2014-01-24
Good Morning Dear Ones,
A keen memory I have is at the age of 13 sitting on the bench in the school infirmary as the nurse swabbed my bleeding forehead and helped clean off the gym locker room floor dirt that stained my blouse. My pride had been wounded. This was after I was beaten for being Jewish by several anti-Semitic students. My anger burned hotly, because my purse had been stolen by them and hadn’t been found. [It never was.] And, anti-Semitic phrases had been marked all over the inside of my locker. Thankfully, I wasn’t seriously hurt, but I would carry a scar etched on my human spirit for the rest of my life. Last week, we began looking at a very emotional/spiritual issue that hits all too close to home—the scars we carry for our beliefs. My attackers didn’t know that I had lost a portion of my family in the Holocaust and was constantly reminded of this fact throughout my childhood both at home and in our synagogue. How they even found out I was Jewish is a mystery to me, since at that point in my life, I didn’t exactly advertize it. As I wrote before, my story doesn’t even compare to the suffering of others, people like the apostle, Paul, who wrote about his own sufferings in detail in 2 COR 11: 22-33.
Paul tells us of floggings, being beaten with rods, stoning, shipwrecks, being constantly on the move, danger wherever he was, danger from his own countrymen, Jews, and Gentiles, bandits, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, labor and toil, sleeplessness, hunger, thirst, cold and nakedness, and arrests. This makes my own experience seem like a walk in the park, even through it wasn’t to me at the time. And yet, Paul bared his back with these scars, showing the people that he had every right to share his beliefs to them, when they challenged him. He spoke of the need to “boast of his weaknesses” to demonstrate the truth of his experiences related. This leads me to recall a passage that has had a huge impact on my own spiritual life, 2 COR 12: 7-9. “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
I find this perspective extremely humbling, in view of the fact that for the last almost 14 years I have suffered from nerve pain stemming from an auto-immune disease from which there is no cure. It would be easy for me to spend my days complaining that I’m in this kind of unrelenting pain, but instead, I choose to keep my focus on the task of sharing my faith in my Lord Yeshua that He has set before me. Thankfully, some researchers several years ago discovered two medications, originally being developed for the treatment of Epilepsy (which I don’t have) that have a secondary effect of dulling (but not eliminating) nerve pain. I can truly appreciate what our Lord has done for me, in making me “a new creation [self] in union with Him” [2 COR 5: 17] and in the hard, continuing work He does in the process of a believer’s sanctification [purification; perfecting; making ready for glorification-coming home to Him for eternity]. COL 3: 10 tells us that He is remaking us every day in His image, so that we might have a greater knowledge of Him. The full extent of our Lord’s strength and power hasn’t yet been seen by His human creation, but I, for one, believe it is so immense as to not be measurable. It’s our job to open our hearts to Him and let Him show it to us, as He deems we need it.
There are other kinds of scars that we carry with us too. Once again, I must write about what I know best—my own experience. From the time of early childhood, I was exposed by my family and others to stories about what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. I was never allowed to forget that, and I was raised with an unnatural fear of anyone speaking with a German accent. At that time, no distinction was made between Germans, Austrians, Nazis, etc., and I was too young to make it for myself. As I got older, I never allowed myself to get too close to these people, and my actions were not conscious decisions. Then, Rosemarie Claussen, Adolf Hitler’s goddaughter and the co-founder [with her husband Tico] of JoshuaMission ministries in Europe, visited our congregation to share her story. Her father had been a Nazi general close to Hitler. At one point, Hitler ordered Gen. Claussen to arrange the extermination 1500 Jews, and the general refused. He was immediately arrested and put to death. Rosemarie’s mother and siblings quickly escaped from Germanyto Poland. But their trials were, by no means over. They were persecuted by the Russian soldiers there. Eventually, Rosemarie escaped and went into hiding. She matured and met Tico during this period of her life. By then, she came to faith in the Lord Jesus and together, they established their ministry which helps people to learn to forgive their persecutors and move on with their lives. Deep within me, I knew that I had buried a hard knot of fear and reverse irrational prejudice against anyone speaking with a German accent. By this time, I was mature enough to know just how foolish this is. I remembered MLK’s words about judging a person “on the content of his character...” Rosemarie invited anyone needing this to come to her, and she would pray for them. I came down, and it changed my life! We must remember Paul’s words in GA 6: 17 and RO 14: 7-8, “Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus…For none of us lives to himself alone, and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”
PRAYER: O Lord, we come before You with reverence, humility, and adoration. You love it when we rehearse our history with You. That is because You want us to see the goodness and love You bring into our lives. You never allow pain and suffering without using it for righteous purposes, and Paul understood this. So should we. Whatever has happened and wherever we have been in our lives serves to prepare us and mature us to serve You, as You created us to do. People like Nelson Mandella are prime examples of this. We look at his life, and he could have emerged from his 27-year imprisonment embittered and ready to make war. Instead, he gathered former enemies to work with him in unifying South Africa into a successful democracy, even though he carried the scars of Apartheid with him. It is You, Who teaches us to be forgiving. COL 3: 13, “Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you.” We are told, 1 PET 5: 6-7, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” The kind of prejudices and fears of the unknown that separate people are works of the devil. You have given us the power to chase the devil away [EPH 1: 18-20]. We must be alert and watchful, and we must remember to use this power He has given us. Our Lord, You are to be forever thanked and praised! In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I am led to continue this “Our Covenant Marks” segment of the “Our Covenant” messages with God’s written instructions for how we should deal with the pain and scars we carry. In the meanwhile, if we will open our hearts to Him and learn to forgive our enemies, we can live a wholly different life. It will be one without bitterness, hatred, destructive anger, and prejudice. God’s perspective on these things is so very different from the one arising out of fleshly desires. Our Lord Jesus tells us, in MT 5: 44, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This is one of the most difficult commands to obey, but it’s one that we must obey, if we are to ever break the chains of evil that may be hampering us from ever finding real inner peace and happiness. Once the Holy Spirit cracked that deeply buried core of anger and prejudice in me, I felt very different than before-more grounded in Him. Even today, people in my own family have branded me as using my faith as a “crutch” to get through life. But I realize what I have learned from 1 COR 2: 14, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Our task is to reach out to these people with the love of the Lord Jesus, doing so with gentleness and respect [MT 28: 19-20; 1 PET 3: 15-17]. We must remember we are not alone, for the Lord, Who loves us so very much, is with us. Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2013. All Rights Reserved.
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