When Difficulties are Blessings
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There are many things about the Christian life that seem to be backwards, even contradictions.
I was thinking about some examples of this in Scripture, specifically, the story of Gideon and the 300.
Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley. And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’
I know, common sense says you go into battle with as many as you can to insure victory.
But if God delivered the Midianites to this group of 32,000 Israelites, then they get what we call a swelled head.
The Israelites would assume they won the victory, rather than God.
Which would logically lead to Israel going into other battles without God, since they think they’re so strong.
God needs Gideon to whittle down the Israelites, for their own good.
Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained.
That should do it.
Two-thirds of the people leave.
This should keep Israel from getting arrogant.
Except it won’t… God knows better.
But the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Then it will be, that of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ the same shall go with you; and of whomever I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ the same shall not go.”
No Gideon, 10,000 is still too many men.
Now God calls for the drink test.
So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.” And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, “By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place.”
Wait, we started with 32,000, now we’ve only got 300?
But Israel had more than 300 warriors, they had Yahweh.
And the 300 not only won the battle,
They didn’t even need to fight,
The fear of Israel God had placed in the hearts of the Midianites was enough for them to destroy themselves.
I know, it seems counter-intuitive at first to shrink your army before attacking your enemy.
God did this for Israel’s benefit.
Which got me thinking, what other times has God done what seems wrong for the benefit of others.
Job
Job
The obvious place to start is Job.
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
There’s Job, living his life and glorifying God.
When God points him out to Satan.
Have you considered my servant Job.
He is blameless and upright.
What is Satan’s reply?
Sure God, Job fears you because you’ve been protecting him.
Remove your protection and Job will fold like a cheap suit.
Does it seem right?
After all, Job was a good man, living a good life, and honoring God.
Did he deserve to be pointed out to Satan?
To have God allow his life to be turned upside down and inside out?
To have his friends turn on him?
Probably not, but look at what came out of his turmoil.
He learned a lesson about following God.
His “friends” learned a lesson about judging others without evidence.
Satan learned you can’t out-wit God.
And all mankind got a lesson in God’s power and omnipotence.
Not to mention that sometimes our trials are not about us, but about others.
James talked about this in his epistle.
James
James
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
The trials we live through aren’t God out to get us.
They test our faith, which produces patience.
There’s an old saying, be careful when you ask God for patience, He may just give it to you.
The only way to acquire patience is to patiently deal with some form of trial.
And that patience has a job to do.
But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Developing patience, the ability to wait on God even when man says otherwise, is what makes us complete and lacking nothing.
How can you lack when you’re patiently waiting on the creator of the universe?
Even the Apostle Paul had to live with adversity.
And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.
God gave Paul a messenger of Satan to buffet him.
Why?
So he wouldn’t get a swelled head.
He wouldn’t think he was the one doing all those miracles.
Look at all that Paul accomplished?
All the travel, and the churches he planted.
All of the letters which have been shared around the world.
Even his lineage and education was enough to exalt him.
“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.
Paul had quite a pedigree, and it took quite a trial to change the path he was on.
You could look at Paul’s road to Damascus experience as punishment for the evil he was doing to Christians.
Or, like Gideon, a trial to keep him humble.
In many ways, both are true.
For whom the Lord loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
God corrected Paul because He loved him.
Loved him enough to correct his misconceptions.
And to give him a trial to learn to follow Jesus.
Garden
Garden
Even what most of us would consider the greatest punishment in human history turns out to be for our own benefit.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Many people look at this passage and see God punishing Adam and Eve because He was mad at them.
Now that they are like us, knowing good and evil, we must punish them by preventing them from living forever.
But, if you read the rest of the story of Scripture, we see something very different.
Look at all of the sacrifices, the lives of animals given to atone for this sins of man.
Look at the greatest sacrifice, the blood of God’s own son, to atone for the sins of the world.
If we lived forever, there could be no atonement for our sin.
If Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of the tree of life, we all would be eternally condemned, separated from God, with no method of atonement.
By denying us eternal life on earth, God has granted us the possibility of eternal life with Him.
We can only atone for our sins through our death.
But if man never dies, how could Jesus be born a man and die for us?
Conclusion
Conclusion
We’ve all heard the saying “This hurts me much more than it hurts you.”
Have you ever thought how much punishing us hurts God?
It is because He truly loves us, agape loves us, that God is willing to correct us, because it’s what is best for us.
He sometimes makes our lives harder than we think it needs to be, because that is what we need to learn faith, trust, and patience.
Our trials, the testing of our faith is what we need to build patience, and to let it have it’s perfect work in our lives.
That is why James tells us to count it all joy when life gets difficult.
Because that is God loving us enough to prepare us to live eternally with Him.