Gifts and Brussel Sprouts

One of the interesting things about serving the Lord is the seeming delight He takes in surprising us.  Sometimes these are sweet surprises, unexpected blessings or gifts that we are eager to unwrap.  However, there are times when these “gifts” don’t feel quite as much like presents, but more like someone stuck some brussel sprouts onto our plate when we weren’t looking.  I remember as a kid sometimes reaching over and skewering an olive or other attractive morsel from my brother’s plate when he was distracted, but I’m certain I never swiped a brussel sprout.

It is interesting how quick we are to name gifts and trials, blessings and curses.  I know that I label them based on my most immediate experience of them.  If the thing feels good or I experience it as fun then it must be a gift, a blessing, God is smiling down on me.  If the thing is painful or I feel anxious or afraid then it is a trial or even a curse, God is distant or frowning at me.   Of course, hindsight often changes our perspective on things.  After the immediate has passed, we can view the results with more objectivity.  Sometimes in those moments we have a sort of epiphany and realize that the thing we called as curse was really a blessing in disguise.  A gift wrapped in pain or frustration.

I wonder what my experience of life would be if I really believed that everything, absolutely everything, was really under the control, the absolute control, of a being that loves me and cares for me even more and better than I love and care for my kids?  I am not saying that pain and suffering would cease.  These things will be with us until the end of the world.  But if I really believed that God was in charge of pain and suffering, perhaps I could endure them as a necessary part of my training.  I remember a coach in high school who pushed us to run until it hurt and then to run some more.  He knew that we were capable of more than we thought we were able to do.  He pushed us past the end of ourselves and we discovered something beyond the last frontier of endurance.

If everything really comes from my loving Father God, then perhaps the suffering is not simply meaningless pain, but is redemptive.  Perhaps there is a redeeming value, a redeeming purpose in it.  Perhaps God, like the coach, knows something that I don't know.  One of the miracles of the incarnation is that God actually knows our pain.  He learned through His own suffering.  So, when He sovereignly surprises us with suffering He knows what it means; He has been there and done that.  Somehow viewing it from this perspective makes it more bearable even if it is still unpalatable. I won't be looking for pain any more than I'll be surreptitiously skewering brussel sprouts, but perhaps I can stop muttering against the chef.