Day 5: Difficult mission
Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done (2 Timothy 4:14).
Our Father and our God, You teach us in so many ways— through Scriptures, through events and circumstances, through personal experiences— and sometimes through all combined. The apostle Paul's life shows us how You provide all that we need even before the need is known.
The blinding light that arrested Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road was followed by a very pointed question: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" "Who are You, Lord?" Saul asked. The answer, startling and direct, would change his life forever: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-5).
Years later, no longer Saul but the apostle Paul, he understood in a deeply personal, meaningful way the truth of the Scripture he had known all his life, It is Mine to avenge; I [God] will repay... (Deuteronomy 32:35).
When Paul reminded the Roman church of this (Romans 12:19), and when he told Timothy that the Lord would repay Alexander the metal worker for the great harm the latter had done to him (2 Timothy 4:14), he had a sound basis for his conviction. In that intensely personal, life-changing experience on the Damascus road, God had taught him once and for all that He was personally involved in the affairs of His people.
Paul's mission would be a difficult one, "I will show him how much he must suffer for My name" (Acts 9:16). But He would be strengthened by the perspective he had been given— that Jesus directly identifies with the persecution, the suffering, the life, the work, and all the affairs of His people.
O Lord, the mission has not changed for Your disciples. But we have lost perspective. We expect comfort and ease, wealth and prosperity, health and "happiness". All of which You delight to give us— in proper measure, at the proper time, according to Your will, for our good. But we have made them our goal, our aim, our focus— in place of seeking first Your kingdom and Your righteousness (Matthew 6:33).
How far away we are from the understanding that You call us to share in Your sufferings in order that we may also share in Your glory (Romans 8:17)! How far away we are from the truth that we will not always be completely shielded— that we will encounter an Alexander, or two, or twenty, who will do us harm, who will cause us loss, for Your sake. And that You will repay.
How far away we are from the mindset of the Apostle Paul, That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10)!
Send us Your light from heaven. Remove the scales from our eyes. Reorient Your church to things unseen and eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18). Help us to set our hearts, not on earthly things, but on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1).
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