Lesson from an Ear Infection

This whole week i have had a real nasty and painful ear infection. It's not completely gone (I still can't hear anything out of my right ear) but most of the pain has subsided, which feels incredible. I was taking antibiotics and about 12 advil a day just to be functional. (It's funny, I've been swimming in oceans, dirty lakes, rock quarries, and pool since I was 7, and I dip my head in 5 times at the community pool and I get the worst ear infection). I'm tellin' you, you don't know how good it is to be pain free until you are in a great amount of pain. In the midst of my agonizing infection, I get a newsletter from Iris Ministries, from Rolland Baker. He writes about his 2 year battle with extreme illness - a nervous breakdown resulting in mental and emotional stress, a nervous tension, memory loss and signs of serious dementia. His whole body was in disrepair and majorly malfunctioning. All this was the result of the extreme stress and pressure of the mission field. Rolland is in recovery now in Germany at a Christian wellness center and is doing much better. But as I read this account, and felt my own unbearable pain, I was struck by the fact that God does not owe us anything. Yes, He wants to and will give us good things - provision, protection, health....But He does not owe it to us. These in no way determine or alter His goodness. He already demonstrated His goodness to the fullest extent possible by sending His Son to the cross, rescuing us from an eternity of misery. By this act alone He proved Himself to be so extremely incomprehensibly good, that if He did absolutely nothing else for us ever again, He would still be fully good, and we wouldn't be able to say otherwise. The fact that He doesn't stop at the salvation of our souls and continues to give us good gifts pushes it way over the top torrential downpour, i-just-wanna-scream HE IS SOOO GOOOOOOODDDDDD!! Though He loves to give gifts, they are just that - gifts, not guarantees, but pleasant surprises.

You would think that God would give someone like Rolland great health all his life, a man who's poured himself out tirelessly for the poor and the orphans. Or at least a miraculous healing, so he wouldn't suffer like this. But Jesus never promised us good health, a good life, a good...anything. In fact, He said the opposite, that the world would hate us. He promised us that He would be with us, and He proved to us that He was worth it. Suffering is part of the road, it's what we sign up for when we say "Yes" to Jesus (maybe you didn't know it, but He said that we must count the cost)...and we keep saying yes through it all because we find Him worth it, that who we have gained (Christ Himself) so far outweighs what we lose, that any price we have to pay does not even come close to how much He is worth.

So I believe God for and expect health, miracles, provision, little tokens of His love (a little boy came up to me, as I'm fighting the ear ache, and gave me a chocolate bar), but I'm not gonna be angry or offended when it may not happen. For even so, He is beautiful, good, worth any and all of it. Let this be your heart cry too...