Learning from Life
(Exhortation - June 1999)
Changing for the good
Many of us don’t like change, we want to keep doing things in the same familiar
way. But Peter tells us we must seek spiritual growth, a form of change, and major change
at that: "But grow in the grace, and knowledge of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen" (II
Pet. 3:18).
Christ, and Paul and the other disciples often spoke of perfection or maturing. We have to grow to come to maturity, and even once we are mature, we have to grow in order to bear fruit. Fruit trees bear on branches that are from a few weeks to a few years in age. They don’t bear fruit directly on the old, main limbs but on the new branches. In like manner, we best yield spiritual fruit when we are growing.
This life is a time of preparation and training for the Kingdom, of changing from the ways of the flesh to spiritual ways and spiritual thinking. If we have a tendency to resist change, to dislike it, we need to consider carefully whether this is alright. Perhaps we need to try to welcome change or at least not resist it without reason or react with annoyance or become agitated just because things are different.
Examine yourself and check for pride. In our resistance to change, are we saying "I’m good the way I am; I shouldn’t have to change." Or, "I’ve improved a lot, I shouldn’t have to change any more." Or perhaps, "My sins don’t really amount to anything; they don’t count; after all, I’m a lot better than most people."
Of course, change is not a virtue in itself. Change helps us only if we grow because of it or if we learn from it. Change increases knowledge and experience, and perhaps it brings understanding and wisdom.
One definition of experience is "recognizing a mistake when we make it again." Probably we can all relate to that, but it is only by combining Bible reading, study, and prayer with knowledge and experience from life, that we can grow in understanding, wisdom, and faith.
Learning about ourselves
One of the big lessons we learn from life is that we’re not as good a person, not
as strong a person as we thought, and we don’t understand life or even the Scriptures
as well as we assumed.
We learn we make mistakes and need forgiveness and help. King David was a humble and faithful man. He probably felt confident he would never give in to weaknesses like Saul. But, until he experienced it, he never realized the temptations of being king, of being obeyed without question, of being able to take anything he wanted, whenever he wanted it. He sinned with Bathsheba, and had Uriah killed. It must have been a terrible shock to him when he realized he had abused his power as Saul had.
We become aware that we are selfish, and that it’s difficult to be fair, especially if we try to be fair to ourselves. Most mature people believe in being fair. But when we think we’re trying to be fair and then feel the other person is responding by trying to "take advantage" of us, we can get very upset, even furious, and love goes out the window.
We think we know the best way to do things, and those who don’t agree with our proposals are being unreasonable. Well, we have our reasons for our approach, but so do they for theirs. Have we examined our reasons critically? Does selfishness or personal advantage enter into them subconsciously?
It is a truism that we can never learn humility -- a conscious effort to do so only produces pride in how humble we are! David learned to his great surprise and horror that he didn’t need to try to be humble, he had a lot to be humble about. The real form of true humility is repentance. This is a lesson we very badly need to learn! We are sinful and weak, and repentance is for us, too, not just for the other person.
Appearances can make a difference
Life teaches us that good intentions are not enough, and things we plan in a spirit of
good will sometimes go wrong. It could be things would have turned out better if we had
used more care or forethought, but not always. We learn to submit all things in prayer and
accept the will of the Lord.
Sometimes a good result in our eyes looks like a disaster to somebody else. In some cases, we will have to let God be the final judge (I Cor. 3:10-15). But in addition, though we like to think appearances shouldn’t matter, we find they do. Paul tells us in II Corinthians 8:21(NKJV) to provide "honorable things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men." Romans 12:17, and I Peter 2:11-12 reinforce this command. We can’t solve the dilemma by hypocrisy. That’s completely unacceptable. What we must face is foregoing advantage, or suffering loss or taking inconvenience, and make the extra effort or work for the sake of providing an honorable appearance.
Change is inevitable
We have described change as a possible source of growth. Change is inevitable. Whether
we change our thinking or our way of doing things or not, the world changes, and we get
older. The world, especially the next generation, doesn’t care that we don’t
want things to change; it thinks change is progress. Yes, we know things go in cycles. And
Solomon makes that point very well in Ecclesiastes 1. But cycles never repeat in exactly
the same way. Do we take the trouble to notice the difference? Don’t forget an
important difference: when the cycle repeats, we’re older, even if we’re only
30!
Change allows us or forces us to look at things in life in new ways and from new points of view. We learn what is changeable and what is always the same; we see what is worthwhile and what is worthless. We find out about what matters and what doesn’t.
When we have troubles, the possibility of change gives us hope. This too shall pass. The need for patience, trust and hope in God becomes clearer. In the long run, this life is not our objective. We are really working toward life in the Kingdom.
But the world sees change as being for the better, especially in terms of material progress. In reality, material and scientific progress often have a bad side or are abused. New capabilities are used for evil purposes; abundance stimulates greed, pride and arrogance. We learn to look at change critically and to place our hope in the Lord, not in a "better world."
If we are paying attention, we see others are strong where we are weak and we need to be strong when others are weak. Independence is good, but our brothers and sisters are there to help when we really need it.
But all human help can fail; we can only always rely on God.
Father, I ask that all my life
May be o’erruled by Thee:
The changes then that surely come
I shall not fear to see.
Gradual change through the memorials
Christ tried to cause change in the lives of those who heard him and in the life of
the Jewish nation. He found it very difficult to change the way people thought, even the
thinking of the twelve, the men whom he carefully selected out of a special nation. We are
surely not as good material as the twelve were. Is it even more difficult for Christ to
change our thinking?
The memorial service should change us each time. Most of the time, the changes will be small, or will be bringing us to the level we had fallen from in the past week. But true remembrance of the sacrificial death and the resurrection of the Son of God should sooner or later change us "to be conformed to his death," and to have "fellowship with his sufferings."
"I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death" (Phil. 3:8,10 NKJV).
This passage in Philippians helps us see the connection of Romans 6:3-8 with the memorial service:
"Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?...Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life...For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him" (Rom. 6:3-8 NKJV).
The things that we learn from life help the old man to die and the new man to grow each Sunday morning. So now let pride die and let faith grow each time we remember our Lord.
Gar Cooper, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania