Bittersweet

I read an astounding few verses of Scripture the other day.  They came from Psalm 119:76-77.

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.  The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.  Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.  May those who fear you rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in your Word.  I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me.  May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant.  Let your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading.  Not only am I supposed to be happy about being afflicted I’m expected to request afflictions so that I can learn to live.  Now I don’t think that God afflicts people so they can learn how to suffer and die; I think these afflictions are meant to teach us how to live with Christ as our center.  Afflictions teach us that without God we are nothing.

For in our suffering we become Christ-like to the point where Christ shines from us like a beacon of hope.  People who see you may not understand what you are going through, or even know what you are going through.  The one thing they do know is that they want what you so obviously have.  They want that hope exuding from you in streams.  They want that unfailing love that seems to surround you like a blanket. They want that security that seems to have you planted like a rock in the middle of cyberspace.

Through our walk the light of an eternal God shines forth and we become a radiant lighthouse for those whose hope is nearly gone.  Being a lighthouse is a lot of work.  We have to be obedient to God, not easy when we’re used to ordering the world around us.  We have to continually search God out through studying his Word so that we understand his precepts and can share them with others.  We have to believe without reservation what we can neither see nor hear nor touch. 

God is good at making the intangible tangible.  Walking through life is full of pitfalls and dangers, and sometimes we get stuck in the mire.  I’ve often been tempted during those times to give up and say God doesn’t care about me so why should I care about anyone else.  Then I remember that just because I can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not there.  He’s always there and we can see him if we want to in many small but significant ways.

Sometimes God is in the whisper of the wind in the pines above our house.  Sometimes he’s in the billowing clouds in the sky wafting across the mountains.  One day he was a beautiful doe standing still in the woods by the creek.  Another day he was the sound of children laughing. Many times he’s the next song on my play list.  He’s a big God who knows how to work in the smallest of ways to reach even the most destitute, hidden, lonely, hurting people. 

I wear a lot of purple.  I have purple shoes and purple coats.  Even my keyboard is purple.  People laugh at my purple mania.  I get a lot of advice centering around the discovery of other colors in the palette.  True, purple is my favorite color, in all its shades and nuances.  Most people assume I’m nuts and never ask why purple is my favorite color.  If they did this is what I’d tell them.

Purple reminds me that I am a child of the King.  I am a member of the royal family; I have a place in his heavenly mansion.  When I see purple I think about God and how he has so often brought me out of the mire.  I get stuck a lot so I need God a lot.  He’s never let me down though I have often failed by thinking he has. Very simply I forgot to look for him and because I didn’t look, I didn’t find him.  But he was there all along, waiting for me to see him.

When cancer came along I finally learned how to see him everywhere, even in the bleak mid-winter of tax season.  Cancer is a bitter pill to swallow, yet so sweet when I think that it brought me closer to him.  The bitter and the sweet are part of our lives here on earth.  Pain and sorrow teach us the beauty of God’s unfailing love.  It is in the bitter that we learn to run to God and find the sweetness of his mercy and grace. There’s nothing quite like the safety of the Father’s hands.

I’ve seen the hardships of life turn many a person to dark, dreary thoughts of gloom and doom.  And there they remain, unable to see beyond the bitterness to which they cling so mightily, some to an untimely death.  It would be easy, oh so easy, to give in to the threat of cancer or whatever it is that’s hurting you.  But don’t do it.  Run to the Father as fast as you can.  Look for him in the rustling leaves, a rambling brook, a child’s heartbeat, the squeak of a rocking chair.  Once you find him, stay a while.  The Father’s comfort is like no other.