Reply-To: "Stu" <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Stu" <[log in to unmask]>


Needless Pain


Our friends, Bill and Diane, got a very unsettling phone call a few 
months ago. Their 33-year-old son, Brian, has some fairly severe 
mental disabilities--severe enough that years ago, they made the 
painful decision that he required the kind of care that only a 
trained staff and a professional facility could provide.

The call came that told them that Brian had just had a very serious 
fall, and the injuries could have been fatal. Thank God, he 
recovered, but needless to say, the close call shook his parents, who 
love him very much. His mom told me that from the time he was first 
walking as a young child, they have told him over and over, "Slow 
down, Brian." She said if they had a nickel for every time they've 
said, "Slow down," they'd be wealthy. And the reason for his fall? 
You probably guessed it. He was going faster than he could safely 
walk. He didn't "slow down."

Let's talk about "Needless Pain."

Brian's mom couldn't help thinking that if her son could just get the 
idea of obeying what he's been told so many times, he would have a 
lot less pain, he'd have fewer scars, and those around him would have 
much less stress. That's got to be how God looks at you and me 
sometimes. He's saying, "If only
you would do what I've told you over and over, you'd have a lot less 
pain, fewer scars, and so would the people around you."

The most needless pain in the world is the pain that comes from not 
obeying, especially not obeying God. In Deuteronomy 28, beginning 
with verse 1, our word for today from the Word of God, the Lord 
spells out the core issue that determines whether our life works 
right or doesn't work right.

God says, "If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow 
all His commands ... all these blessings will come upon you and 
accompany you if you obey the Lord your God." Then God lists many 
good outcomes His people will experience in their work, in their 
family, in their battles. A few verses later, God says, "However, if 
you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all His 
commands ... all these curses will come upon you and overtake you." 
What follows is a list of bad outcomes in their work, their family, 
their battles. Same arenas, same people, same issues--opposite 
outcomes. The only difference: whether or not God's people are doing 
what He said to do in the way He said to do it.

That is still true today. And it may explain some of the struggle and 
pain that you've been going
through--needless pain. Because there is something or some things 
that you're just not doing God's way; with your money, with your 
family, in your relationships, in your love life, in what you're doing with
your life. Maybe you're harboring resentment, and disobeying your 
Lord's command to forgive. Or maybe you're just going down a sinful 
road, hanging onto some sinful choices, trying to justify them all 
the way, but bottom line, you're disobeying God. And things are not 
going to work until you turn from your
way, and surrender to doing it God's way.

You know what's the right thing to do. And now Jesus is saying to 
you, as He said to His disciples in John 13:17, "Now that you know 
these things, you will be blessed if you do them." So much pain, so 
much grief, so much stress, just because you're not obeying your 
Lord, who bought you with His blood.

Relief isn't going to come when your circumstances change. Relief 
will come when you change.