Page 29 - The Gate and the Way

It helped tremendously that I already accepted the fact that suffering is part of the
experience of all who would follow Christ. On the morning of the day I was injured I had
just posted the writing titled “Why Does God Require Christians to Suffer?” I did not think
it unusual that I should be experiencing some difficulty, or affliction. I understood that it
is in the fire that the sons of God are purified. As they bear up patiently under all kinds of
suffering they are transformed more and more into the image of Christ.
Monday the air conditioner repairman stopped by. It was nearly 8 P.M., and he had
been long at work, but he came by. He had the problem fixed in about five minutes. Ants
had gotten into the electrical connections and were keeping contacts from closing. This is
a common problem in the south.
I had just written to a sister a day or two previously about a plague of insects she had
been experiencing in her home. She related to me how she had lost her cool, and had acted
rebelliously toward her husband, as one small incident after another piled up until she was
at a breaking point. Her husband did not want to pay for a pest control company to come
in, but she told him he had no choice, and she went and called a company to spray the
house. Later, she lamented the fact that she had acted as she had.
I saw a parable in what she shared with me. There are many small agitations that come
into our lives, just like the parade of insects into her home. These things can “bug” us. We
see them as nuisances, and pests, and our thought is to see them gone so we can be at ease
and comfortable again.
In truth, these things are divinely ordered experiences. Yahweh tests us to perfect us.
A sister in Christ recently wrote to me and said, “there can be no TESTimony without a
TEST.” I thought that was very clever, and very true. Sometimes we can handle a large event
in our lives, such as my wreck on the motorcycle and the ensuing surgery. But how will we
do when we get home and the air conditioner is not working? What if someone begins to
speak or act toward us in a dishonorable way. Will we patiently bear with it, or will we in
our discomfort blow a fuse?
In our tests we can go one of two ways. We can embrace the suffering and seek to grow
spiritually, utilizing that grace which Christ so liberally offers us. Or we can respond in the
flesh. We can be self-focused, and snap at others, or explode at circumstances, when they
are not to our liking. This latter course will not bring any man to conformity to the image
of Christ.
The air conditioning sure feels good this week. It was turned back on Monday night.
Tuesday I began noticing a rash coming up on my injured leg. It itched. The next day it had
spread. By Thursday it was spread far more and itched tremendously. I contacted the doctor
and he advised me to take some Benadryl, suspecting that it is a reaction to some of the
strong antibiotics they gave me in the hospital.
I smile as I think of this. We get rid of the ants and in come the fleas. We get rid of the
fleas and in come the roaches. They are pests. They do “bug” us, but all things work together
for good to those who love God and are the called, according to His purpose. Shall I
murmur against God, or shall I grow more in the grace and character of Christ?
People of God, it is appointed unto Christ’s disciples to suffer many things. There is
no suffering without purpose, and no affliction through which we cannot grow and be
enlarged. Did the apostle really mean “everything” when he wrote the following:

Philippians 4:6
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with