Word of Encouragement (3/9/2021)
We are talking about what to do when God answers our prayer. We are seeing that giving thanks to God is not the only thing we do. Yesterday, we started talking about the importance of proper stewardship of God’s answer to our prayer. As long as we live in this fallen world, no gift of God, especially the things of this world, can make us live “happily ever after.” Yesterday, we considered the example of getting a (new) job. For someone, who lost his job and had been looking for a new job for a while, getting a new job in answer to his prayer is a huge blessing. It is important not to forget this simple fact because each job comes with its demands and challenges, which may not be easy. Before we start complaining and looking for something else (thinking that there will be a “perfect” job, which will pose no problem at all!), we should remember the time we were so grateful to God for the job. Not all the “sufferings” are the same. It is a miserable suffering to starve because you don’t have enough to eat. But there are “sufferings” that come because of the blessing/privilege you have—the demanding work of a job or position of authority and responsibility. These are the things that we should be grateful for, not complain about.
You may have already applied this principle to other areas of your life but I want to make sure we don’t miss an important one—the relationships we have. Few things in this world cause more joy and satisfaction as well as heartache and pain than our relationships. So, it is one of the greatest blessings in life to have a meaningful, fulfilling relationship with someone special. But relationships require a lot of work to maintain and build. Human beings are complex. Our fallen condition complicates things even more. For such complex (and sinful!) beings to have a harmonious and nurturing relationship is not easy, to say the least. We make mistakes and commit sins. We misinterpret what others say and do, mostly in a negative light. We prematurely judge what their motives are and get disappointed or hurt all by ourselves. It is so easy to complain and think that we might be better off without them.
It is in such moments that we must remember how fervently we used to pray for a spouse, children, friends, church, etc., and how there was a time when we thanked God for them as His answer to our prayer! The relational issues we have are there precisely because we are in a relationship (in many cases, in answer to our prayer!), because we are not all alone. The problems are not like the misery of starving because we don’t have enough food to eat. They are like the challenges one faces because he was promoted to a position of authority and responsibility. If we can remember that the people we have relationships with are God’s answers to our prayers—especially our spouse, children, fellow church members, friends, etc.—we will be able to face the problems that come with them with a different attitude. We may even be able to be grateful for them.
Think about our struggle with sin. It is a long, difficult battle we have to fight for our entire life. And we often taste the agony of defeat and its bitter consequences. It seems like an impossible mission (and it is, were we to do it without the help of the Holy Spirit) and we can feel discouraged and be tempted to give up. At such times we must remember: the very fact that we struggle with sin shows that we are no longer slaves of sin! Christ has redeemed us and gave us a new birth from above. Because we still live in “the body of sin,” we must struggle against sin. But we struggle against sin because we are no longer under the dominion of sin. This should renew our resolve and courage to continue to fight in reliance on the Holy Spirit. This should make us even grateful for the battle we must fight against sin! I hope we can view and treat the relational problems we face with the same attitude.