the ‘hall of fame of faith’ or something to that effect. But when the Lord brought it to my memory, it wasn’t the first part of the chapter that He reminded me of- it was the latter part. You see, when we think about Hebrews 11 we always think about the first part. That’s the part that talks about how “by faith” Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses and a whole bunch of others accomplished all these amazing things- ‘by faith.” But, if you read through to the end of the chapter, you’ll also read about some other people who did some stuff “by faith.” They also accomplished some things by the same thing that all of the people in the front of the chapter did- “by faith.”
Before I tell you what these people (in the latter part of chapter 11) did, let me ask you a question. What does it mean to do something ‘by faith?’ Faith, by definition, is simply ‘belief and trust.’ So doing something ‘by faith’ is simply doing or believing something because of what God has told/promised you. It’s having the assurance that God has given you a specific promise/instruction and you’re going to fulfill it no matter what the outcome. And even though there are some amazing things that happen in our lives ‘by faith’ there are also some not-so-amazing things that will happen in our lives ‘by faith.’
If you read the latter part of Hebrews chapter 11 you’ll see what I mean. The first 34 verses of the chapter lists out all these amazing things that people did ‘by faith.’ They conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were mighty in war, put armies to flight, women received back their dead by resurrection... but then in the last part of verse 35 it all changes.
In the last part of verse 35 it starts to list out other things that people did ‘by faith.’ They were tortured, suffered mocking and flogging, they were in chains and imprisonment, they were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword, they went about in animal skins- destitute, afflicted, mistreated, homeless... and all by the same thing that the people listed at the beginning of the chapter did things by- ‘by faith.’ And it says that they were all commended for ‘their faith’ the same way as all the people in the first part of the chapter were. Whether the outcome of what they did was amazingly awesome or whether it was amazingly painful and in the natural- looked like a fail. They were all commended for ‘their faith.’
Wow. So that means that I can be commended by God for freezing my butt off and driving a crappy car- just as much as I would if I was raising the dead or conquering a mighty army as long as I’m doing it ‘by faith’ (i.e., because I’m only doing it because God asked me to)? Hmmm. Then that kind of changes things. Even though it may not take away the pain of some of the things that we have to endure, it does give me hope that it’s not all for nothing. It shows me that as long as we’re doing what we’re doing solely based on our obedience and faith in God- it’s all good and it’s all commended by God as equally as if we were evangelizing the entire country of Brazil. If you don’t believe me, go and read it for yourself. The people who were destitute and afflicted ‘by faith’ got the same props as Abraham did for offering up Isaac ‘by faith’ and the same recognition that Moses did for leading the people ‘by faith’ through the Red Sea. Interesting, huh?...
And it’s the same for you. If what you’re going through is difficult, unpleasant, painful, frustrating and hard... but you know that God has you right there in the middle of it- then just keep doing it ‘by faith.’ Fully trusting Him and knowing that you’re being commended by Him just as if you were doing something else that you think could better serve Him: )
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and the sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith...”
Hebrews 12:1-2
Feeling Frigid ‘by Faith,’
Jim
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