What
if 2017 is Your Worst Year Ever?
Scott Slayton
When I was in middle and high school, CBS aired a show called Rescue 911
that dramatized the events surrounding actual 911 calls.
While this never bothered me when I was younger, in adulthood I would
see the show in syndication and started noticing that almost every reenactment
began with the people walking through an ordinary day.
They were going to work, school, or the store and then something
terrible and life-altering happened to them.
There’s something about the beginning of a new year
that makes us all unbridled optimists.
We think the first day of 2017 will greet us with happier relationships,
healthier bodies, and fatter bank accounts.
We never enter a year thinking, “this could be the year that my life falls apart.”
We don’t get a text message letting us know that some catastrophic event
is going to hit us this year. The worst things that happen to seemingly come
out of nowhere and often change our lives in a moment without warning.
We would all do well to pause at the beginning of
2017 and ask, “what if 2017 is the worst year of my life?” We spent a lot of
time thinking about resolutions for improving our lives, but do we spend time
thinking about how we will respond if our lives fall apart.
In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul describes the thorn in the flesh he received because of the incredible
visions he had seen.
While he does not identify the nature of the thorn, he tells the
Corinthian church about his struggle with it and God’s response when he pleaded
for Him to take it away.
In looking at Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12, we see three things we
need to remember if this is the year that our lives fall apart.
“So to
keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the
revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass
me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord
about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For
the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
God
is Sovereign Over Our Trials
We do not know
the precise nature of what Paul saw when he was caught up to the third heaven.
He did not come back, write a best-selling book, and pawn off the movie rights.
Instead, he says that what he saw was so
overwhelming and stunning that he received a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from becoming conceited.
Paul does not identify the precise nature of the
thorn.
Pastors, scholars, and commentators offer a surprising number of options. It
could be a physical deformity, false teacher, physical pain, or emotional
burden.
He leaves enough hints for us to come up with plausible hypotheses, but
the vagueness feels purposeful. Our ignorance about the thorn is good news for
us because we do not need to be going through exactly what Paul was facing at
this moment to receive the grace Paul offers in this passage.
Instead, any person who is suffering from any difficulty can hear the
good news Paul proclaims here and receive the comfort it gives.
Paul refers to his thorn as “a messenger of Satan” to harass him and keep him humble.
What he says here sounds strange initially because you would think that
Satan would want Paul to be arrogant.
What we should write over Paul’s thorn, and any suffering
we may face, the words of Joseph in Genesis 50. “You meant evil against me,
but God meant it for good.”
That which Satan would bring in our lives to crush and destroy us, God
uses to make us more like Jesus.
That God works in this way means that Satan, “the universe,” or karma
have no ultimate say over the events that come into our lives.
God in His absolute sovereignty oversees everything that happens to us,
and He intends for it to work in us an eternal weight of glory.
God’s Grace is More Than Enough
That God is sovereign over our trials does not
negate our invitation to pray to Him about them. God’s sovereignty should not
produce a gloom passivity in us.
I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Instead, we should come before the Lord in bold prayer, realizing the answer we hear from Him may sound a
lot like what He told Paul.
Paul asked God to take away the thorn, and the Lord’s answer was that He
intended to leave the thorn right where it was.
The Father did not keep the thorn in Paul’s flesh
as some karmic retribution for something Paul had done wrong.
Rather, God used the thorn in Paul’s flesh for him to learn a lesson he
could not and would not learn when everything was rosy.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is
made perfect in weakness.” What the
Lord tells Paul here is that His grace is all that Paul needs to get him
through his difficulty.
We often think of God’s grace only regarding our
justification, forgetting that it is God’s grace that gives us what we need
every day to continue following Him. It not only saves us, but it also sustains
us.
This truth reminds us that even as people who have experienced salvation
in Christ, we still stand in desperate need of God’s kindness and deliverance
in our daily lives.
We have to learn to lean on Him, depend on him, and rely on Him through
for each step we take throughout the day.
Walking through the darkness reminds of this truth because walking
through the sunshine often causes us to forget it.
God’s Strength Becomes Visible
in Our Weakness
This is particularly the case for the Christian. We cannot live in a way
that brings glory to God and overcome the obstacles the world, the flesh, and
the devil throw in our path when we rely on our own strength to do so.
Instead, we must embrace the truth that we are weak and need the
strength that only God supplies.
Often, the only way we remember this is through
trial and difficulty. When the sun is shining, and everything looks grand, we
forget how desperately dependent we are.
Then suffering or pain arrives, and we remember that we need God. Our
trials are God’s way of grabbing us by the lapels and reminding us that we need
the strength that only He supplies.
When we despair of our own strength and rely on His strength alone, we
will know who should receive the glory when we endure and overcome our trials.
If 2017 gets rough, remember that the sovereign God
who loves his people so much that He gave His only Son to die for them gives His grace and His strength liberally to those who need it.
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“May Your Presence Go
With Us”
Don Moen
lyrics
If Your presence doesn't go with us
Lord we don't want to leave this
place
Lord we need You near
As we go from here
To lead us by Your love and grace.
May Your presence fill us every day
May Your Spirit lead the way
Lord to You we call
Let Your glory fall
And may Your presence go with us.
If we have found favor in Your sight
Show us Your ways O Lord
Cause we want to know You
And live in Your light
For all of our days
Show us Your ways.
We have our hopes
And we have our dreams
But we cannot go
Where You will not lead.
Lord to You we call
Let Your glory fall
And may Your presence go with us.
Scott
Slayton serves as Lead Pastor at Chelsea Village Baptist
Church in Chelsea, AL and writes at his personal
blog One Degree to Another: scottslayton.net.
He and Beth have been married since 2003 and have four children. You can follow him on Twitter: @scottslayton.
http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/what-if-2017-is-your-worst-year-ever.html
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