EVERY DIFFICULTY DEMANDS A CHOICE
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“We are hard pressed on every side,
yet not crushed: we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”—2 Corinthians 4:8-9
There is no such thing as a
trouble-free life, but something within us still expects it. There are even those who think that when a
person becomes a Christian that God removes the difficulties from his or her
life. It is not long before
disappointment sets in, as they discover that instead of less trouble, they may
have more. This could be because God is
in the process of cleansing and changing old and habits that do not fit in a
believer’s life.
Salvation is the beginning of a
lifelong process of transformation.
There are areas in our life that need to be sanded, sifted, and shaped
into Christ likeness, and trouble is one of God’s most effective tools. I realize that this view point may not be
popular among some Theological points of view; however, the men and women of
Scripture whom God used greatly were those who endured hardship and responded
correctly.
For example, the apostle Paul gave
his entire life to serve Christ. He
founded and encouraged churches, answered tough theological questions, and
wrote many of the Bible’s epistles. Yet
his sufferings exceed anything most of us have endured. We may think God was unfair to let him face
so much hardship, but it was the suffering that shaped and equipped him to be
an effective servant of Christ. Without
it, he would not have developed an intimate relationship with God or been used
so mightily.
Corrie ten Boom has long been
honored by evangelical Christians as an exemplar of Christian faith in action.
Arrested by the Nazis along with the rest of her family for hiding Jews in
their Haarlem home during the Holocaust, she
was imprisoned and eventually sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp
along with her beloved sister, Betsie, who perished there just days
before Corrie's own release on December 31,
1944. Inspired by Betsie's example of
selfless love and forgiveness amid extreme cruelty and persecution, Corrie
established a post-war home for other camp survivors trying to recover from the
horrors they had escaped. She went on to
travel widely as a missionary, preaching God's forgiveness and the need for
reconciliation. Corrie's devout moral principles were tested when, by chance,
she came face to face with one of her former tormentors in 1947. The following description of that experience
is excerpted from her 1971 autobiography, The Hiding Place, written with
the help of John and Elizabeth Sherrill.
I'm Still Learning to Forgive
It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavy-set man in
a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were
filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken. It was 1947 and I had
come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. ... And that's when I saw him, working his way forward against the others.
One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a
visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge
room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in
the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see
my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie,
how thin you were!
Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during
the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck
concentration camp where we were sent. ...
"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he was saying.
"I was a guard in there." No, he did not remember me.
"I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a
prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us."
"But since that time," he went on, "I have become a
Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there,
but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, ..."
his hand came out, ... "will you forgive me?"
And I stood there — I whose sins had every day to be forgiven — and
could not. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible
death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out,
but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had
ever had to do.
For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a
prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. "If you do not
forgive men their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father
in heaven forgive your trespasses." ...
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But
forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the
will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
"Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can
do that much. You supply the feeling."
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched
out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in
my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this
healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my
heart!"
For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and
the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.
From Guideposts. Copyright © 1972 by Guideposts, Carmel, New York
10512. All rights reserved.
Whatever difficulty that you are
going through right now, I am sure God can use it to draw you to Himself. Every
difficulty demands a choice. You can
waste your suffering and be miserable, or you can let the Lord use it to
transform and equip you to become His valuable and effective servant just like
He did with Corrie ten Boom.
