The
Apostle Paul would not get a job on the motivational
circuit today, nor a speaking engagement in most
churches. His external affairs reeked of
failure.
Before
his Damscus Road experience, Paul had been the epitome
of success; a brilliant, well-networked, affluent,
rising star. After his conversion, his story changed
dramatically. He preached "life to the full," but
the soup-kitchens, threadbare clothes, regular jail
stints, and homeless shelters hardly made him
a walking advertisement for success - then or
now.
Paul
recounts afflictions, sufferings, a death sentence,
distress, imprisonments, hunger, sleeplessness,
beatings, a stoning, and multiple shipwrecks. As we read
2 Corinthians 6 and 11, we wait for him to say, "And
Jesus carried me through the tough times and -
hallelujah - He's turned it all around!" I could embrace
that kind of faith. But for Paul, the turn around never
comes. We hear no "twist." His hardships
apparently never come to an end.
This
disturbs and demoralizes some of us. Where's the power
of Christ? Such laboring looks more like punishment than
blessing. Where are the benefits of the
faith?
As
we endure our own hardship, it's often with the
expectation that soon it will be over and good will
come. But what if "good" doesn't come? What if the
opposition we face, the stress we experience, and
the pressures we encounter are to continue?
How
did Paul deal with tough times? Helooked
within himself.And
what he found in the inner man was a transformation that
could not be stolen or surgically removed. He saw the
Father changing him - not his circumstances -
from glory to glory (2 Cor 3.18). Paul viewed his
suffering as producing "an eternal weight of glory" and
he stayed focused on "the things that are not seen,
which are eternal" (2 Cor 4.17-18). Christ was
dramatically changing the man.
In
short, Paul sees nothing wrong with suffering or
dying - because resurrection is guaranteed. He has no
sanitized faith that depends on good times. He has no
civilized Christianity that secretly longs for material
blessing. He is not searching for the benefits of
faith, but he longs for a deeper walk with the
Benefactor. He considers all things loss "in view of the
surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus."
We
want so much - as people, and as leaders - to be
successful, popular, comfortable, and influential.
In that pursuit, we forget that the Apostle Paul's
circumstances were mostly disastrous. His parents
must have wrung their hands. Was he accident prone or
was God constantly punishing him? Or was there another
way to look at it?
May
the Lord give us the perspective of Paul as we walk
through dark valleys. Escape is no solution; our
inner transformation makes the difference. "To die
with Christ is to also live with Him,
eternally."