10. Behind Enemy Lines
FIVE YEARS LATER
JAY’S HOUSE
MAY 1977
It’s quiet around the house this afternoon. In an hour or so, the yellow school bus will drop off my niece Kay. Jay’s outside in the garden, mothering her zucchinis and radishes. I can see her through the bay window of my drawing studio.
No friends, no visitors today. I have the place to myself. It’s kind of lonely.
Over on the corner of the desk, there’s a book I’ve been wanting to read. It looks just within nudging reach. That means positioning my arm by the book and manipulating it toward me, through awkward jerking motions.
Great idea, but there’s a problem. The book is just on the borderline of being out of reach. I’ll have to stretch … get my wrist beside it … try to pull it my way without knocking it off the desk altogether. Maybe I can zigzag it. My cousin Eddie once taught me about sailing into a headwind and how you had to tack back and forth, back and forth to make progress. So I’m tacking the book. Left a little. Right a little. Inching it toward me.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to failing at tasks that even people with disabilities can usually accomplish. That book. It’s about an inch and a half farther away than I’m used to reaching. I can move it—but not toward me. Come on, book! Cooperate! Every nudge seems to push it farther away. My only hope is to try to press the weight of my arm downward on top of the cover and attempt a quick jerk back toward me.
And there it goes. Off the table onto the floor. It’s within eight inches of my dangling arm, and I can’t touch it. I could yell for Jay, but she’s way out there, happy in her garden. She’d never hear. Anyway, I’m tired of yelling for Jay. Tired of people having to do everything for me. Tired of feeling so helpless.
How I wish I had my hands back. I think I’d even be satisfied to stay paralyzed from the waist down … but I want my hands!
Tears of frustration now. And no one to wipe my face or help me blow my nose.
I’m trying so hard to keep this in perspective, trying to see my life as You do. But oh dear God … I still want to be healed.
FORTY YEARS LATER
I HAVE TO REFLECT …
Is Keeping a Right Perspective Really Worth It?
Is the perseverance worth the heartache?
Is the bleeding worth the benefit?
Is a tenacious faith worth the price tag of heartache?
Yes! More than we can possibly realize. Let me quote this passage one more time: “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
What heaven knows is pleasures and joys, the ecstasy and the elation. As far as heaven is concerned, our troubles are “light” in comparison. This is another verse written in end-time perspective, telling us, “This is the way it will turn out; this is the way it will be—you’ll see!” Again, it’s a matter of faith. A pile of problems are on one side of the scale; heaven’s glory, the other.
After forty years of extreme disability, I can testify that my trials seem anything but “light” or “momentary.” If the Holy Spirit hadn’t used the words Himself in God’s infallible Word, I would have never, ever used such terms to describe my condition.
But if He says my paralysis has been a light affliction, and just a temporary, passing, soon-to-be-forgotten phase, then I will stand on that promise while I still have breath. And I will continue to allow my anticipation of that future “eternal glory” to backlight all of the difficult days of my journey on this side of heaven.
Yes, we all have “those mornings,” don’t we?
Sometimes we get up and almost from the start everything seems to go wrong. When it comes to my morning routine, just getting me ready for a normal day takes a great amount of effort—for me and my helpers. And then there are those inevitable physical complications of my paralysis that make the process that much slower and take even longer!
We all have our hard days and forgettable moments. But let’s just imagine that you find yourself enduring the worst morning you can remember. I’m not talking about spilling the coffee or burning the toast or having an argument with your teenager or getting stuck in a monster traffic jam. What I mean are events that could utterly devastate you, casting a deep shadow over your marriage, your health, your children, your finances, your dreams, or your nearest and dearest friendships.
You might find yourself wondering, “How can I survive the day? How can I make it through? How can I go on?”
But as long as we’re imagining, then picture this: someone you trust completely gives you an ironclad promise that by later that day, sometime in the afternoon, your serious issue will be resolved and you will find yourself full of joy and having the time of your life. Wouldn’t that change your perspective? Wouldn’t that give you the courage to hold on and walk through the hours of that difficult day?
I often think of the thief dying on a cross alongside the Lord Jesus in His darkest hour. This man, beyond all argument, was having the worst morning of his life.
He had just been crucified.
The only thing he had to “look forward to” was a terrible death, and an ultimate release from his agony. But that was untold hours away. In the meantime, he had to undergo one of the cruelest and most barbaric forms of torture ever devised by evil men.
What an end to a miserable, unhappy life! In his unspeakable pain and great bitterness of spirit, he lashed out at the closet person to him.
Who happened to be the Son of God, possibly mere feet away.
“You bragged that you could tear down the Temple and then rebuild it in three days—so show us your stuff! … He saved others—He can’t save himself! The Messiah of God—ha! The Chosen—ha!” (Matthew 27:40; Luke 23:35 THE MESSAGE)
But something happened as those awful minutes and hours slipped by. Somehow, right in the worst of it, a shutter flicked open in the doomed man’s soul, and it came to his mind that salvation might be only inches away from him.
As the other crucified felon kept cursing and heaping insults on Jesus, this man suddenly turned on the mocker.
“Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this.”(Luke 23:41 THE MESSAGE)
And then, in those last few hours, the thief on the cross did the best thing he’d ever done in his brief, wretched life. He cast his lot on Jesus Christ.
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:42–43)
When would he be in paradise with Jesus? Today. If, as some have calculated, this conversation took place around ten in the morning and Jesus died at three in the afternoon, this repentant man would have to suffer for at least five more hours. The pain didn’t go away. The searing agony didn’t relent. From all appearances, his situation hadn’t changed at all.
But in reality, everything had changed. Because he now possessed something he had not possessed—or even imagined possessing—when this worst-of-all days dawned for him.
He started with a death sentence, but now he had a promise. And such a promise! Today … Jesus … Paradise. The worst of horrors now offered the best prospect imaginable. Every minute of suffering thrust him nearer to a radiant ocean of happiness. The approaching door of death would open to a forever-new life.
If the problem side of life’s scale seems intolerably heavy to you right now, then focus your faith on the glory side.
That’s not denial or escapism. It is rock-solid reality. God wants us to think about the Life to come. Why else would He give us such tantalizing glimpses of what lies ahead for us? Thinking about heaven, God’s presence, and future glory won’t distract or detract from our life and responsibilities here on earth; it will equip us to live and respond to life with a better perspective.
When you reserve some of your thoughts and a portion of your day to pondering heaven, you’re a Rumpelstiltskin weaving straw into gold; like a divine spinning wheel, your affliction “worketh … a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17 KJV, emphasis added). Or as J. B. Phillips paraphrases: “These little troubles (which are really so transitory) are winning for us a permanent, glorious and solid reward out of all proportion to our pain.”
It’s not merely that heaven will be wonderful in spite of our anguish; it will be wonderful because of it.
Here, my friends, is a ruby of wisdom, hard-won: a faithful response to affliction and hardship and pain accrues a weight of glory.
God has every intention of rewarding your endurance. A bounteous reward. Why else would He meticulously chronicle every one of your tears?
Record my lament;
list my tears on your scroll—
are they not in your record?
(Psalm 56:8)
Every tear you’ve cried—think of it—will be redeemed. God will give you indescribable glory for your grief. Not with a general wave of the hand, but in a considered and specific way. Each tear has been listed; each will be recompensed. We know how valuable our tears are in his sight—when Mary anointed Jesus with the valuable perfume, it was her tears with which she washed his feet that moved Him powerfully. (See Luke 7:44.)
The worth of our weeping is underscored again in Revelation 21:4 where “he will wipe every tear from their eyes.” It won’t be the duty of angels or the task of elders with golden crowns. It will be God’s.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5 KJV).
Our reward will be our joy. The more faithful to God we are in the midst of pain, more reward and joy. The gospels are packed with parables of kings honoring servants for their diligence, landlords showering bonuses on faithful laborers, monarchs placing loyal subjects in charge of many cities. Whatever suffering you are going through this minute, your reaction to it affects the eternity you will enjoy. And that makes every moment of our pain and hardship laden with opportunity and alive with possibility.
White Stones and Hidden Manna
Heaven will be more heavenly to the degree that you have followed Christ on earth. Paul wrote, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us”(Romans 8:18).
It has been said that something so grand, so glorious is going to happen in the world’s finale—something so awesome and wonderful—the dénouement of the Lord Jesus—that it will suffice for every hurt, it will compensate for every inhumanity, and it will atone for every terror. His glory will fill the universe and hell will be an afterthought compared to the resplendent brightness of God’s cosmos and “the Lamb who gives light” (Revelation 21:23 paraphrased).
Can you even begin to conceive of these things?
You take that step through time and space and put down your feet on heaven’s court. You drop to your knees to express thanks and gratitude. The Man of Sorrows walks from His throne and approaches you. He has absolutely no doubt of your appreciation, for He knows you have suffered. He reaches toward you with His nail-scarred hands, and you feel your hands in His. You are not embarrassed. Your own scars, your anguish, all those times you felt rejection and pain, have given you at least a tiny taste of what the Savior endured to purchase your redemption. Your suffering, like nothing else, has prepared you to meet God—for what proof could you have brought of your love if this life left you totally unscarred?
You have something eternally precious in common with Christ—suffering! But to your amazement, the fellowship of sharing in His suffering has faded like a half-forgotten dream. Now it is a fellowship of sharing in His joy and presence. Pleasure made somehow more wonderful by earthly years of pain.
Oh, the pain of earth, you half sigh. Then you smile, rising to your feet to live the life God had been preparing for you all along. Weeping may have endured for a night, but it is morning.
And so will the rewards.
In the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the resurrected Christ hands out warnings, rebukes, words of commendation, and promises of reward to seven churches in Asia. Whatever else Bible commentators see in those letters (and trust me, they see a lot), you can’t miss one strong theme: Jesus commends believing men and women who have shown the faith, courage, and perseverance to continue walking with Him and trusting Him in the midst of devastating trials.
And His rewards are more than just a handshake and a “well done.” There are specific, wonderful, incomprehensible rewards that He will personally present to those who have remained faithful “through it all.”
To the one who is faithful, to the one who overcomes …
… I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
… I will give you the crown of life. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.
… I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.
… I will give authority over the nations … I will also give him the morning star.
… I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name.
… I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. (See Revelation 2–3.)
Do these rewards apply to all believers who suffer with courage and perseverance? Maybe, maybe not. Who can say? But the fact is, He will reward His redeemed people. Paul writes “that the Lord will reward each one of us for the good we do, whether we are slaves or free” (Ephesians 6:8 NLT). And in some of those beautiful closing words of Scripture, Jesus Himself says, “Behold, I am coming soon!My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done” (Revelation 22:12).
A crown of life … a tree of life … hidden manna … a white stone … the morning star. What are these things? What do they imply? They are as tantalizing and mysterious as resplendently wrapped presents under the Christmas tree. But we know this much: When the Almighty King of the cosmos wants to honor, bless, and lavish His love upon His faithful servants, He knows how to do it.
Why Doesn’t God Do Something
about Suffering?
He has. And He will.
God did not wash His hands of the earth and walk away in disgust. He did not give up on His creation and chalk it up as a failed attempt.
For one thing, God cannot fail.
For another thing, God—in His very nature—is a Redeemer. If God were to totally wipe out suffering, He would have to eradicate all sin. And the inconvenient truth about that fact is that it would also mean He’d have to get rid of all sinners at the same time. Thankfully, there’s too much redemptive love in God to do that!
Way back in the book of Genesis—while sin was still a fresh, ugly wound on His beautiful Creation—He promised that one day a Redeemer would come who would deal both with sin and with sin’s results … with the curse, and with those who have been harmed by the curse. The whole Old Testament foreshadows this coming One, and as its pages unfold, pictures of this coming Messiah become increasingly clear.
When Jesus died on the cross and God raised Him from the dead, He served notice that Satan’s vise-grip hold on the earth was broken, that God had opened the door to full reconciliation through the cross. It is now only a matter of time before He will return as a Warrior and Conquering King, to overthrow evil forever, heal every hurt, and right every wrong.
“Only a matter of time” … yet that time is not yet.
“I am coming soon,” He says again and again. But the day hasn’t arrived.
We still camp on enemy soil. We still live in an era when the evil one is “roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it” (Job 1:7). When the Bible calls Satan the “prince of this world”(John 12:31) and “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), when it acknowledges that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), it means what it says.
We can sing, “This is my Father’s world, He shines in all that’s fair,” and be right—up to a point. He created the world and all its beauty. He paid the price to redeem the world. And He will certainly return to throw out the present evil “tenant,” and cleanse every vestige of his cruel occupation. But for now, “this is [Satan’s] hour—when darkness reigns” (Luke 22:53).
When Jesus came the first time, as the God-man and Messiah, He laid the foundation for His rule. He established a beachhead for the kingdom of heaven, and there will be those times, those situations, where He rolls back the curse in the life of one of His children. But the world is still broken. The King has not yet come to rule and reign. And the devil knows his time is short.
Paul reminds us to
be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. . . . For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.(Ephesians 6:10, 12)
There are powers of evil that make this world a dark place, spiritually. Since our eyes have adjusted to the darkness since birth, we probably don’t even realize how shadowed and dim our world truly is. When the Bible gives accounts of the occasional appearances of angels, arriving on earth directly from heaven, the writers will often speak of the almost blinding brightness of these servants of God.
His body looked like a precious gem. His face flashed like lightning, and his eyes like flamed torches. His arms and feet shone like polished bronze. (Daniel 10:6 NLT)
His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. (Matthew 28:3)
Two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. (Luke 24:4)
The other day my friend Doug was telling me about an old movie theater he used to frequent when he was a boy. It was strange in that it had no lobby. You walked through the glass doors, and within a few feet you would pass through a curtain and bump up against the back row. When the movie was over, there was no vestibule to ease you out of darkness and back into daylight. He described how kids would walk outside, rub their eyes, and almost bump into lampposts—the light was a jolt to their senses.
Doug added, “I almost forgot about that theater until I read 1 Peter 2:9.” When I asked him to explain the connection, he said, “As a Christian, I forget what a blinding jolt it was to be taken out of darkness and placed in light.”
He’s right. We Christians can hardly recall the blinding reality of being translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s dear Son. One minute we were heading to hell; the next, heaven. One minute we were dead in our sins; the next, alive unto God. If we really thought about it, we would be overwhelmed, rubbing our eyes and explaining, “What a jolt this is!”
That’s a reminder how light and dazzling and radiant it was when God walked the pathways of Eden with His friends, Adam and Eve … and again how it will be when Jesus finally sits on the throne of a cleansed and renewed earth. But until that day, until He takes us home or returns as conquering King, we will live in the half light of a world yet to be fully redeemed. Our address will still read: “Behind enemy lines.”
Jesus has come … and He is coming.
Now … He invades behind enemy lines in daring raids. And if you could be up above the world looking down through the spiritual darkness shrouding our planet, you would see starbursts of light all over the world—like flashbulbs in a darkened auditorium. Then … will “the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.”
Now … in His mercy He brings healings here and there, touching this life and that. Then … He will banish even the memory of illness or pain or death forever.
Now … He gives grace to endure, strength to persevere, patience to wait, and the immediate presence of His Spirit to comfort. Then … the waiting will be over, and He will give us our heart’s every desire.
Now … He gives us rubies of wisdom in exchange for our suffering and long endurance in His name. Then … “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
But Why Would He Say No
to My Healing?
It’s not because He lacks ability.
It’s not because He lacks concern.
It’s not because He is deficient in love.
It’s not because He is somehow preoccupied and has forgotten about us.
As the years have gone by, I have pondered many of the answers frequently given to the “whys” of suffering.
Know God better through suffering? That’s a quaint thought. Then again, there’s that high school buddy who never did take God seriously until trouble hit. Bagging a football scholarship to a Big Ten university consumed all his attention, but in his sophomore year at Nebraska, he got slammed on the five-yard line. Two surgeries and three sidelined seasons later, he had done some serious thinking. Life was short … where were his priorities? Today, he is still into sports (he coaches the Tiny Tornadoes after work). But his priorities are straighter. Bible study and prayer get their chunk of time on his schedule.
Closer to God through trials? Another curiosity. Then there is the couple down the street who tend to be just a tad materialistic. But last year when he lost his job, he prayed harder, got by with less, and learned some lessons. They discovered that family means more than possessions, that community college wasn’t so bad for their Princeton-bound daughter, and that God took care of them while they climbed back on their feet.
Discover God’s hand in heartbreak? One more peculiarity. But then there’s the twenty-six-year-old man whose girlfriend had returned the engagement ring. He let it sit on his dresser for months as a monument to his failed love life. He dealt with his grief by pouring himself into a troubled kid who lived two doors down and had never known a father. Took him to the stables on weekends and taught him to ride horseback. It made the jilted young man grow up. He learned that his problems were super-small.
Two years later the man ducked into a bookstore to buy a present and spied a honey-blonde girl with a knock-out smile flipping through a calendar of palomino horses. They got to talking and discovered they had more in common than just equines. He took her riding the next weekend, joined the singles group at her church, and not long afterward, she said a big yes when he popped the question on her front porch swing. Today, he shudders to think that he could have missed her.
Why would He say no to our cry for healing and relief from suffering? The full answer to that question—and most of our questions—is hidden in mystery, and may never be revealed in this life. Even so, the Bible shows us again and again that an Almighty God gains glory when His hurting, broken, sons and daughters continue to love and trust and praise Him in the midst of heartbreak and loss.
The fact is, you and I can praise God and exalt Christ in all of life, when we are healthy, strong, wealthy, and at the top of our game, or when we have been so deeply wounded and crushed by hardships that we feel weak as a little child.
But it is in the latter circumstances, that both men and angels take notice.
Let’s return just for a moment to a story we considered in Chapter 2: that of Paul and Silas’s unjust imprisonment in Acts 16. Change just a few variables in that story, and the ending would have been vastly different. Their preaching could have been met with benign indifference by the public officials, and every door could have swung open for them and their message in that city. Who wouldn’t choose that outcome over the one these loyal servants of God had to endure?
Have you ever been arrested? Not just given a ticket on the side of the freeway, but actually apprehended, cuffed, stuffed into the back of a squad car, hauled into a police station, and then photographed and fingerprinted? How would you feel if the police came for you while you were in church, taking you by both arms and escorting you down the aisle toward the exit, while everyone gaped and stared at you? Would that be just a little humiliating? Even if you knew you had committed no crime, think of the conversations in homes and restaurants after church that Sunday. Think of the rumors and the sad nodding of heads: “I always kind of wondered about him. . . . . Something about her seemed just a little odd to me. Well you never know, do you?”
Do you think being falsely accused and arrested was any less humiliating for Paul and Silas, these godly missionaries?
The text says that they were then ordered to be “stripped and beaten.” In fact, “severely flogged.” I wouldn’t want any part of such a thing. Stripped in front of the crowd? That’s what the text says, and it would have been mortifying. Then severely flogged? Having people watch while the skin is flayed off your back and sides, exposing muscle tissue while your own blood flowed for the sick pleasure of a sadistic mob? What a ghastly thing to happen—to anyone!
Then, they were thrown into prison—in a dark, putrid inner cell—and forced into an agonizing position in crude wooden stocks while their heads spun with shock and nausea.
Who would volunteer for that kind of horror? Who would sign up for humiliation, injustice, and slashing, fiery pain? Wouldn’t it have been immeasurably better if the city officials had greeted their message with a yawn and a shrug of the shoulders, allowing the missionaries to establish a new base in the province?
Yes. Of course
But then … the prisoners in the deep dungeons would have never wondered at praise rising to God from two men in stocks who had been beaten within an inch of their lives. And the jailer and his family would have continued their pagan lives and died in their sins. And God would have never supernaturally opened the prison doors with an earthquake—a divine intervention so powerful that the aftershocks of that earthquake have rumbled on for two millennia.
In the same way, Mary’s vial of priceless perfume could have remained on a household shelf, covered with a fine layer of dust rather than being broken open and poured on the Lord Jesus. It could have become a family heirloom, treasured, protected, and passed from generation to generation.
But then … Jesus would have gone to the cross with no lingering scent of a godly woman’s sacrificial love, and Mary’s story would have never been told to countless millions in numberless languages and dialects all over the world.
There is something about maintaining a faith-filled, positive attitude toward life in the midst of tragic events that takes a simple testimony and pushes it over the top. There is something about a song of praise rising out of brokenness that opens an artesian well of life.
Friend, if we can hang onto God for dear life when we are in the midst of a deep affliction, nothing—absolutely nothing—could be more powerful. For then we are showing God to be massively and supremely worthy of our trust and confidence despite the suffering.
So why do believers go through hardship, sorrow, and suffering? One reason is because God’s name is lifted high when we honor Him through our tears. It is a “sacrifice of praise” to Him, that brings pleasure to His heart.
And it is powerful.
Divine Chemistry
Let me put it like this: I’m no chemist, but bear with me for a moment.
There is a particular chemistry unique to our planet, a blending of two fundamental elements creating an incomparable and irreversible transformation. In ordinary chemistry (I am told) such reactions occur with the fusion of particular electron configurations.
But never mind the electrons. In this chemistry, the reaction takes place with the blending of two seemingly irreconcilable human experiences. It is an outcome unique to this temporary life of ours on a broken planet, and it can never be duplicated in the age to come.
The two elements are suffering and joy.
When severe suffering and spontaneous joy mingle in a human soul in the same moment, something powerful results … and the resulting reaction ripples through time, space, and beyond into eternity. All who see it are caught up in wonder. And more people do see it than we might believe possible.
In normal human life, these two experiences are opposites. We all know that suffering brings sorrow, depression, anxiety. We all know that happy circumstances and blessings bring joy. It’s true. That’s the normal chemistry. But in Christ—and only in Him—two contradictory events can intermingle, releasing a fragrance and transforming power that lasts for years.
And that is supernatural chemistry.
Jesus Himself showed us how it was done at Calvary. In Hebrews 12:2, the New Testament writer says of Jesus that “for the joy set before him [he] endured the cross.” In one paraphrase of Isaiah 53 we read that “Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it” (v. 11 The Message).
The same over-the-top chemistry has been carried on through those who bear the name of Jesus. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul held up the example of believers in a neighboring province. Speaking of the beaten-down, impoverished church in Macedonia, he marveled:“Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity” (2 Corinthians 8:2).
Out of severe trial … overflowing joy.
Out of extreme poverty … rich generosity welling up and overflowing.
How is that possible? It has to be the life of the indwelling Jesus Christ, so much larger than our own lives that He spills out and brims over at every turn. But especially through our pain.
In another passage, Paul commended the infant church in Thessalonica, saying, “In spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6).
And what resulted from that intermingling of suffering and joy?
“You became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere”(1 Thessalonians 1:7–8).
The message of salvation rang out, or sounded out from these joyful, suffering saints. In the Greek language, the word translated “rang out” literally means “to echo forth.” It refers to the sounding of a loud trumpet, that echoes from place to place to place. The influence of these suffering, joyful believers reached far, far beyond any normal expectation. Through them and because of them, the message of salvation and life in Jesus echoed and reechoed through the hills and valleys of Greece.
Thessalonica was something of a crossroads in those days, with merchants, soldiers, and travelers passing through on their way to Macedonia, Achaia, and different parts of Greece. And somehow, in the mystery of God’s providence, the story of a radiant band of hard-pressed believers in that city spread like ripples from a stone tossed into a still pond.
Why? Why did that happen?
Because believers who suffer with faith, perseverance, and joy create an echo effect, taking the message of Jesus so much farther than even they could imagine. Picture a shout in a great canyon, that bounces wall to wall, never losing strength, for countless miles and numberless years.
Frankly, not many lives will be used in such a way. Not many people will ever know such an impact. Many of us will simply walk the short path through this life with only brief highs and lows, and make our way into eternity.
And after we breathe our last … as far as we know … that’s it. There will be no more opportunity to carry the message of salvation to a dying world, because that world will have been changed forever. There will be no lost souls to guide toward the Savior who loves them, because the doors to heaven and hell will be closed. And there will be no opportunity to experience the power of suffering mingled with joy, because there will be no more suffering.
Not ever.
Here is a ruby, hard-won. Why does God allow some of His deeply loved sons and daughters to go through trials of body and spirit? Because if they receive that suffering with faith and joy, that supernatural “chemical reaction” will supercharge the message of His Son’s love. And the suffering one will have the privilege of a life impact that may keep echoing and echoing beyond their years.
Back in 1967 missionary Doug Nichols fell ill while serving in India and had to spend several months in a dingy tuberculosis sanitarium. While there, he tried to give gospel tracts to the patients and doctors, but no one would accept them. It was a dark time in Doug’s life. He was sick, weak, lonely, and disappointed no one would listen to him.
One night around 2:00 a.m., Doug woke up coughing. Across the aisle, he noticed an old man trying to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. Too weak to stand, the man fell back into bed crying and exhausted. Although sick himself and as weak as he had ever been, Doug got out of bed and with a smile placed one arm under the patient’s neck and the other under his legs. With all his strength he lifted the man and carried him down the hall to the filthy, smelly washroom. Then the missionary carried him back to his bed.
“Dhanyawaad.” The old man smiled, rasping the Hindi word for thanks.
What happened the next morning was amazing. One of the other patients woke Doug up with a steaming cup of tea, making motions that he wanted a gospel tract. The other patients asked for the booklets. Even the nurses and a doctor asked for one. Over the next few days, several patients and staff gave their lives to Christ. The whole situation changed overnight because of Doug’s sacrificial act in the middle of the night.
The power of the Good News is released in your life when you allow your weakness to showcase the awesome might and love of our Savior. When we serve Him and model Him in our suffering, we have opportunities to extend His salvation farther than we ever could in our strength.