The Challenge 12 May, 2004

This is starting to be a bi-weekly email devotional now isn't it? I'm sorry. I'm just finding it more and more difficult to get the time to sit down behind this computer and type. Work is increasingly taking up more and more of my time and things never seem to slow down with home and the kids. We did start having dinners earlier with the whole family and I am REALLY enjoying that and I think we will keep that up! My daughter turns 14 on Friday and I still don't know where the years have gone! Overall, having a pretty good week. I have some friends who's issues are weighing heavily on my heart and I wish I knew what to do for them. Thanks for breakfast last week "Dad"... it was awesome...I'm so glad you are in my life -encouraging me, pushing me on in the race of endurance and just knowing in your heart just what prayers I need! I'm truly blessed by you!

The Struggle

Cademan's Call, a popular Christian band, sings a song about being "So thankful that I'm incapable of doin' any good on my own". The song, one of my favorites, is about a man who finds an old box of letters while he was bagging up some things for Goodwill. Upon reading some of the letters (a journal of some sort) he finds that he is still struggling with the same old things that he has struggled with from years before. This is an amazing song because he comes right out and says that he has not overcome many of the struggles that have plagued him for years and that he is still dealing with them as he finds this box of "old" letters - He was struggling before and is still struggling now. The big thing about this is that he is THANKFUL for the struggle and also important he is thankful that he himself is incapable of solving the problem on his one at all! Thankful for not solving one of his struggles? Did I say that right? Yes!

This is a very hard concept for most men to deal with because we are typically so solution oriented. Some women are this way as well, but since I'm not a woman, I won't speak for them. Most men I know like to identify the issue, come up with a plan, and solve the problem. When we can't solve the problem it usually gets us a little depressed, maybe a little irritable, and we sometimes feel like a failure. I've been in two different accountability groups for the last two years now; one with some men and the other one with some teens. For two years, I've listened, prayed, badgered, and discussed struggles with men and teens and the prevailing issue is that we all seem to continue to struggle! The issues are sometimes cyclical but are always persistent. We have, in both groups, something called the "Big 3". These are the Big 3 sins that we are struggling with in our lives. We confess them to each other, share with each other how to battle them more effectively, and promise to pray for each other for victory in these areas. If I was to go back and look through each persons prayer list of "Big 3" sins/struggles it would show that most of the guys (no matter what age) are continuing to ask for prayer and assistance with the "same old struggles".

I don't know what women struggle with on a regular basis but men struggle with lust, pride, materialism, being critical and control (not giving things up and trying to solve them outside of God's power). We deal with these things day-in and day-out. Most times we lose the battle and sometimes we win. But our lives are marked with the struggle. Most of us are not the same men we were two years ago and if we were to compare our struggles with the ones we are having today most of them would be a lesser form of what they were a couple of years ago and so we could say they have gotten better over time. In other words, we would look like we are winning the war overall. This is a good thing but there is always, in each of the men, one thing that just never seems to get better of go away. It doesn't matter which one of the sins it is, each man could probably say that there was one thing that just never seems to get better. We are actually sick of it! We cry out for divine intervention, "God, why can't you just take it away?" or "Please, just cure me of this problem?". But although we cry out one minute, the next we are back to doing the very things that we don't want to do... it is crazy. We get depressed because of it. We doubt we are saved sometimes because we just can seem to get over that hump of that one, two or three struggles that plague us. I used to live in Romans 7 because of this and truthfully, I sometimes go back there when I'm getting down about my same old struggles.

"For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do....For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice" Romans 7:15 and 19

Man, does that say it all, or what? That guy Paul, he knows us, doesn't he? But here is the deal folks, you need to be thankful that you in fact do still struggle! Yes, I said that right again. Your struggling is a good thing! I'm not at all saying that you should be happy with your sin. I'm not saying that you are to give in - no, you get no permission from me to go on sinning! You still need to continue to cry out to God, battle the enemy, keep working at it day-in and day-out for the rest of your life. I'm not telling you that you will never see complete victory from whatever is plaguing you right now. Some people do get complete victory from their #1 sin in their lives... but then all of a sudden the #2 sin becomes #1 and you are still struggling. What I am telling you is that if you are a Child of God, you will struggle with sin until the day you are brought home to Jesus. And that as long as you are struggling with it you can be assured that the Spirit of God lives in you!

I have a commentary that I cut out and copied and highlighted and paper clipped into my bible right there near Romans chapter 7 by R.C. Sproul that brings this point home

"Though he [Paul] has died with Christ and so has died to the law, sin still has a strong hold on him. Thus, though he wills to obey, he sins, and though he hates to sin, he still does. He is baffled by this battle but he has this comfort: the fact of the battle shows he loves and agrees with God. A good work has begun in him, and though sin remains and holds him back, God has promised to do something about that (Philippians 1:6)." Taken from TableTalk magazine by Ligonier Ministries

What the commentary is saying is that we struggle with our sin and sometimes we are confused about that struggle but the mere fact that we struggle shows that we love God and that the struggling itself is proof that God has begun a good work in us. Think about this all you fellow strugglers... do non-Christians have any problems with lust? Do they struggle to eradicate it from their lives? No way! They just keep on doing it because it is okay in society to do that, right? How about control? Do non-Christians want to give up power and control to Jesus? Not on your life! Pick any sin you can think of. Any sin you struggle with on a regular basis and look at the secular world around you and tell me that you see somebody who really struggles with that sin the way you, a child of God, struggles? Oh ya, they might try to stop doing this or that once in a while but you can tell that it does not make them sick to their stomachs that they just keep on doing it... like it does for you. In fact, in most cases the world around you is probably trying to tell you that it is okay to keep on doing this, that or the other thing! That it's normal! That you are weird for even struggling with it at all! That you are weird for calling it a "sin"! For those of you who were older when you became Christians, do you remember struggling like you do now with sins that plague your life? Or do you remember thinking that it was okay because everybody else did it?

The struggle means that our Holy and righteous God has made a deposit in you and His Holy Spirit is continuing to shine His own light on the sins in your life. He is there, bringing them to the forefront of your mind and actually helping you struggle with them. He is letting you know He is there! The mere fact of the battle shows that you love God as RC Sproul says!

I know the struggle gets old. It wears you down and it bogs you down sometimes. It is hard to keep on struggling with something year in and year out and seem to never win the battle or never make progress - I know. But take heart my friends... if you struggle, God is there! After reading Romans 7, I always move right into Romans 8...

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit... for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit... the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." Romans 8:1, 5, & 16

If you did not struggle, your mind would be solely on the things of the flesh. You would be "set" on them completely. But because you struggle, you "live" according to the Spirit and your mind which has the things of the Spirit in it... battles against the flesh. No battle... No Spirit! Battle = the Spirit of God in you!

Back to the beginning... "I'm so thankful, that I'm incapable, of doin' any good on my own."

Are you struggling? Are you bogged down and just sick of struggling? Are you wondering if it will ever end? If you will ever get rid of this sin or that sin or any of your "big 3"? are you going through a season in your life where you are just not having any success in winning anything and it is just making you sick? Be Thankful for the struggle! Be thankful that the Holy Spirit is witnessing to you day-in and day-out that HE is there... right inside you... actually causing you to struggle! And by all means don't ever give up!

"...and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us," Hebrews 12:1b

Fellow endurance runners... keep on struggling and thank God every day that you do in fact struggle!

Until next week time ~ Dave

To make comments, to suggest topics you'd like me to tackle, to get past devotionals, or to be added to this weekly "devotional email" please write to: Dave Hansen at philip419@earthlink.net