Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and welcome to "Joni and Friends".
And I will never forget years ago when Ken and I had a chance to … we visited Notre Dame Cathedral while we were in Paris, France. I was so excited to see this world famous landmark and there it was, over 1,000 years old looking so huge and grand, and—black. I had never seen such a dirty building. It was honestly black—even inside. After many centuries of grime and soot and smoke, the stones of Notre Dame Cathedral were covered in layers of black grime—it was even hard to make out the beautiful carvings and details on the exterior of the cathedral.
But then, a few years ago, this grand old cathedral went through a restoration; it took years—scaffolding went up and the entire exterior was sandblasted. I saw a recent photograph of Notre Dame Cathedral and was amazed. It was beautiful. The ancient stones glowed bright and golden. You could see all the carvings, the arches … it was a whole different church. What a little bit of sandblasting can do, right?
When I use that word ‘sandblasting’, when I think of how that process changed that famous French cathedral, I’ve got to consider the way God uses suffering to sandblast you and me. There is nothing like heart-twisting hardships to strip off the veneer that you and I so carefully cloak ourselves in, right? Suffering is hard hitting, just like a sandblaster: it goes beyond the veneer, below it, below the façade and the surface of things, sandblasting you to the core of who you are. When pain and problems press you up against God, it’ll strip away years of dirt. Affliction has a way of jarring and ‘jackhammering’ our character ... shaking us up and loosening our grip on everything we hold tightly.
But the power—the genius—of being stripped down to the basics is that it leaves you feeling naked and empty, helpless and without cover; (suffering does that). So … where’s the genius in that? Well, when you are reduced to the basics by suffering, when you have nowhere else to turn, when you are empty and exposed … God can then fill you up with Himself. The “you” that so often wants to take control of your life is removed and what do you have? Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Am I describing you today? Am I describing what you’re going through? You know, suffering doesn’t teach you about yourself from a textbook, it teaches you from experience. And there’s nothing like the experience of Christ in you, filling you and shining out from your life. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne once said:
Christian faith is a grand cathedral with divinely pictured windows. Standing outside you see no glory [maybe, like me, you see a rather dark and dirty cathedral], but standing inside, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.
So friend, let affliction have its perfect work. The result in you is the unspeakable splendor of Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Hey, friend, feel free to share this on Facebook – just go to my radio page at joniandfriends.org, open today’s program and share the transcript with your Facebook friends. Or, you can Tweet that really neat quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne (I love the way he describes the glory of Christ inside of us). Oh, and while you are on my radio page, don’t forget: today is the last day you can get my new greeting cards and envelopes to jot a note to bless others. My artwork is something that was born out of my own time of sandblasting, so share these designs with your friends, would you? It’s all for you, right there on joniandfriends.org
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