The Blessedness of Perseverance In Lonely Brokenness

Despite hardship, persecution, calamity or trouble,

What Jesus has done means we are never to worry,

Nothing evil can do will ever burst Jesus’ bubble,
So never give in to temptation to give up in a flurry.

***

Back in my AA days I recall the teaching on the Two Great Pests: worry and indecision. I tried always to steer clear of those two and for the latter part of my life I’ve succeeded for the most part.

There are Two Great Truths that I feel God wishes for me to share with you; that I’m conscious of as I write: 1) The lonelier you are the closer he is. 2) The more you respond in love when you wish to give up, the more God will show you just how close he is. The first requires simple acknowledgement by faith; to hold to the truth. The second requires persistence in response; to love when you don’t feel like it, despite the lack of evidence of payback. Both require such significant faith, which is behaviour that goes against what we are experiencing. Faith, therefore, comes into its own when we continue to trust, despite God seeming like he’s plain not there!

The Lonelier You Are the ‘Closer’ God Is

I use inverted commas for ‘closer’ simply because God never changes; he is ever close to us, present everywhere. So, to say “the ‘closer’ God is” is really saying “the ‘closer’ God is by our experience.”

The truth is the lonelier we get, the more desperate we are for God to visit us by his Presence. There is generally always a message or a messenger that God uses to prove to us that he is never closer (by our experience).

See how it is that the worse things get – the lonelier we are – the better they turn out – for God will show us in miraculous ways how very ingenious he is in getting our attention.

Respond in Love and God Will Show Himself

“At the proper time” the above heading should say; at the proper time, God will show himself by our experience. God is never late. God never does the wrong thing. So we can trust God’s perfect timing for everything.

As we cast a refreshing eye over 1 Corinthians 13 we find that love is the response that the Spirit of God wants to see urgently through us, especially when we are exhausted in lonely brokenness.

As we respond to the worst things by patience, kindness, meekness, selflessness, rejoicing in the truth; by bearing things, by believing him, by holding onto hope, and by enduring even this; we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

***

The lonelier we are, the more broken and confused we become, the more God is ready to make himself known in that lonely brokenness.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.