Tuesday, August 15, 2006
I was in Georgia a few years ago when a friend said to me, "You know who one of the best football teams in our state is?" And I said, "No, who would that be?" He said, "The Georgia School for the Deaf." That caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a school for the deaf to be football champions. He said, "Man, when we played them when I was in high school, you always had to get up for that game. They were always the toughest." And I began to think, "How can they play football when you can't hear the signals being called; when they can't hear the plays being called. How would you play football?" He said, "Well, they bring their band to every game and they beat the drums and the signals are called through the drumbeat and they feel the signals through their face." Well, I couldn't do that, but they can. They've got radar I don't have because they have faced a challenge I haven't faced.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Radar from the Rough Times."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 1, beginning at verse 3, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives so also through Christ our comfort overflows." Now verse 3 here talks about this beautiful side of God. He's the God of all comfort and compassion, the healing hugs of God who brings what only He could bring, a supernatural comfort deep inside of us where no human being can go. You've probably experienced that.
But there's a comfort cycle here. It says that we are supposed to comfort with the comfort we got from Him. This word "comforting" is really the Greek word which means "called along side of to help," so it's saying God comes along side us to encourage us so that we can do that for others. So that the comfort isn't just for us to get comfortable, it's to fill us up with love and support to give to others. Now how does this happen? Okay, now you go through a deep valley, maybe you lose someone, you have a season alone, a lingering illness, a financial disaster, maybe you're abandoned or betrayed, and it hurts. But God can do something beautiful with that hurt. He turns it into sensitivity - radar for people who are hurting in that same area.
Joni Eareckson Tada was paralyzed as a teenager in her dive that day and it was a terrible tragedy. But, the worst thing that ever happened to her has given her a worldwide ministry. She knows how the disabled and the wounded feel. My friend, Jean, was abused as a girl; she's got a wonderful ministry to abused girls. My friend, Don, was raised in a broken home; he has an incredible ability to work with kids from troubled backgrounds. When you open up your hurt and your wounds to the God of all comfort, He can use it in ways you never dreamed. When life's trouble hits you, it can be a tool either for Satan or for God. You dwell on the pain, you dwell on the people who hurt you, on yourself - you're going to start a downward cycle of depression.
Maybe that's where you are right now. But if you surrender it to Jesus, all the pain, all those people who hurt you, all the questions, you're on your way to turning a loss into a victory. Like those at the Georgia School for the Deaf. They have special sensitivity because of their loss; because of their handicap. You can, too. God can give you radar from your rough times; radar that will make you the one who could be the Jesus person for some other hurting hearts.