Greatest love

What is God's will for my life?

That's the million dollar question because the answer to that is perfection, and if you're type-A like myself then this becomes something you desperately try to get right.  

What makes our work, relationships, and leisure to fall inside or outside of the will of God?  Surely we can't expect to do whatever we want and call that God's will!  That would make us God, which is ludicrous!  So, how do we merge the Sovereignty of God and our free will?  

I've worded this question in so many different ways:

-Where do I end and God begins? 

-Is it possible for me to derail the will of God in my life?

-How much am I supposed to do and how much does God do? 

-How do I begin cooperating with the Holy Spirit?

-Am I really free to make as many mistakes as possible and still remain in Christ? 

-Am I abusing grace?  If so, what is grace? 

-Am I able to change myself or must God first change something in me? 

-What's the sequence of transformation? 

And the list goes on.  

But the main idea is repeated in my heart when I hit that junction in life that makes me ask: "Are You there God?"  When pain collides with His wisdom and I'm sitting in my mess with His perfection.  My mess + His perfection.  Such a strange and dynamic duo.  To feel so hurt, but not harmed.  To be in so much pain, but not abandoned by love.  I wouldn't say it's necessarily fear either, it's just pain.  And pain doesn't necessarily imply fear.  Pain implies hurt, maybe disappointment and/or a jab at my ego or something like an unmet desire, but fear could be totally absent.  

Which makes pain and love soluble.  

If it's pain and fear then that's something different, because fear implies an absence of love.  (1 John 4:18)

So there's pain that has love and pain that does not.  And being able to detect fear makes the difference!  But what we cannot and should not do is throw out pain altogether lest we throw out love along with it!  For without pain there is no love, because if God is love then we can clearly see that He loved us through pain!  

“Who has believed what we have heard? 

And who has the arm of the Lord been revealed to? 

He grew up before Him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground." (Isaiah 53:1-2a)

-We, too, start out like young plants and we know there is a difference between beautiful plants and withering ones.  We have seen both what it is to flourish and what it is to be in poverty.  There are rich and beautiful people and then there are ugly poor people.  This much is visible and we are exposed to both.  The desire for beauty, youth, good form, and wealth increase our distaste for the opposite.  

We tend to focus on our desires, meanwhile there is another more subtle concoction brewing within us which is our distaste.  

The more we desire something the more our distaste for the opposite increases!  If you desire beauty then your distaste for ugly will match in intensity.  So this is about exposing our distastes via our desires.  To know what we want is pretty easy (beauty, comfort, security, significance, belonging, etc.), but to know what are desires are feeding, namely our growing distaste, will reveal whether or not our pain is the kind with fear or the kind with love.  This is because pain is birthed from discontent, or not getting what you wanted/ or getting something you didn't want, and discontent has to do with unmet desires...which are distasteful in our hearts.  But if we can discover our desires as well as our distastes, and place them under the light of Scripture, we can hold the pain that comes with love and let go of the pain that is with fear.  A life of fear is no life at all, and a life without love is even worse!  Let's look at what love with pain is like according to Scripture so that when it happens to us we can hold it for as long as it persists since it is paired with that great love. 

"He didn’t have an impressive form 

or majesty that we should look at Him, 

no appearance that we should desire Him."

(Isaiah 53:2)

Common Desire: impressive form, beauty that makes people look at us, and ultimately desirability of ourselves to people.  Good appearance.  

Subtle Distaste: to be unimpressive, to have people look away from us, and to be undesirable to people.

Biblical truth:  these common desires in life will experience pain when it's corresponding distastes happens, but this pain is most likely paired with love because Christ also experienced it.  

"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; He was despised, and we didn’t value Him."  

(Isaiah 53:3)

Common desire:  Being accepted, a sense of belonging, good health, likability, attraction, and value. 

Subtle distaste:  Being disliked by people, rejection by people, sickness or bad health, and a loss of value in the eyes of others. 

Biblical truth:  the more we desire to be accepted and liked by people the more painful it will be when it doesn't happen.  However, if we endure this pain with our hearts set on knowing Christ through it then it will be paired with that great love.  

"Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, and He carried our pains; but we in turn regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted." 

(Isaiah 53:4)

Common desire:  to appear to have God's favor via good health and no burdens weighing us down. 

Subtle distaste:  to be pitied by people.  

Biblical truth:  when our desire to appear "blessed" by others is actually met with their pity this can lead to great pain.  But Christ also endured the pain of pity for the sake of great love.

"But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds." 

(Isaiah 53:5) 

Common desire:  Being without fault, justification by others, to be rewarded and have peace, to be healed. 

Subtle distaste:  to be at fault, to be unjustly blamed, undeserved punishment, a lack of peace, and to be wounded.  

Biblical truth:  pain that comes from being at fault, unjustly blamed, undeserved punishment, lack of peace and wounds by people are also likely paired with that great love and therefore worthy of being endured if we experience it as a means of knowing Christ more.  

"We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished Him for the iniquity of us all."

(Isaiah 53:6)

Common desire:  getting our way.

Subtle distaste:  not getting our way.

Biblical truth:  we all chose to go our own way, and that way was the wrong way, so the pain of not getting our (wrong) way is good if we look at Christ and what He endured because our ways were all wrong! 

Perhaps I need not continue pointing out the common desires and subtle distastes that are one in the same thing leading either to pain with love (if held under the light of biblical truth) or pain with fear (without biblical truth).  

But the following is a good reminder for what we might expect in this life that leads to that great love if we will hold pain in such a way.  

"He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep silent before her shearers, He did not open His mouth."

(Isaiah 53:7)

"He was taken away because of oppression and judgment; and who considered His fate? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was struck because of my people’s rebellion."

(Isaiah 53:8)

"They made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man at His death, although He had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully."

(Isaiah 53:9)

"Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him severely. When You make Him a restitution offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and by His hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished."

(Isaiah 53:10)

"He will see it out of His anguish, and He will be satisfied with His knowledge. My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will carry their iniquities."

(Isaiah 53:11)

"Therefore I will give Him the many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil, because He submitted Himself to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet He bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels.”

(Isaiah 53:12)

Greatest love:  to know Christ. 

"No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends." 

-John 15:13

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So the next time you are in pain consider your desires and their corresponding distastes.  And pray to hold pain with love or to let go of pain with fear.   But do not dismiss pain altogether, for to know pain like Christ there comes a great love. 

God's will for your life and mine is to know Christ and this is a process of intimacy that our lives will continue to experience until we see Him face to face. 

"For this is God's will, your sanctification"

1 Thessalonians 4:3a

In other words we are, everyday, being transformed, changed and carved out by God's loving hands.  Sometimes this feels good, and sometimes this hurts.  If we can recognize when it hurts and hold it then we can cooperate with His will leading to our sanctification.  

Just to be more clear, if your pain leads to your empathizing with Christ's pain, and to knowing Him more, then it will lead to love, but if your pain does not look at Christ at all it will be a wasted pain without love.  

I may not know why pain happens at certain times or in certain circumstances, but all I can know for sure is that He is not done perfecting me yet.  

Jmegrey