Friday, May 18, 2018
The Lord
looks down from heaven and sees the whole human race. From
his throne he observes all who live on the earth. He made their hearts, so he understands
everything they do. Psalm 33:12-15(NLT)
A fellow Pastor
wrote a post on Facebook yesterday that got my attention. He shared a recent experience of noticing the
individual “broken” pieces of glass in a church window. It is true that God takes our broken pieces
and makes of our shattered lives a picture we could never have imagined. Truthfully, when I think of this in the context
of my own circumstances there are so many applications it is difficult to choose
any one direction in which to reflect:
·
Do I think about the brokenness of my
past, present, or future?
·
Shall I focus on my ground-level
view, or God’s aerial panorama?
·
Do I think in terms of the constant
battle between good and evil?
·
Dare I even mention the brokenness of
churches caught in scandal, nepotism, individualism, heresy, and the like?
·
Can I view the montage of crushed
shards of families, government, plans, dreams, bullet-ridden schools, and all
the other devastation in life that forms our ground-zeroes?
There are
certainly a lot of broken pieces in human experience. And yet, in the hands of a master artisan, they
form such interesting and beautiful finished works. It is always amazing to me that God fashions
the greatest blessings out of our most excruciating moments.
As C.S. Lewis reminds
us, God whispers to us in our joy, and shouts to us in our pain. And, if there is such a connection between
our pain and the Master’s paint brush, perhaps we can use my colleague’s
imagery with “broken glass windows” to stretch the metaphor a little farther
down the road.
What if the broken stuff isn’t random at all?
Seriously; what if
there’s a plan to all our pain? What if
God actually planned it that way? Wait a
minute, here, Russell; you’re getting weird on me…how could a loving God
inflict pain on those He loves?
Well, consider the
broken pieces of that stained glass window; are they random? Not if you ask my bride. She spent many hours crafting stained glass
projects, and, although she doesn’t have the artistry of God, every piece she
placed in a window or frame was cut with skill and design to fit into the
picture; better, to create the picture that was in her mind. She planned those cuts, scored the glass, and
purposefully “broke” them to suit her plan.
Now, there may be
holes in my thinking here, and I’d love for anyone to straighten me out if you
see a cloud in all this. But, I’m
thinking God not only uses our pain, struggles, and sinfulness to create a
stronger “us” – I’m willing to at least entertain the thought that sometimes He
plans it that way.
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of
those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8:28(NLT)
Now for just one more
little stretch on this thought – God did that for His own Son too!
·
The cross, more painful than anything
we’ve ever known…
·
The sins of the world, more stressful
and shameful than our divorces, betrayals, and killings…
·
Three days in a borrowed grave, the
reputation of an executed criminal…
Tell me God didn’t
plan that!
For You Today
You chew on that as you hit the
Rocky Road; have a blessed day.
No comments:
Post a Comment