I have a question for you: Can you tell me about this coming week in your life. Not the stuff that you already know about…but the stuff you don’t. You know, the despair-makers, like…
- The forgotten bill in the mail
- The recurring pain in your body
- The murderous tongue of your “friend”
- The unchanged schedule in your parenting
- The overwhelming burden of your classes or cubicle
- The incessant resistance to your ministry
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me--to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (2Cor 12:7-10, NASB)
Wow. Faced with enough ministry and personal strain to cause any pastor to consider night classes in business, Paul stayed the course with an amazing fortitude. It’s, like, he could see something (or better) someOne nobody else could see…trace a hand nobody else could trace…feel a serenity in his heart when everyone else around him only felt storms.
What is this? It’s not a privilege reserved only for a leather-skinned Apostle. Nor is it reserved for only a few in the church today—namely everyone else but you. This is a contentment that is anchored in a Person—Jesus Christ and all the resources that accompany His lodging in you. This kind of contentment trumps all threats of despair in your coming week.
Hudson Taylor, missionary to China in a previous generation, knew of this anchored contentment too. He wrote years ago:
It does not matter where He places me or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me. For the easiest positions He must give grace; and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. So, if God places me in great perplexity, must He not give me much guidance? In positions of great difficulty, much grace? In circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. His resources are mine, for He is mine.
What made Him his…mine…yours?
Answer—The Gospel. Paul never got over this simple message. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2Cor 5:21). Even at the end of his life and ministry, he was still captivated by the good news of Christ “who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2Tim 1:9-10).
The peace we have in our heart from the contentment we have in Christ gives birth to our rejoicing in His Gospel this week!