All the promises of God in
Him are Yes, and in Him Amen… —2 Corinthians 1:20
{CHAMBERS} “When it is a question of God’s Almighty Spirit, never
say, “I can’t.” Never allow the limitation of your own natural ability to enter
into the matter. If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of
the Holy Spirit to be exhibited in us. The
servant justified himself, while condemning his lord on every point, as if to
say, “Your demand on me is way out of proportion to what you gave to me.” Have
we been falsely accusing God by daring to worry after He has said, “But seek
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added to you”? (Matthew 6:33). Worrying means exactly what this servant
implied— “I know your intent is to leave me unprotected and vulnerable.” A
person who is lazy in the natural realm is always critical, saying, “I haven’t
had a decent chance,” and someone who is lazy in the spiritual realm is
critical of God. Lazy people always strike out at others in an independent way.
Never forget that our capacity and capability in spiritual matters is measured
by, and based on, the promises of God.”
{ELGIN} When something doesn’t go your way .. .something bad happens,
some might say that it was because you don’t have enough faith or maybe some
sin you committed. Did you know that all
of the disciples were martyred? Do you
suppose that happened because of their lack of faith or perhaps the consequence
of some sin they failed to confess? I think not. People have been trying to figure out the
balance between our new life in Christ and the events that happen or fail to
happen in our earthly life. We tend to
put good things on the “God’s Blessings” side and bad things on the “What have
I done wrong side”. The fact of the matter is that bad things happen to good
people. (That is part of a book title,
by the way) Dr. James Dobson wrote a
book “When God Doesn’t Make Sense” Both
address the whys and wherefores of unpleasant things in life happening to Christians. I mean, after all, aren’t “All the promises of God in
Him are Yes, and in Him Amen”? The Bible
is like an apple tree … Christians tend to pick the apples that are attractive
to them and leave the ones that are not.
The fact is that all of the “apples” are for our consumption. Our challenge, frankly, is to trust God even
when life goes south … someone gets sick or dies … you experience financial loss
.. get fired or laid off from work … a relationship with someone you care about
is broken, apparently beyond repair … the list is pretty long …
Let me share a challenge
Martie and I faced recently. Martie had
what turned out to be a Gallstone in her urethra – Google it if you don’t know
what a urethra is – I did. We thought it
was a heart attack. Well, we had just
left work with the Air Force and surrendered our health benefits. We were in transition to Medicare. We had part A – hospitalization – but were
waiting on documentation from the Air Force so we could get Part B – Out Patient. I rushed her to the emergency room. The people were really professional and
caring. I asked if Part A would cover
the visit and was told “Yes”. I later
found out that I asked the wrong person – that answer was actually “No”. They treated her for a heart attack – which it
wasn’t. They did some imaging … thought it
was a Gallstone, but saw a shadow on her kidney which they thought might be
cancer .. they did some more testing .. finally the radiologist told them that it
was a cyst which is not uncommon .. not cancer … can you say “emotional roller
coaster”? We left relieved … after a few days, the pain stopped .. apparently the
stone had passed into her intestine .. not like a kidney stone. Then the other shoe dropped .. Medicare
notified us that the claim for almost $35,000 was denied.
What!!!
I mean, hey, we are missionaries Lord!
We have laid our lives down for others … come on! Lord are You going to let them take our money? (Just being honest) Martie came to me crying .. she just had been
praying that God would intervene and it looked like we would lose a big chunk
of our life’s savings. But as Paul Harvey used to say “And now for the rest of
the story” I took all of the bill notices
back to the emergency room to get some answers .. like “Why did you say Part A
was OK” I talked to the Director. During the course of our conversation, she said that I was only the second Elgin she
had ever met. The other was her first
boyfriend. I thought "Uh-oh … this may not
be good!" Then she said that her maiden
name was “Charles” and she was getting goose bumps. (Elgin Charles - Charles Elgin - get it?) I told her it was the Spirit of God and then she
told me she was a Christian. When I
shared about Haiti she told me that her grandfather was from Haiti and so I
said something in Creole (Bondye Bon – God is Good) and we conversed briefly in
Creole … the RN sitting at the desk was looking on in amazement. The Director told me to go to the main
hospital and speak with accounting … that we would not be charged the full amount
… I did and they told me that the hospital portion had been reduced to $3,000. But we would have to pay the two Doctors separately – another $3500. Turns out that the accounting representative was also a Christian
and so we had church in the waiting room … got a lot of stares from the people
sitting there. My point … Martie and I
had to be reminded that God is in control and even of we had to pay all of the
money … God is faithful and would walk with us through it. We are not on mission so we can derive some
benefit from it … we are on mission because God has called us to it and we know
that we are right where He wants us to be .. in spite of the storms that rage
around us. He might even ask you to give something us that you thought was "safe". And if He does ... we will trust Him anyway. I pray that the same is true
for you.
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