Taught Through Trials
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 1:8-9
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
At some point, whether during or after the affliction he refers to, Paul came to understand the purpose behind his trouble. The problem he faced had to be big enough that he couldn’t deal with it out of his wisdom or strength. It was only then that he would rely on God and not himself. He was, as he put it, “made to rely…on God who raises the dead.”
In his book A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond writes about the birth of a giraffe:
The first thing to emerge is the baby giraffe’s front hooves and head. A few minutes later the plucky newborn calf is hurled forth, falls ten feet, and lands on its back. Within seconds, he rolls to an upright position with his legs under his body. From this position, he considers the world for the first time and shakes off the vestiges of the birthing fluid from his eyes and ears.
The mother giraffe lowers its head long enough to take a quick look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby so that it is sent sprawling head over heels. When it doesn’t get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again.
The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts…Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs. Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She kicks it off of its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up.
In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay up with the herd, where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild dogs all enjoy young giraffes, and they’d get them too if the mother didn’t teach her calf to get up quickly and get with it…”
This is a picture of how we experience life in Christ at times. We just get up after being knocked down and something happens to take us off of our feet again. We might wonder why this is happening to us. It may be that God is helping us learn to always walk with Him, to live in His strength and power, to rely on Him and not on ourselves because the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. If we don’t learn to walk by faith we will become easy prey.
