Give God the Tweezers

 

I got a sliver in my foot last night. It was extremely painful to walk on my foot last night, and this morning too. My husband suggested I peel away the rough layers of callused skin until I was able to remove it. It was in an awkward spot, very difficult to remove on my own because of the angle I had to pull my foot onto my lap at to see it. My husband offered to try, so I handed him the tweezers. "Ow!" I almost immediately said. He handed me back the tweezers. I kept working at it myself. My hip started to become sore because of the pressure I was causing at pulling my foot awkwardly across my lap. My hand that I was holding my foot with was cramping. I stubbornly ignored them and kept at it until I finally expressed my discomfort to my husband and said, "I can't even tell if I'm getting close." He gently suggested I try to stand up, on my foot, to see if it still hurt. Success, the pain was gone! 

I started to think about the painful, difficult situations we encounter in our lives. Obviously, my splinter wasn't anywhere near as painful as everything that Job went through. However, whether we are being tested or we have walked ourselves into our own pain (barefoot across an aging wooden deck, in my case), God is always with us. If we let Him, He will help us through the pain. Sometimes, when we refuse to humbly give it over to God, we will keep working at the problem without realizing God already delivered us. If all we can focus on is the pain or discomfort of our circumstances, we will get stuck in our misguided solutions that our ego told us to keep after. 

In Job (great book, so many amazing lessons!), God allows the devil to cause great losses in a most faithful man's life. Satan destroys Job's life. Loss after loss pile up, yet Job never curses God for his pain. (He laments, he even curses the day he was born, but he never curses God directly.) Spoiler alert - in the end God blesses Job even more in his latter days than in his early days (before his losses). There are times in life that God will allow bad situations or painful trials to happen so that He can grow us into the person who is spiritually mature enough to manage the greater blessings He has in store for us. 

Sometimes God needs us to relearn the value of being His called children. Genesis 12:2 says, "I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing." God tells us He will blessing us so that we may be the blessing. The blessings should not hit a dead end when they enter our lives. So, we may experience temporary losses - hopefully never as much loss as Job went through - so that when God refines our hearts we will take His new blessings, His restorative blessings, with a humble heart. A heart that knows we do not need the overabundance that we have been given and so we will use our blessings to bless others. 

Other times, we may need our faith stretched, and gown. God reminds us in II Corinthians 12:9 that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Sometime we might try to rely on our own strength. However, our only true strength comes from God alone. When we forget that, when we refuse God's help - when we take the tweezers back into our own hands - we are not acting in faith. In times where we attempt life on our own, we will get stuck in our pain, being our own obstacle between our pain and our freedom from it. Give the tweezers back to God my friends! We must stand on His strength, not our own. It's truly the fastest way through the storms. 

In time, God will redeem your pain for His purpose. He will take the bad and work it into something good (Romans 8:28). He took my sliver and turned it into this week's uplifting thoughts for this page. He has redeemed a lot of bad in my past. I can clearly look back and see how painful situations that I endured have molded His plan, His purpose in my life. Without them, I would not be the person I am today. I would not have the well of faith which I have today. I would not be able to find things to thank Him for amidst dark times without having given my life humbly to Him, asking daily for His will to be done. I am certain that I have not completed the race yet, I'm still here. I know before God is ready to lift me from this temporary land into His glorious heavens, I will probably go through more seasons of pain. I am, after all, still a work in progress. 

Friends, God wants to redeem your pain for His purpose. Will you let Him lead you down His path for your life? Go ahead. Give God the tweezers!