Back in the days before anyone, even the Old Farmer’s Almanac, ever used the term “wind chill” there were those days in February when even Jack Frost headed for the barn. I can still remember seeing -40° on the Pioneer Seed Corn thermometer hanging on the back porch. Those were the days that my dad’s long johns hanging on the clothes line looked like a pale version of the Gingerbread Man. The days when I couldn’t run fast enough from the bedroom to the oven in the kitchen where my mom — God bless her — was warming my clothes.
It was one of those days that made a 4th grader dream of summer and fishing and fooling around – not school and snow. I had managed to keep myself occupied during school but time was running out. Oh it wasn’t that it was cold outside. After all it was only a few blocks up the hill and that wouldn’t take long. The problem was that it was “Wednesday” and that was another thing entirely.
Sitting there watching the school clock move ever so close to 4:30 only made it worse. On any other day I would be urging the old ticker to hurry up so I could get on with the important things in life, which definitely did not include Mrs. Albers droning voice and her ever ready “ruler.” No, this wasn’t one of those grab your sled and hit the hill days. Nope it was Wednesday.
As I slowly headed home the wind hitting my face felt like a million sharp needles, but even that couldn’t make me hurry. I just hunkered down and trudged through the snow while studying the buckles on my overshoes, wondering how I could avoid the inevitable confrontation that was certainly awaiting me when I got home.
There must be something, some unique genetic code implanted in us at the age of 10 that enables us to smell home baked pie or cookies no matter what conditions the weatherman could conjure up to deter us. Why I could even tell you what mom had sitting on the counter when I was 2 blocks away. So it was no wonder that when I reached the top of the hill it hit me. How with the wind howling in my face could I discern it I haven’t a clue, but there it was. It hit me so hard that my pace slowed to that of a snail on a frozen log.
Urged on by some unseen force — most likely the potential wrath of my father — I started down the hill, searching for a new plan; a new set of circumstances. As I reached the back porch and looked at the storm door I realized it was a lost cause. Short of throwing up on the kitchen floor or falling down and breaking my leg there was no option. I was a cooked goose, a fly caught in a web, a fish on a hook — I didn’t want to leave the porch, even if it meant being found frozen to the linoleum in the morning. But with a burst of bravado and hope I opened the door. But all hope faded as I looked and it hit me in the face like a bucket of ice water as my glassed over glaze fell on the kitchen table … Liver and Onions!
Isn’t it amazing the lengths we will go to avoid going through something that we ultimately know is for our benefit. Now, mind you, even though there are some benefits to be gained in eating liver, I still haven’t found a compelling enough reason to do so and am not actively searching for one. But it does beg the issue – we quite often go to great lengths to avoid the tests set before us; tests that seem to have no immediate benefit.
It is so easy to follow our flesh and avoid even the thought of any spiritual consideration. The temporal quite often out votes the eternal, no matter what the consequences. We just don’t want to trust God with the outcome. Especially with an outcome that we can’t see, measure, evaluate or define. Why, wonders our flesh, do we have to “suffer?”
Ah but that is what sanctification is all about.
1 Thess 4:4 That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;
Sanctification is an interesting concept. It means to be set apart for God or to be, as it were, exclusively His. We are prepared for God; pure and clean. At least that’s what the Word of God tells us. In His eyes we are already there but in our eyes we are far from it. We know that we are far from being morally pure, sinless, upright or holy and yet that’s how God sees us; through the lens of Jesus.
Heb 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
It’s easy to read that and certainly the meaning is clear. Sanctified is in the past tense — it’s finished; completed. God is looking at the end product but we aren’t there yet. That’s why Paul encouraged (admonished) us to complete the process:
Phil 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
He did not admonish us to work to “attain” our salvation, but rather we are to work out (walk out; live out) the salvation we have received. It’s the ironing out of the wrinkles in our old nature that are still hanging around. Remember, only our spirit was renewed when we made Jesus Lord, not our flesh; especially our mind. And so it’s a process that we are to go through, but not one in which we are left helpless. That’s where The Spirit comes in.
We have chosen to live with Jesus and in that process we have also chosen to “die” with Him. We may not have thought of that at our moment of commitment but we did. We made a commitment to die with Him through the power of His Spirit, and that death is an ongoing process that will take a lifetime; dying-to-self. And that is something our flesh not only doesn’t want to do, it (in and of itself) cannot do it. We are hopelessly lost without the wisdom, guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. Remember the definition of our “comforter” our parakleet?
… summoned; called to one’s side to aid; to follow as to be always at one’s side; to follow up a thing in mind so as to attain to the knowledge of it.
Let’s focus for a moment on that last definition; to follow up. That’s where the testings and trials come into play. Along the “sanctification road” there are a lot of stops we have to make in order to become like Jesus. There are parts of our flesh that need to die and the only way we are ever going to get that done is if the Holy Spirit shows them to us, we acknowledge them and then submit to the correction. And what better way to accomplish that than to “test” us with that very thing.
But at the time we quite often don’t see the value of the test or the trial. Once again it’s always an issue of the eternal versus the temporal. In the process we have the option — the free will — to avoid the test. But along with that decision comes a halt in our sanctification. We become like a nut on a stripped bolt; spinning around but getting nowhere. God will leave us right where we are until we deal with the issue. And deal with it we must as God is not in the habit of skipping steps. He may not like to watch but He will let us stay in one spot and spin and spin until we finally get tired and submit to His perfect will. But don’t forget that He has also given us the strength and power to “get through” to the end.
James put it all in perspective for us:
James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
The word he uses here for temptations — peirasmois — means putting to proof by experiment, experience or adversity. Here it is again:
1Cor 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Here is another example from Peter where the “trial” is described as testing or examining by smelting; fire:
1Peter 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
1Peter 4:12-13 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
Matthew (5:12) and Luke (6:23) tell us to rejoice when we are being persecuted and Acts (5:41) reminds us that the apostles were rejoicing that they were found worthy to suffer.
The bottom line here is the fact that God will bring us into a hard place because there are some things He needs to deal with; to get us through. In one way or another it involves our flesh and therein lays the rub. Our flesh doesn’t like it. At the moment we can’t see the benefit or we do we don’t think it’s worth the price. Perhaps that’s why the Lord calls us sheep — being left alone to our own devices without a shepherd we would be devoured by wolves. Don’t think for a moment that the devil isn’t just as interested in keeping us spinning in the same “fleshly” circle as God is in moving us onward and upward.
I suppose tying this together with liver and onions was a bit of a stretch but the message is clear. God has a profound propensity to comfort the afflicted and “afflict” the comforted. My mom was looking at the benefits in the liver; huge amounts of B12, potassium, iron and protein; my father was looking at the low price of liver. I, on the other hand, was considering the horrible smell and taste. Perhaps I could have raised the issue of the huge amount of cholesterol present in each bite but in those days in the heartland of meat and potatoes nobody cared. Had I been old enough to understand that the liver is a filter to get rid of toxic waste I may have never come in out of the cold.
Nah – that would get me about as far with my dad as it did when I agreed with my mom that there were starving kids in Korea that would love to have liver and onions. I thought my idea of sending it to them was first rate but not so my dad. But we can talk about the “swift hand” of justice at another time. For now there are some other issues that are keeping me standing out on the back porch in the cold, deciding if I want to open the door or stay outside and freeze. Where are you standing?