BROKEN FOOT PART DEUX
Affliction 101 is not an easy course to take. Ten years ago, while attending a conference, during worship time, dancing the Israeli hora, I took a misstep and ended up breaking my right foot. It was so severe that I needed two surgeries and was on the bed recovering for over four months. To add to the challenge, I had just been relocated from wonderful Nashville to Kansas City. It was a hard place, one of the most severe trials that I have ever had in my life. These little missives, these devotionals were the fruit of that experience, as I needed to share my pain. The LORD used one of the worst experiences in my life to totally change my life for the better. Nothing is complete without the cross.
For some reason, I get to take Affliction 101 again. While waiting to get a flu shot yesterday, I slipped and broke my foot, the left foot, in the same place. My memory is not so bad that it has not forgotten that episode that occurred ten years ago in my life. I thought that that was something that would never happen to me again. How wrong I was! I am sitting on the bed, with the broken foot elevated, crutches in place. I am to go with a humanitarian team to Israel in 2.5 weeks; will this be a reality now? Last night I was in shock.
One of the most difficult verses in all of scripture for me is Colossians 1:24:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf
of His body which is the church in filling up that which is lacking in Messiah's afflictions.
This is a very hard statement for me to grasp, accept, and embrace, for I do not like to suffer. However, I must.
For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Corin. 4:11). Soldiers cannot truly be trained unless they are in war. We are trained for war by fighting battles, and this involves suffering and facing the possibility of death. Just this past weekend in worship, our congregation sang “I will trust You in the storm” but singing the verse is much easier than walking (or crutching) it out.
The LORD’s purposes for us are not that we be comfortable but that we be conformed to the image of our Messiah Yeshua Jesus. This cannot be done unless we go through the storm. He always brings us through the storm, VICTORIOUSLY.
As we go through our times of trial and affliction, may we not miss one blessing, one lesson for which the LORD has for us. He purpose is to bless us, to give us a future and a hope. I want to see God in everything, the good, and the bad.
For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory
far beyond all comparison,
while we look not at the things which are seen,
for the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal....2 Corin 4:17-18
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. Ps. 34:19.
www.barricae.com
