Tag Archives: faith through trials

Ever Find Yourself in Patmos?

Genesis and Revelation are the critical bookends to God’s living word.  In Revelation,  the Apostle John receives from Jesus prophetic visions of apocalyptic events that continue to stun believers with a deeper fear and awe of God.

Little, however, is described about the godly vessel chosen to reveal these awesome truths.  As an elderly man of God, John shared with believers,

I, John, am your brother and your partner in suffering and in God’s Kingdom and in the patient endurance to which Jesus calls us. I was exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for my testimony about Jesus.  Rev 1:9

“Exiled” and “suffering” may not fully depict John’s life on Patmos but does, even vaguely, open our minds to his hardship.  It is commonly known that Patmos was a small barren island, treeless and stark, used by Rome as a site to banish exiles.  According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, Patmos means “my killing“.  Greek scholar Alexander Cruden defines Patmos as “I am squeezed to pieces.”

This chosen beloved man of God personally walked with the Lord, powerfully expounded the life of Jesus Christ for the world to embrace, and established churches that impacted the world.  He witnessed the power of God through his life and through the lives of the other apostles.  However, while embracing his ministry and pursuing the kingdom of God, John is banished into a barren place of suffering….with God in full control.

There is only one beloved Apostle John.

However, many believers even today find themselves unexpectedly on Patmos.   The ‘Unexpected’ magnifies the pain…if one could plan, who wouldn’t pack provisions for a barren place?

It is true that God can strip your life at it’s very peak.  I know, for example, a sister who left a wonderful career for the sake of her spouse only to learn weeks later of his adulterous affair and secret life.  She was heading toward Patmos when shortly thereafter the ministry she loved, with whom she traveled and evangelized imploded by exposed corruption, scattering precious sheep in utter despair….At the same time, God set her in the position of caring for that unfaithful spouse during illness and injury while yet revealing other depths of betrayal.  Then she went nearly bald.  (ok, c’est moi)

When totally alone in despair, stripped of all that ‘made us’ who we are, when gone are the very things, even godly things, that brought pleasure, fulfillment,  and security….

You are here

alone in city

Patmos – Barron places threaten faith and foundation

Most assuredly the apostle John stood strong on Patmos, continuing to live the strong spiritual foundation that he set forth to the churches….urging them to live like Christ, standing strong in adversity,  separated from the things of this world,

“Do not love the world or anything in the world…The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”   I John 2:15-17

 

John knew that the purposes and plans of God are not at all deterred by circumstance, in fact the apostles knew that God worked their sufferings and adversities to promote the Gospel.  John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day”.  Banishment from the places and people he loved did not interrupt his worship or intimacy with the Lord Jesus. Moreover, we have every reason to believe that John’s exile brought him into a deeper relationship with God, ultimately preparing him to receive the greatest revelation of Christ’s awesome return.

The barren place of Patmos gave birth to the fearsome final word of God, the merciful warning of coming judgement.  

I don’t know anyone like the apostle John but I do know brethren in a state of Patmos, a place of “my killing”….where life seems “…squeezed to pieces.”  Unexpected upheavals and unraveling, reversals and losses all shake the pillars of life and expose the only sure foundation found in Christ.

He is our Head and is in control.   If you are His follower, no one can take you to Patmos except by His will.  God is not finished with you, He has a plan and purpose in the places of Patmos…that could only come to fruition through that barren place.  

“Lord, walk us through the places of Patmos.  Let all that was lost fade away next to the reality of You.  Renew our minds through Your powerful living word.  I pray that we see purpose in the ‘barren places’ – let them be places of spiritual and supernatural life.  Plant in us a living hope that the promises of You, sovereign God, can never fail.”

I think there’s a song for us on Patmos….

 

What Should We Do When God Disappoints?

God “disappoints”, someone, somewhere every day. Amidst crushing crisis, upon the cliffs of death and darkness, we fan the embers of faith to believe God will show up and rescue us from the very thing we dread. We pray, plead and willingly beg but our tears only water grass at the gravesite. What will we do when God is silent, when He closes the door, when our dreams are swept away…is God pushing the broom?

Those who don’t know the Lord test Him in their place of despair, “If you are God, show yourself to me and others here in this hospital room and we will believe!” Although the Lord rebuked the devil, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” He doesn’t condemn us in our desperation. But neither our desperation, nor nights of anguish and millions of tears can assure that God will miraculously move. Prayer cannot change the will of God, but can supernaturally open to us the revelation of what His will is and align us with His presence and sovereignty.

Prayer doesn’t make God answer, it aligns us with the answer He already has.

If you have never entered into a living faith, never truly repented and surrendered to the Lord, but rise up in your ‘911’ and call upon Him, what will you do when you are disappointed? Most people will walk further away from any semblance of faith when the ‘God option’ fails in their time of need. What will YOU do? Or, brother and sister in the Lord, what happens when we are walking right before God and He leads us onto a path of brokenness, pain and deep disappointment, what will we do when our prayers seem answered with worse calamity?

The juncture of devastating disappointment is a critical one and yet can be the most life giving crossroad of our faith. This is painfully true. Crushing disappointment is not a time to test God, it is the time He tests us. How can we survive this? How can our faith thrive through this?

Do not judge God by your circumstances, do not give up in prayer, call upon Him to enter into your despair and compel yourself to do this:

Abandon every “if-then” condition set upon God.

Make a commitment, even with a speck of faith, to prayerfully read the Bible every day. “The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” emotional pain separates us from worldly clamor and avails to us a door for the Lord to minister and speak.  Commit to that daily appointment with the Lord, He already awaits.

Did we seek God only to receive miracle or do we truly desire supernatural life?

Faith is the engine that moves and aligns us to God, positioning us to hear from Him, leading us into His presence. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God.” Meditate upon the Psalms, enter into the disappointments, the deep losses, the grief of God’s people and begin to believe that their found healing and victory is also for you.

out of pit and sold as slave

Betrayals and disappointments tested and built Joseph’s faith,  preparing him to trust and serve  Sovereign God (Genesis 37-50)

 

Press on past the voice of the enemy, Satan, as onslaughts come to fuel grief and doubts, “What good did praying bring?” “What kind of God is this anyway who lets your loved one suffer and die?” “What was God doing while your husband cheated? While your home, your plans, your dreams, crumbled to the ground?” Your faith is the target of the devil’s biggest lies: “God was doing nothing all this time! He doesn’t love you! His word is not true!”  Resolve to reject every lie and accusation against the Lord, especially those hidden within your own heart.

Holy Scripture, originally written without punctuation, renders two understandings of Isaiah 59:19 as scholars vary a tiny comma…

“When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.”

“When the enemy comes in, like a flood the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.”

I pray that the Holy Spirit comes in, like a flood of Living Water, overwhelming the wiles of the enemy and refreshing us with the Word of God.

It is natural to hope upon the miracles of healing, the abundance created by five loaves and two fish, the raising of the dead and sight to the blind, but these are temporal, not eternal ‘measuring points’ of God’s faithfulness. Jesus established His divinity through such miracles but that He did not come to perform miracles. He came to save us from our sins. Far fewer people are crying out for and rejoicing in this miracle although this is the one He came to fulfill, the one that will NEVER disappoint, the one that leads to eternal life. From that unbroken and eternal promise, He calls us to follow Him on a narrow path carrying our cross.

When the dust settles might we ask, are we in right relationship to God through repentance? Are we committed to following Him on a path of self-denial?  Have we invested our heart to a popular ‘easy-believism’ or are we given to the whole counsel of God?

“It needs to be said that a world of confusion results from trying to believe without obeying! A mere passive surrender may be no surrender at all. Any real submission to the will of God must include willingness to take orders from Him from that time on.” A.W. Tozer

Does God heal? Does He miraculously provide and restore? The Lord is well able and does supernaturally intervene into the crisis of man. However, His purpose is higher than prolonging life and fulfilling hopes; it is for an abundant and eternal life led by God. A God led life. May our spiritual eyes open as we consider, from Genesis to Revelation, the disappointments, losses, betrayals and calamities of the saints AND the faithfulness of God to move upon them. The Lord  wastes not one tear nor one moment of suffering for those given to Him.  In His hand ‘He works it all together for good, for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose’.

I pray for those now at critical junctures of faith, may they decide to take all doubts, anger and grief to God and compel themselves to search His Word.

“Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” Isaiah 49:23

CRUSHED FOR GLORY

Two simple words within a New Testament verse, regardless of translation, are perplexing and even oppressive to many, including or especially me:  “pure joy”.

We are so admonished,

“Consider it pure joy my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”  (James 1:2)

According to James, while waiting in a detox unit for your loved one, standing by a grave site, while holding an unsurmountable financial debt, when sitting in the oncology office, when threatened by eviction, persecution, and surprised by deception and betrayal…..Consider it pure joy.

This is a high bar in Christian living which I have yet to reach.   But an open heart before the Lord can receive understanding and discernment.  The Holy Spirit often teaches spiritual truths as they are mirrored through the physical realm of our world.   Enter the Navy SEALs….

navy seals on shore

Grueling training prepares for triumph and victory

Navy Seal Eric Greitens describes,
But “frontline” isn’t just a military term. You have a frontline in your life now. In fact, everyone has a place where they encounter fear, where they struggle, suffer and face hardship. We all have battles to fight. “As Navy SEALs, we understood the word “frontline” to mean the place where we met the enemy. The frontline was where battles were fought and fates decided. The frontline was a place of fear, struggle and suffering. It was also a place where victories were won, where friendships of a lifetime were forged in hardship. It was a place where we lived with a sense of purpose.

And it’s often in those battles that we are most alive: It’s on the frontlines of our lives that we earn wisdom, create joy, forge friendships, discover happiness, find love and do purposeful work. If you want to win any meaningful kind of victory, you’ll have to fight for it.     (“Your Own Front Line: A Navy SEAL’s Guide to Building Resistance”, New York Observer, 3/3/15)

Without Scriptural quotes, Mr. Greitens’ article portrays great Biblical truths.  We are living in the frontlines of history, the end times, where battles have eternal significance.  “…be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus….Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs – he wants to please his Commanding Officer”.  (II Timothy 2:1-4)

We have ‘fears, struggles and suffering’ and Paul forewarns that we will in II Timothy 3…

“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.”

The life of a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ, exists within two absolute mandates:  live as sharp as a serpent, yet gentle as a dove…live as obedient and humble sheep, yet fight as strong and militant soldiers.  The great challenge in all this is none of it comes natural.  We must immerse ourselves in the training of the Word, receive our instructions through fellowship with the Lord in prayer, and apply this training to our ‘frontline’.

Many of us are content to live as sheep, led and fed by our Good Shepherd and find it impossible to conceive of ‘pure joy’ in oppressive trials.  I believe the ‘pure joy’ is not in the fire itself but the sights through which we can see the end.

With sights fixed on Jesus, we can see joy beyond the battlefield.

With sights fixed on Jesus, we can see joy beyond the battlefield.

Like the courageous and admirable Navy SEALs, we are called to endure and persevere with great purpose.  Unlike the military though, the Lord seems to choose the weakest and most unlikely to succeed.  The unfailing strategy is this:  the battle is not ours but the Lord’s, we are merely a vessel through whom He gains the victory.

Navy SEALs are uniquely trained, they are the elite of armed forces.  Clothed with valor and fired up, they greatly deserve honor for service and sacrifice.  Commitment to grueling and demanding training yields them glory on the battlefield and, given rare glimpses, the world marvels at their victories.  How much can we glean from this ‘type and  shadow’ of God’s Kingdom?   

We are left on this earth to glorify Jesus Christ.  That is our mission on the frontlines and with it come the certainty of great reward, eternal reward.  This battleground is trod upon for thousands of years, with great victories won by spiritual giants – both the prominently known and honored as well as the obscure who secretly battle in the prayer closet.  Unlike the Navy SEALs, our training manual has not changed, is not updated, and remains a living power in itself.   Unlike any worldly military, our surrendered lives are sovereignly governed through every battle, trial, and grief – each is appointed and measured out with supernatural foresight and design. 

Almighty God does not change, He will be high and lifted up and glorified in this dark world.  As His surrendered and willing soldiers, we may be crushed in grueling training in preparation for this call.  In fact, there is no other way.

Crushed for His glory, there remains the high bar of faith, to “Consider it pure joy”.   A supernatural joy that cannot compare in the physical realm, it can only be birthed in the “renewed mind,” one that is “prepared for action”.  It requires thorough and ongoing study of our manual, the Holy Bible, fellowship with our God and valuable refreshment through fellowship with other believers.

As we battle on the frontlines of these last days,these ‘terrible times’  I pray we separate from worldly distractions and entanglements,  focus our sights on Him, on His glory, and somehow on this side of eternity, consider it pure joy.