“And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (1 Peter 5:10 NIV)
The good news is; suffering is short-lived in the life of the believer. First off, we have a Savior who is continually scanning the horizon for His fallen charges. Secondly, He is preparing a place for us without pain or trauma or tears or anxiety. When we give our lives over to Jesus, there is a line that despair cannot cross and that line is death. Though this life feels long, compared to eternity it is but a blip.
Consider this tape on a string. The string isn’t eternally long; only a couple hundred feet perhaps. And the tape is maybe a half an inch of the length. And still, if the string is our existence and the blue tape is our earthly life, we gain a better sense of proportion. The brief nature of the blue puts today’s problems into proper perspective, right?
Be encouraged: even if today is terrible, tomorrow is coming. And one day very soon the Lord is going to restore us completely: making us strong, firm and steadfast, just as His word promises. We will stand forever with our Savior if we cry out to Him today. The bad news is that we can cry out to the wrong god just as easily.
"Now Ahaziah had fallen through the latticework of his upper room in Samaria and had injured himself. So he sent messengers, saying to them, "God and consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Akron, to see if I will recover from this injury." (2 Kings 1:2-3 NIV)
Ahaziah, son of the evil Ahah was established as king and then he fell off the upper part of his palace. It seems that his hopes and dreams came crashing down along with his lattice. The king was seriously wounded, and in his pain, he called out for divine help. Unfortunately, he hollered to the false gods of neighboring faiths.
The strength of a king is determined by the source of the king.
When we fail to cry out to the one true God, we can be assured we won’t fully recover. We may regain strength or stature in this fleeting lifetime, but our souls remain in tremendous peril when we rely on wrong sources. Our complete restoration remains entirely dependent upon our discovery of the right source. God alone can rehabilitate our souls. No false god can satisfy our need for for salvation. What is true for kings is true for us, too.
The strength of a soul is determined by the source of the soul.
We may consider this cruel, but we forget, God is not far off. He’s not hard to find or out of reach. He is near, obvious, and ready to answer when we call.
"From one man He made all nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Hi, though he is not far from any of us." (Acts 17:26-27 NIV)
God is close and the evidence of His handiwork is all over the earth. He hopes we will come to our sense and seek Him, realizing how He holds the whole world together in Himself.
"Why are you going to Baal-Zebub? (2 Kings 1:4)
Elijah calls out his king on his way to idol worship. Elijah is convinced that the national leadership knows better. Why was the king insistent on seeking false gods? Convenience. Stubbornness. Peer pressure. Lack of humility. Lack of faith. All of these factors may play a part in our human tendency to turn to idols.
"So Ahaziah died." (2 Kings 1:17 NIV)
Ahaziah’s paganism ultimately cost him everything. But not before he took 100 men down to the grave along with him. In his stubborn idolatry, he repeatedly sent messengers to the god of Akron, but the prophet Elisha intervened. He bravely stood between them and their blasphemy. The fire of God fell down and destroyed the Baal-Zebub seekers.
Likewise, our own refusal of God’s sovereignty inevitably affects others. We cannot go our own way without also dragging a few more souls off the path along with us. We each live lives of influence, we must make sure we are moving in the right direction.
Lord, today we are reminded to call on You in our times of trouble. We are relieved, our difficulties are limited to this lifetime if we depend upon You. Please forgive us for all the times we’ve run to lesser entities first. May we recognize You rightly as our Restorer. May we also be mindful of our influence, leading other toward You rather than away from our singular source of salvation. Amen.