Fire is a fickle friend. One minute it can make you feel warm and cozy, but an instant later, it can turn on you with a vengeance. Like what happened on a camping trip with Ken some time ago. It was an icy-cold evening up in the Sierras and I was looking forward to huddling around the campfire. It smelled great and the first was popping and crackling… I could feel the heat on my face… the coals were almost ready for marshmallows, but Ken had to get up to go hunt down a few more pieces of firewood. I didn’t mind that he left – I was a safe enough distance from the fire. It was my friend in the middle of a cold, dark forest.
While Ken was gone, a slight breeze turned the smoke in my direction. But then, the breeze suddenly turned into a forceful gust – that’s when the whole picture changed. The flames fanned higher and higher and I found myself choking in a thick cloud of smoke. I was unable to wheel myself away from the fire since I was sitting in my manual push chair – not only that, I was coughing so much from the smoke I could not call out to Ken. For an instant, I was terrified. The flames were getting awfully close to my feet and I was afraid I would be burned. There was nothing I could do about it.
Just at that point, Ken returned, dropped the wood, and ran and pushed my wheelchair out of the path of smoke and fire. As I tried to gain my breath I gained a whole new respect for our campfire that night and I learned quickly how a cozy fire can turn quickly from a friend to a vicious foe.
Fire is one of those things that has great potential for good, but also for bad. A fire can barbecue a really great-tasting hamburger one minute and attack a forest the next. And so, it is the same way with suffering. It’s one of those things that has a profound potential for good, but suffering can also turn on you and rip a person – or a family – to shreds. It can pull families together and unite them in solidarity through hardship, or it can tear them apart in selfishness and bitterness. Suffering can either soften your heart or it can harden and fossilize it. I choose the soft side, I choose the solidarity side, don’t you? The apostle Peter said, “Don’t be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you.”
And friend, that’s the secret to making suffering either a friend or a foe. Don’t be surprised by it. Don’t let it ambush you. Don’t think it a strange intrusion. The secret to seeing suffering’s potential for good is to understand that it is God's choicest tool in your life to mold you into the image of Jesus. Life is supposed to be hard, so let God have His hand through the hardship in your life… and you, too, will discover its powerful potential not only for good, but for God's glory in your life.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends