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Being Stretched?

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“Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” – 2 Corinthians 4:17

Sometimes life is hard. We find ourselves caught up in situations we can’t control. At that point, we have a choice either to trust God or break into a thousand pieces. I have learned that when God puts us in that kind of a bind, He has a purpose. He is stretching us to make us usable beyond our wildest dreams. When I protested recently, He said something like this,

I know it’s hard to trust Me with everything, especially with those you love. If you can’t trust Me, trust My purpose. Everything that comes into your life is meant to help you, not to hurt you.

Look at how I stretched the disciples beyond their comfort zones:

  • Sending them out two by two, asking them to heal, cast out demons, announce the kingdom. They were fishermen and common men. These were villages and people they knew. It was a stretch!
  • Storms on the Sea of Galilee – pretty scary.
  • Confrontations with the Pharisees. My disciples honored these rulers and cringed when I countered them.
  • John the Baptist’s death. That just didn’t fit into their thinking.
  • Speaking in parables. They wanted everyone to understand what they had found. Couldn’t figure out why I didn’t speak in plain language.
  • My treatment of my earthly family. So counter-cultural. They cringed then, too.

I stretched them beyond recognition, but look who they became. Trust My purpose. It has a goal and it is good.

“It is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.” – C. S. Lewis

8 thoughts on “Being Stretched?”

  2. A great reminder and exhortation for today. As we continue to navigate the wilderness we are finding the Lord in new ways. Not comfortable to the flesh but I imagine we will look back seeing the growth.

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  3. I’m always a little wary of ascribing suffering to God’s design. I believe completely that he can redeem it, but don’t think he chooses it for us. Between our free will and others’, there is plenty of it to go around. The broken world has a sufficiency of disasters and disease. The comfort for me is that God is with us in it, literally incarnated, and will offer us the chance to glorify Him.

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    • Absolutely. Suffering happens to all of us just because we are in a fallen world. I also believe God does sometimes challenge us to go beyond our natural comfort zones and, in the process, to be changed. That’s what Jesus seemed to do with His disciples. We can choose how to use the stretching opportunities that come by whatever means. The goal, as you have pointed out, is bringing glory to Him. Thanks for sharing your insight!

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  5. Thank you, Bev. God’s plan of salvation far outweighs any suffering on earth. Our time here is brief and heaven is everlasting. It is a privilege to accept and share in suffering as Jesus did for us.

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