I am beginning to think my first two decades of ministry were not the real thing.  Not that God didn’t do great things and receive great honor, but that life tended to be easy AND comfortable.  No kids then young kids without a social life meant there was plenty of free time for the wife and I.  We spent a great deal of our “free time” on ministry.  Not a bad idea.  So in this past two years of living, God has allowed us to open up the gift of Pain, Confusion, Stress, Doubt and Struggle.  Make no mistake, it is a gift.  There was no typo in that last sentence.  The question is, “How is Pain, Confusion, Stress, Doubt and Struggle” a gift?  Ahhh, when you find the answer to that one you will understand what I mean.

Dale West used to take us to the Potter’s house in Mexico every summer and explain how the potter makes pottery and then would take us to Jeremiah 18 and show us how God is the Potter of our lives.  Somehow God always used that message to do something in me.  I don’t know what it was, the fact that a wonderful man of joy and praise in any circumstance was talking or we were in the Mexico interior in a dark room where the wheel has spun over a million revolutions without any fanfare.  It is fascinating, until you land on the wheel spinning around and around and around.  Or if you land out in the sun to just sit there and bake…that is bad enough for the Type A folks out there who feel guilty during rest times.  What if God throws you in the kiln and turns up the heat?  We don’t like that, we ALWAYS want the finished product before the cutting, shaping, sitting, spinning, heating and more heating and more heating takes place.  THAT IS MY EXPERIENCE AT LEAST.

THIS IS THE ABUNDANT LIFE.  I don’t know how we can conclude that living comfortably, rich, posh, entitled lives will ever equate to what Jesus said is the abundant life.  It simply can’t be.  My reason:  WE WILL NEVER BE DRAWN TO THE CROSS OR TO THE CONSTANT NEED OF JESUS THERE.  Pain, Confusion, Stress, Doubt, Struggle has the chance and a powerful chance to lead us to Christ.  I need Jesus in a big way.  I have found myself whispering under my breath this alot lately, “LORD HAVE MERCY PLEASE!”  I think Jesus is smiling.  The clay is starting to yield.  The vessel is ready for more heat, some glazing and more heat!  In the end, because of Pain, Confusion, Stress, Doubt, Struggle the clay will never be able to say, “Look at what I did!” Nope, all will conclude WHAT A GREAT POTTER.

Finally, have you ever did some landscaping or painted the exterior of a house and noticed all the neat landscaping and painted houses a little differently in the neighborhood.  When we experience something for ourselves we receive new EYES, not necessarily new HEARTS.  But if we yield the heart will be changed.  God will use Pain, Confusion, Stress, Doubt and Struggle in your life to encourage another.  What a GIFT!