Unflappable

One of the first things people think when life goes awry is that God doesn’t love them anymore, or that He has never loved them at all. After all, is not love expressed in kindness and blessing? Certainly troubles, even if allowed by an almighty and sovereign God, cannot be an expression of His love?

Today’s devotional reading offers this analogy. “It is in grace as it is in nature; the clouds do not blot out the sun; it is still in the sky, though they often intercept his bright rays. And so with the blessed Sun of righteousness; our unbelief, our ignorance, our darkness of mind, our guilt of conscience, our many temptations—these do not blot out the Sun of righteousness from the sky of grace.”

Living in a climate that offers four distinct seasons, sometimes all mixed together, I perfectly understand this analogy. So far this year, we have had minus forty temperatures and above average temperatures in January, February and March. April is tulip month, but after a week or so of heat that brought out shorts, bicycles and the tips of a few tulips, we had a week of snow and cold, down to minus 15-20 C. Where was spring?

Yet the grass knew. Before the snow, everything was gray and brown, but once that horrid week was over and the temperatures rose, the snow melted and underneath it the grass had turned green. Spring had not abandoned us—it was only hidden by a storm that should have belonged to winter.

In the same way, when trials come my way and I can see only those thick clouds and feel as though Christ and His love for me has been blotted out, or that I have been obscured from His memory or attention, I know that I’m only distracted by the storm. Under it all, I know that His love has been proven in the past, shown over and over in the present, and is guaranteed for the future.

Romans 8:28ff puts this all together. It begins with “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

God sent His Son to die for me that I might become like Him. He uses everything in this life to accomplish this good purpose. He does not promise that all things will be good, but that all things are tools in His hand. If He cannot use a thing to shape me into the image of His Son, then that thing will not happen to me. He controls the clouds, and the next few verses nail down the questions that those clouds bring.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Like a plant needs both sunshine and rain, I also need both blessing and challenges. I’ve been told that if a person helps a butterfly in its struggle to get out of its cocoon, that lovely insect will die. It is the same with a hatching bird. The struggle is necessary for building the strength needed for the life to come. What a wimp I would be without trials!

I don’t know if the measure of trials fought and endured here on earth have anything to do with what I will be like in glory. Maybe being “more than conquerors” will mean greater rewards, but even if it does not make a difference in that future life, it certainly makes a difference here.

Last year I talked a great deal about a new word and made it a goal: unflappable. If I’ve learned anything in the past year, it is that the love of God is the only foundation that I can firmly stand upon. Through my tests and trials and amid all the clouds and craziness of our lives, I’m “confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in me will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6) and He is using even those trails to do it.

The other thing I’ve learned is that when I am battered about and in a tizzy about whatever unexpected thing is trying to block my view of His loving purposes, God is always there, always loving me. I don’t know if I will ever reach that unflappable goal, but I do know that my God is already there and has always been completely and totally unflappable.

Unflappable

In the book I’m reading one of the characters says “money is power.” In the city I live in the candidates who won yesterday’s civic elections say votes gave them power. The newspaper article I just read was about the power of hurricanes. In some families, mom has all the power, or dad, or the kids. The point is, power is different things to different people.

In Colossians 1:11-12, Paul prayed that Christians would be “strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”

No doubt “His glorious power” has many different meanings too. Some suppose the power of God is His ability to create and destroy. Others might think it is His sovereign control, or His ability to change hearts. Some pray that God will bring them health, wealth and total happiness, indicating that His power is about granting them whatever they ask.

In these verses from Colossians, Paul offers a different definition. He puts power in the same category as “patience,” “longsuffering with joy” and “giving thanks.” Many people think that these things have nothing to do with power, but God’s Word says otherwise.

My study Bible says patience has to do with enduring difficult circumstances, while longsuffering is more about enduring difficult people. Sometimes both happen at the same time, but anyone who suffers trials of any sort knows the impossibility of being joyful and thankful during those trials. I know I cannot manage it. Even at the best of times, it’s easy to find something to be unhappy about or to grumble. God asks me to “count it all joy” (James 1:2-4) when my world falls apart, but sometimes I have trouble being joyful when all things are going well!

The power of God is about being like God. Christians inherit His nature. The Holy Spirit lives in us to give us godliness, yet godliness is not about having power as defined by the dictionary; it is about having power as defined by the character of God.

Whatever life hands me today, God wants me to respond to it in His power, meaning that I will be patient, enduring, joyful and thankful—whether my day is creative or the wheels fall off; whether I see God changing my world or I feel He is absent; whether I see change in myself and others or backsliding; whether I get richer or poorer, stronger or weaker, happier or sadder. If God answers my prayers or does not, living in His power means that I am patient and joyful, the same, all the time.

About a year ago, I selected a word as my goal. The word was “unflappable.” Every now and then God reminds me that the only way I can reach this target is through Him. Today He shows me that only His awesome and surprising power can keep me the same, all the time, unflappable.