Inflamed or On Fire?

by Joel Davis

One morning in July, I woke up and couldn’t cross my right arm across my chest without intense pain. Even doing a shoulder shrug inflicted noticeable pain that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I tried resting it for multiple weeks, went in for physical therapy to see if simple inflammation was the problem … Nothing. Four months later and it seems like I am no better off than I was at the very beginning.

This weekend, I began to feel a pressing anxiety that whatever is wrong with me is going to require surgery. How invasive is that going to be? How long might recovery take? What will I be able to do in the meantime and how easy will it be to reaggravate once I’m back? All I’ve ever heard is that shoulders are one of the most exasperating parts of the body to try to rehab after surgery, so my mind naturally imagines the worst possible result.

But the Apostle Paul dealt with a great deal more physical suffering than an AC joint that prevented him from sleeping comfortably at night or changing shirts after work. In his second letter to the Corinthian church, he describes the kind of life that awaits him every morning he opens his eyes. He says this:

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. […] For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. So then, death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Cor. 4:8-12)

Don’t miss the heaviness of Paul’s words. They are struck down – literally! They are given over to death every time they are pelted with rocks or beaten within an inch of their lives. Many of us will never know this kind of suffering. However, our brother who does know it is still able to say he is not crushed and that the life of Jesus is overflowing to others because of his example.

I really want nothing to do with suffering in my own life. If you left it up to me, I would choose an easier, smoother way every time. In fact, even the Lord Jesus Himself taught us to pray, “Do not lead us into the time of testing.” Jesus knew that testing was intensely difficult, and His response was not to puff His chest out and show us how tough He could be when tested. In fact, He even asked the Father to “let this cup pass.” But He also knew that the test would come anyway, and asked for the strength to do the will of the Father no matter what the outcome would be.

And this is the good news for us. That the way we endure our sufferings, no matter how great or small they are, has an opportunity to serve as a witness to the abundant life that is offered to us by Jesus. Pastor and author Chuck Swindoll once said, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react.” Whether you’ve got a sprained joint or your life is under threat because of your belief in Jesus, you and I have an opportunity to receive His promises of His Fatherly love, rest in the midst of unspeakable trials, and power to overcome. By faith, we remember that He is good and can be trusted with our circumstances.

“Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.” (2 Cor. 4:16-17)

Don’t miss this! Jesus shows us a way to live in the overflow when we are smack dab in the middle of our struggles! It is insanely counterintuitive to see someone undergoing cancer treatments, and yet able to say they’ve never experienced intimacy with Jesus more powerfully and consistently than they do in the waiting room. But that is exactly the kind of peace Paul is expressing and that is exactly the kind of intimacy available to you and I today.

So in your next quiet time, take a moment to write out each of the worries or cares that you are carrying with you and practice the discipline of releasing them back to the Father. Ask Him to give you the perspective and the strength to walk in his abundance today in that circumstance. Even more than that, ask Him to show you how He is using your testimony in suffering to set you on fire for Him and to give away that fire to others as they see your example of Overflow living.