2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Not long ago, A friend of mine went on a guided tour of this large cave near us. I am sure that you have walk through these winding and really narrow, passageways admiring the wonders that God has created from stalagmites, stalactites, and underground rivers. He entered this one large chamber, and the guide turned on the light and directed his eyes to this high vaulted ceiling. You can probably guess what animals he saw hanging out up there - bats, lots of bats. The guide told him that the early explorers of this cave had found large quantities of what she called bat guano. If you don't know what that is, never mind. It's gross, that's what it is. But they made lots of money selling that stuff. I thought, "What good could bat dung possibly be?" Surprise! They make gunpowder out of it! And even more surprisingly, they said that they can turn that gross stuff into makeup like mascara and lipstick!
It's amazing how people can turn something seemingly useless and ugly into something useful and even beautiful. What's more amazing is how God does that with our lives! In fact, He's wanting to do that for you - to make something beautiful and useful out of the ugliest things that have happened in your life. And only He can.
One way He does that is described in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. "The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort ... comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." I don't know what kind of "troubles" you've been through; it could be anything from sickness, to abuse, to addiction, to grief. But whatever the trouble, I know that it's made you need the Lord more than ever before. And so you experienced His compassion, His comfort, His strength, and His support in some deeply personal ways.
Now, in a sense, God wants you to be for other hurting people what He has been for you. That's how He takes the worst things that ever happened to you and makes them into something beautiful. Scott was listening to a youth broadcast one night when he was desperately lonely; desperate enough to be considering suicide. Instead, he gave his life to Christ that night. Later, he told me that he decided to have a ministry to people like himself for the rest of his life. He knew how to help lonely people because he had been lonely.
Jane was sexually abused by two different family members. When she brought that awful garbage to Jesus, He began to give her a ministry to abused girls and she has helped a lot of them. Her history of abuse became her strange credentials for caring for abuse victims. Don has also had a tremendous ministry to young people that others would call rejects. He's so tender and compassionate toward them. You know why? He says it's because he remembers the hurt he experienced as an illegitimate child in a terribly dysfunctional home. God has recycled his wounds into a life-changing compassion.
God wants to do that for you if you'll bring Him all that pain, all those wounds, all those memories. He wants to take all that ugly stuff - stuff that looks like it is useless, and He wants to turn into something very beautiful - a tender, compassionate, helping heart in you. Because of what Christ can do with the waste of our lives, the ones who have been hurt the most turn out to be some of the greatest healers in the world, AMEN! ! !
posted by I love Jesus! ! ! @ Wednesday, July 11, 2007
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