Embrace The Struggle In 2021

12.31.20 Embrace the Struggle of 2021

If you look through the Scriptures you see the drama of story after story after story. Nobody lives easy lives. The Israelites are put into slavery. When they escape, they have to live in the desert for 40 years. When they get into the Promised Land, they have to battle against the Canaanites and the temptation to worship their gods. You’ve got the Assyrian Captivity from which they never return, and then the Babylonian Captivity of 70 years. Daniel is thrown in the Lion’s Den. The three men are put in the fiery furnace.

Just look at the Christmas story. Joseph and Mary end up traveling down to Bethlehem when Mary is about ready to burst. Jesus is born - but they have nowhere to stay but in a cattle stall. The Wise Men come to worship him and give him gifts! But then they have to flee in the middle of the night to Egypt! It is full of struggle!

So it is with us. Psalm 23 doesn’t talk about a valley of lollipops. It’s a valley of death. Paul was blunt with the believers in Acts 14 when he said, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”

That being said, isn’t there something a little bit romantic about a struggle? My mother had a very difficult childhood of divorce and poverty and having to eat oatmeal day in and day out while living with a foster family for a while. When we moved to Michigan it was a trial for us. We didn’t know anyone here. Some of our children were very sad and even angry about it. Some of the most vivid memories we have are the struggles that we go through. If we get through them and come out stronger, at least in our faith, we look back having some sense of honor that we stuck with it through the trial. It’s not that we INVITE the struggle WANT the struggle or even ENJOY it, but nonetheless we get through it. We refer to these struggles as tests.

2020 was a difficult test. Dealing with a scary disease, with a loss of a job, the isolation of a lockdown. I have to witness some very difficult struggles with depression and desertion in some of our own members. Struggles with sickness and death in the ones they love. My heart aches for what some of you have been through.

Did you pass or fail 2020’s tests? How can you tell? A lot of people like to use Job as an example of passing a test. He praised God even after his children were all put to death. What we don’t read is that things got worse with boils on his skin and his friends turning against him. Job ends up questioning God’s justice. He has fits of anger. He claims God doesn’t care. But in the end, as bad as it gets, Job is the one who comes out vindicated over his friends. Job is told to make sacrifices for the forgiveness of his friends. That’s what makes the story of Job so intriguing. It shows how life can sometimes work throughout the struggle.

I think of Paul’s words, where he talked about having a thorn in his side, a messenger of Satan. Some think it was bad eyesight or perhaps a stutter. God wouldn’t take it away even though he begged God to do so. But in the end, he rejoiced over his weakness because it made him rely on God’s grace all the more. This is what tests are supposed to do: to make us stronger in the faith.

Not everyone passes the test. One of the saddest stories in the Bible is the story of King Asa. 2 Chronicles 14:2–4 says,

2 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. 3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places. He demolished the sacred memorial stones and chopped down the Asherah poles. 4 He told Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his law and command.

It goes on to say,

16 Asa even removed his grandmother Ma’akah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an obscene image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image and crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley. . . . Asa’s heart was completely committed throughout all his days.

He had a long and successful career as king of Judah for 35 years. However, in his 36th year, he was attacked by the king of Israel and locked up in a fortified town. Instead of relying on the LORD, he decided to make a treaty with the king of Aram to turn against the northern tribes of Israel. As a result, God sent the prophet Hanani to condemn his actions. Instead of repenting, King Asa threw the prophet in prison. 2 Chronicles 16:12 goes on to say, Asa’s feet became diseased in the thirty-ninth year of his reign. His disease was very serious, but even when he was sick, he did not seek the LORD, but only his physicians. I find this so very sad. Here this leader seemed so faithful to the LORD, but he failed the one test he had after 35 years of peace. And then when he was confronted by a prophet and even struck with a disease he still didn’t turn back to the LORD. Not everyone passes the tests they are sent. They are sometimes the last people you would expect to fail.