Tracing the pattern

Twin daughters of a friend have taken the big leap from home-schooling into the public school system. They are artists and very good artists. A recent assignment required one of them to make an illustrated book for children. Her drawings were so good that her mother told her to be prepared that the teacher would ask if they were traced. The girl was insulted, and the teacher did ask.

Normally, tracing could be a form of ‘cheating’ or at least frowned on, but there is one part of life where God wants me to do exactly that. My devotional reading today actually uses a word that refers to tracing:

For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth”; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. (1 Peter 2:20-23)

The Greek word translated as “example” refers to a pattern that is placed under a piece of paper to be traced. It brings to mind the exercise books of childhood where I learned my letters tracing over a pattern. As a Christian, I am supposed to trace my life according to the pattern Christ laid down for me.

Here it talks about His pattern when suffering for being falsely accused or being abused for doing good things (it happens). I first notice that the tracing pattern has no lines for sin. Because Jesus didn’t, I must not either. If I am going to follow His example, I cannot fight back, threaten, defend myself, or even give a tongue lashing to those who do mistreat me. I’m not supposed to backtalk about them when they are out of earshot either.

What I can do is described in those words, “but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.” This is about believing God is sovereign and will do what is right. I can trust myself and my situation over to Him. He knows what is going on and can change things. Yet I must also know that His plan is perfect. That means if I must be left for a while in hot water, He has good reason for it.

Jesus was handed over to Pilate, then Pilate handed Him over to the Jews who wanted Him crucified. In all this, Jesus handed Himself over to the care of His Father, knowing that the will of God is good, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

By faith, Jesus died on the cross as the Jews wanted. It was totally unjust and undeserved, and by doing this, it seemed as if Jesus had been defeated and destroyed. However, God revealed to His disciples after He rose from the dead this was His plan (emphasis mine):

(Jesus) being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. (Acts 2:23-24)

But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. (Acts 3:18)

And in a prayer to God, they said, “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27-28).

When I suffer and there seems to be no reason for it, I usually want God to ‘fix’ it. That is the human response, and often a sinful response. I want comfort rather than pain. I’ve never suffered like Jesus did, but in His suffering and pain, He left me a pattern. Like Him, I need to seek the face of God and say, “Not my will, but thine be done.”