Scripture

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

~Psalm 119:71, NIV

Quote

Humility is the most priceless of all gems, one of the most glorious manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit.

~Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I am about to finish Martyn Lloyd-Jones book on Spiritual Depression and I must say it has been a fascinating study for me. We all have problems; we all have emotional scars that are as real to us as those of a deep cuts made by a surgeon. I don’t go without a shirt for many reasons and one is that it looks like the surgeons played tic-tac-toe on my abdomen. Three of my surgeries are more than 45 years old and the scars are still there. It is the same emotionally. As a child, you may have experienced some form of rejection that still eats at you although no one else knows, understands or cares. It is like the guy Luke tells about in chapter ten:  the robbers beat him half to death and left him to die. He was lying in the ditch naked and bleeding to death; two men came by who could haved helped but they ignored him as if he were not there. What hurt him the most, the clubs of the robbers or the indifference of his Jewish brothers who ignored his suffering?

I said all that to say this: some of us have emotional scars that will not go away. They don’t trouble anyone but us. We have awakened countless mornings the pain of the memory and we don’t even know why these things are on our mind. We didn’t go to bed thinking about them; so where did they come from? I don’t know, I am not a psychologist, but the problem could be that we have not given thanks for being afflicted {hurt, crushed}. David lived long enough to see that God had used his affliction to shape him and make him fit to be a king. I am not a king nor do I desire to be one. I am a husband, father, and pastor or shepherd. God not only called me; He by grace gave me a shepherds heart. I wept with a congregant on the phone just days ago. His pain became mine. Where did this deep sensitivity come from? Could it have come from my affliction? Did it come from the bitter experience of complete and utter failure in my three years at Athens High School? I don’t know, I am just trying to connect the dots. Perhaps God has used this to make me sensitive to the failures and problems of others. If that is true, I praise Him for my affliction. I know one thing for sure, I can handle failure better than success. I deeply desire to be gentle, humble and kind. I am not there by any stretch, but I do long to be there and I also admit that affliction is a part of the process. Affliction is like discipline, it is not fun at the time and no one in their right mind would ask to be afflicted but God can bring good out of it.

Extra

Christ was feeling some better yesterday but still not good. I think she hears from her liver biopsy today. They are also running a test on Don’s granddaughter Lexi today. Bobby Vest is not doing well. He is not fully evaluated and if something doesn’t change, it may not get to stay at Encompas Rehab. It is not looking good but these things can change overnight.

I visited our largest city {Alabama} yesterday. Traffic was not that bad but the parking at HH is atrocious. Getting in and out of these parking decks is a real test for the impatient. I left home at 8:30 and it was almost 2:00 before I got back to 1120 Iron Man. I even blew a gasket coming through the medieval Hartselle, the city that hates change, any king of change, even for good. When 36 is log jamed I got over one street to the right and you can merge back in to 36 if the timing is right. Everything went great and I had glanced over at 36 and it was clear but there was a woman in front of me that did not know the difference between MERGE and STOP. Bless pat, she stopped dead as a hammer, and then sat there. I didn’t hit the horn, I waved for her to go and probably hollowed GO! So help me Hannah, she rolled her window down and wanted to jaw, I said, “Just go.” Merge and stop mean two different things. I can merge there doing 30 MPH and she stopped dead in her tracks. Why do people get on the road that do not know the difference between merge and stop. As the Blackwood boys say, “Unbelievable!”

I hope you have a good day and thanks for reading the blog.