Rahab didn’t have much to live for until she welcomed two strangers into her home. She lived in a pagan land under barren circumstances. To survive, she allowed others to defile her. As a woman in that situation she had probably given up hope that life would ever really be good. Reputation wasn’t a consideration; but while she might’ve shrugged at the names assigned to her, she couldn’t escape the hollowness of her life.

Somewhere in the ruins of her world, hope flickered. Rahab heard of a God who did amazing wonders, and she dared to believe-to welcome His messengers (the strangers), to receive His people and embrace their faith, and to ask for His pardon. As a result of God’s generosity, she lived among the people of this great God, became the mother of Boaz, and is named in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

Rahab experienced the sacred scandal.

As we all do-those of us who name Christ as our Lord. Like Rahab, our lives are littered with regrets. Our paths are lined with failure. Sin has scarred our lives, leaving us with our own moments of hopelessness. But we also know the wonder of His welcome, the incredulity of His forgiveness, the security of His love. We, too, experience the sacred scandal.

Author Paula Rinehart says, “…we meet to celebrate the scandal of God’s grace…” (Better Than My Dreams). Every time we approach our God in worship, every time we join others in prayer, every time we whisper His name in desperation we are celebrating His gift of undeserved mercy. We celebrate that the Most Holy redeems us, considers us righteous, and continues to love us when we are unfaithful. A scandal. That He wants to spend time with us, delights in us, calls us precious, honors us, and chooses to use us for His glory… that He stamps us with His approval, even when we haven’t completed our journey with Him and He’s fully aware that we’ll fail Him again and again.

Redemption grants us the invitation to freely come before Him and enjoy the privilege of His presence, as the old English hymn says, “for God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me.” Like Rahab, we experience His welcome. We celebrate the scandal of His grace.

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea

A great high Priest whose name is love

Who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

No tongue can bid me thence depart

When Satan tempts me to despair

And tells me of the guilt within

Upward I look and see Him there

Who made an end to all my sin

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free

For God the just is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

To look on Him and pardon me

Behold Him there the risen Lamb

My perfect spotless righteousness

The great unchangeable I AM

The King of glory and of grace

One with Himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased by His blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ my Savior and my God!

With Christ my Savior and my God!

(an old English hymn)

“God has given me the gift of pain.” The speaker lived with a chronic debilitating disease as she struggled in a difficult marriage. But she saw the value of her pain-she recognized God had entrusted her with a gift that few, if any, welcome, and most resist. I listened to her story about twenty years ago, and I’ve pulled that memory out to ponder many times as I’ve gone through my own experiences with pain. Can I really view pain as a gift?

We all have our tragedy stories. None of us are exempt from the pain of living in a fallen world. Yet, we want the storybook ending, the Cinderella ballroom experience of rising above our difficult circumstances. And if you’re like me, you’d like to throw in the fairy godmother dust of immediate relief and changed circumstances. You know, the snap-of-the-finger deliverances.

But how would our lives be different if we viewed pain as a gift-an invitation for the most intimate relationship with our majestic God? If we recognized that His gift, wrapped in suffering, was a treasured glimpse into His mysteries, His glory, His grace? A divine appointment. The difficulties become easier when we see through His eyes-that we are privileged recipients of the promise of His presence. Suffering beckons us to embrace Him a little tighter… to cling to Him… to know Him.

Oswald Chambers said, “If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it.” Go through it. Go through it with Him.

Pain is our gateway to an intimate walk with a holy God (who has every reason to throw us out of His presence). To discover a life of wonder as we commune with Him. To even welcome the difficulties as well as the times of ease. I’m not there yet. When difficulties shake my life, I’m hiding, not welcoming. Give me the cleft of the rock. Where can I find His pinions? Does anyone know the way to His bulwarks? That’s where you’ll find me when pain hits. And I’m certainly not singing for joy. I’m usually begging for His help, whining for His intervention, and crying for relief. 

And He hears. He assures us that our tears are precious to Him. He keeps them in His bottle. (Wonder what He plans to do with our flask of sorrows.) The tears represent moments of our lives that only He can explain, when we presented before Him the surrender of our hearts, the sacrifice of our souls, in response to His gift of pain. Only He knows the worth of the gift, and only He knows the value of our offerings.

Funny how you can feel a connection to someone you’ve never met. Funnier still that a middle-aged woman can feel that kinship with a college football stud-UT quarterback Colt McCoy. Not because he plays football, although it is my favorite sport. Not because we’re both believers in Christ. And not because my brother is a season-ticket holder with the Longhorns. But because Colt McCoy is one of the few people in the world who knows where to find Buffalo Gap on the Texas map.

Colt McCoy lived near Buffalo Gap and attended Jim Ned High School in Tuscola, and both places have a claim on my family’s heart. My brothers and I grew up trekking through Buffalo Gap on trips to our grandfather’s farm, which was homesteaded by my great-great-grandfather. I’m told Colt’s family acreage wasn’t far from our Bluff Creek farm.

Most of the time, we took the route through Tuscola, where Colt McCoy led the 2A Jim Ned High School football team. The original Jim Ned Stadium is a football’s throw away from the cemetery where my great-grandparents are buried. Colt wasn’t even born yet when my brothers and I were just kids making the drive with our parents, but we share a common bond with Colt and that tiny West Texas dot on the map.

When I watch Colt take command on the football field, a flood of memories wash over me as I hear sports broadcasters poke fun at his West Texas roots. Warm breezes, an old farmhouse with a tin roof and an outhouse, mesquite trees, flat top mountains, arrowheads and flint rocks, cicadas, dove, rattlesnakes, armadillos, jack rabbits… and memories of our city-slicker beagle howling like crazy over the scent of rabbits, and shotgun-totin’ grade-schoolers (me and my brothers) exploring the 160 acres of our heritage. 

I like Colt McCoy because he’s a great football player. He’s fun to watch. But I especially like him because he put Buffalo Gap on the world’s map.

One advantage of being a football fan is that I get plenty of opportunities to partake of the wisdom of the sports analysts. Defensive schemes that don’t work and how to incorporate dink-and-dunk into the offensive plan. The nickel, three-four, four-three, crossing routes, finding the seam-the-crease-or-whatever discussions. But a few Sundays ago, when the Cowboys’ performance was dismal at best, I heard a nugget from Darryl “Moose” Johnston… probably borrowed from a preacher. “Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals character.”

Some of us-the character-builder advocates-live our lives with the attitude that the harder life is, the better off we’ll be. The folks who herald this philosophy (cranky relatives and difficult bosses) often take it a step further. The harder I make life for everyone else, the better off they’ll be. They’ll thank me in the long run. And some of us adopt the attitude of embracing adversity in an attempt to attach some meaning to our pain.

Moose had it right-adversity reveals character. When things get tough, we find out what we’re made of, and it usually isn’t pretty. The unveiling almost always reveals depravity. Failings. Weak-heartedness and selfish motives. Sin. Less-than-admirable character.

But Moose also had it wrong. Adversity builds character, too. The Bible tells us that trials come to produce endurance. Consider Peter-adversity built, as well as revealed, his character. We see his weakness as he denies Christ, and we witness the new and improved Peter after going through his betrayal of the One he claimed to love. The testing produced an endurance that enabled Peter to become a leader in the early church-to display “the rock” of the profession of faith in Christ to a clueless world. Peter’s former failure launched his deep motivation to rely on Christ-he knew how far he could fall without clinging to Jesus.

When Moose made his sage comment during that first quarter football commentary, he left out some important points that most preachers would’ve emphasized. Hard times reveal our need for God. Sometimes we don’t turn to Him until our options are gone and He’s all that’s left. Difficulties also give God the opportunity to reveal Himself as a faithful Caregiver to His needy children, to woo us into a deeper intimacy with Him, and to give us a glimpse into the mystery of His ways. Adversity allows us to experience the deliverance of our majestic, mighty God.

Ah, the things we learn watching football.

(James 1, 1 Peter 1:6-9).

I have to admit-given the chance, I’ll take the easy way. The path of least resistance. I really don’t like to struggle. Just give me that big red easy button and life is good.

Don’t you ever wonder why God made life so hard? Why does He put us in difficult circumstances or allow us to experience pain? He spoke the world into existence in a matter of days-couldn’t He have devised that kind of system in developing our characters, in planning our lives? He’s obviously able-so why didn’t He?

I know, I know. It’s a mystery. That much I understand. I just haven’t been able to figure out why He chose suffering as a part of His wonderful plan for our lives. (Other than the trite clichés and well-worn platitudes that well-meaning friends offer us when we’re drowning-it builds character, it makes us stronger, it’ll help someone else along the way.)

My friend Sandy buried her husband of thirty-five years last week. My brother-in-law cried over his eighteen-year-old son’s casket last month. Last Monday I celebrated my mom’s seventy-second birthday without her. (I can’t imagine her with wrinkles-she’ll always be forty-three to me.) Each of our goodbyes were wrapped in more pain than any of us wanted to experience, yet God was involved in our heartache. He made the decision for each of our loved ones to return to Him and to be absent from us, knowing His decision would inflict suffering.

And still, He is good, and He intends the pain to work His goodness into our lives.

That’s where I want the easy button. I’d be just as appreciative if He’d deliver “good” into my life another way-probably more so, certainly with less distraction, if I wasn’t struggling with the bandages on my heart. I’m not always satisfied that He offers His grace instead of an easy fix.

His word assures us, though, that suffering is our bond-we’re children of God, fellow-heirs with Christ, and somehow He links sharing in His suffering to the process of glorification with Him. Mystery magnified.

But the story isn’t over. The time of the unveiling of His glory hasn’t arrived yet. When the time is right, He won’t need an easy button to make us understand. We’ll sigh in relief and understanding. We’ll even smile. Until that day, we trust. And we wait for our faithful Creator to do what is right.

(Romans 8:16-39; 1 Peter 4:12-19).

When we face overwhelming, painful circumstances, we typically don’t see our “Lazarus rise from the grave”–our loved one doesn’t sit up in his coffin and walk away from his own funeral, our illness worsens, and our dreams may shatter into a million tiny pieces. We believe. We ask. But whatever miracle we’re begging from God doesn’t happen. And we find ourselves groping for a God we don’t understand. How do we respond to the disappointments we face when Jesus doesn’t perform as we wish–when He doesn’t rescue us?

Disappointment with God is the place where our journey with Him begins. It’s at this place of resignation where we take the broken pieces of our life and lay them at His feet. Disappointment is where I no longer have expectations of the way my deity should behave, and my dreams are no longer punctuated with “Lord willing” because I’ve already discovered that He hasn’t been willing–at least not now, not my way. This place of broken emptiness is highlighted only by the certainty that God is faithful and God is good–and God defines what that goodness is. This is the place I begin a walk with Him, a walk where He tells me He is enough, and yes, He holds my hand even when my grasp fails.

Jesus invites us to bring our disappointments to Him, just as Jesus welcomed Mary’s disappointment and accusation–”If You had been here, this wouldn’t have happened.” In other words, “Where were You when I needed you?” Sometimes He is silent. (Mary heard no word for four days after Jesus was contacted.) Other times, He gently points out truths along the way. He cares, He is always present, and He’s doing something good. My responsibility is simply to trust Him.

When I’m disappointed with God, it’s usually a tip-off that my heart is clutching an expectation, or I’ve elevated a wish to the position of entitlement–God owes me. I’m continually amazed how graciously God woos my heart to Him when I become discouraged, when I begin to lose heart in my struggles.

Mary got her miracle. Thanks to Jesus, Lazarus walked out of the grave. But I’m convinced that Mary would’ve anointed Jesus’ feet with the most costly perfume even if Lazarus had remained in the grave, because we see evidence of her devotion before Lazarus rose–she fell at Jesus’ feet when He finally showed up. In the midst of her most overwhelming disappointment and in spite of the pain, her faith remained intact.

Mary reminds us–don’t sit in the chair of disappointment long. Move to the place of worship, first in laying the disappointment at His feet, then to sacrificing the most costly possession of our lives to Him–the broken pieces of our hearts. Three times we see Mary at Jesus’ feet, as she: listens and delights in Him, then pours out her grief to Him, and later anoints Him with costly perfume as an act of worship, devotion, and sacrifice. Disappointment is a part of our journey with Him, the path that ultimately leads us to worship.

(John 11 and 12).

When disappointment strikes and discouragement claims my heart, I often face the internal assault of the hard questions. Why doesn’t our all-powerful, always good and loving God stop our pain? Why doesn’t He solve our dilemmas? Why doesn’t He change our circumstances, intervene with a miracle, heal our hurts? Why? Doesn’t He care?

And He takes me back to the Lazarus death passage. I get a glimpse of Mary again.

Mary of Bethany, the woman who sat at Jesus’ feet delighting in His words, while Martha complained that Mary wasn’t helping with the meal. Mary later pours expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet as an act of worship. But in this Lazarus passage, Mary is mourning. She’s also disappointed with Jesus.

And she’s not at His feet.

Picture Mary sitting in a house of mourners after her brother Lazarus’ death. She’s stunned. Numb. Jesus didn’t come when she sent word to Him. He didn’t do what she knew He could do to heal her brother, to remedy her pain, to fix her problem. And it hurt. He chose not to come, and the fact that He chose for her to experience the pain magnified the trauma. She sits with the mourners lining the walls of her home. Empty faces, hollow stares, silent tears, choking sobs, gasping wails, aching hearts… whispered if onlies-if only Jesus had been here.

His arrival is announced. The Mary who delighted in His words during the meal preparation would’ve run to Him. For this moment, though, disappointment reigns in her heart. So she sits.

But not for long. When Martha prompts her-”Jesus is asking for you”-Mary hurries to Him. She doesn’t understand her circumstances nor does she appreciate His unwillingness to intervene, but she takes her grief to Him, the One who hurt her. And she falls at His feet and says, “Lord if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” She worships by yielding her disappointment to Him, while her brother is still in the grave.

She didn’t stay in that place of disappointment. She didn’t wallow in the grief “as those who have no hope.” She got out of her chair, ran to Jesus, and surrendered her discouragement to Him.

(John 11 and 12).

My fourth grade teacher called me to her desk. “I see you’ve always made A’s on your report cards–since you started in first grade. Well, I don’t believe a student should always make A’s so that’s why I’m giving you a B in handwriting.” I was devastated. My big seventh grade disappointment came on cheerleader tryout day. I didn’t make it. I ran home and threw myself on the couch and cried all weekend. In high school, my parents insisted that I break up with the love of my sixteen-year-old life. I was crushed and spent another weekend on the couch. 

Disappointments grew in significance and magnitude as I matured–my parents’ marriage break-up, my mother’s early death, my daughter’s uncontrolled seizures… difficulties that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard I tried to do things right and regardless of how much I prayed. Fortunately, somewhere along the way I learned that prayer wasn’t about twisting God’s arm to do my will, to fulfill my wishes. I figured out that I was a part of God’s plan, not the reverse. 

When Mom died, God led me to the passage about Lazarus dying, and reminded me that He did, indeed, care. He even wept with me. And I later discovered that belief in God meant that I could trust Him to be enough, even if the difficulties never stopped, even if I faced a lifetime of battling my daughter’s seizures. 

But when pain hits, I still struggle with the seeming indifference of God–that He could stand by and appear to do nothing when life hurts. 

That’s when He reminds me that He’s not “doing nothing.” He’s always interceding for me, and He’s always with me. Part of the mystery of life is the behind-the-scenes activity of God–the things He does on our behalf that we may not understand until we stand in His presence. But because I know His character of love and goodness, I can trust that He’s weaving His goodness into my life, even if I don’t see it in my moments of pain.

(John 11).

Things to remember the next time I fly:

Weigh my bags at home.

Remove 4.5 pounds from my luggage before I get to the airport.

Don’t pack my undies on top.

Check my carry-on for perfume bottles hidden in the lining.

Okay, I admit this is a blonde thing-never tell the inspectors my luggage is borrowed.

Computer bags leave blisters when I shift the extra 4.5 pounds of essentials from my suitcase to my carry-on, so use a backpack.

Eat well before the trip and plan to arrive at my destination a few hours earlier than necessary to allow time to locate my lost luggage when I get off the plane.

If it’s a full flight going home-including small animals and a hockey team-and the Cowboys are playing, take the free ticket/meal/hotel offer to give up my seat and stay overnight, especially if my kids have homework due the next day.

Disregard the previous item on this list if my luggage is over the weight limit-no free ticket/meal/hotel is worth going through the check-in process again.

When I have a middle seat, grab at least one armrest before the guys next to me are seated.

Ask the flight attendant for another seat the minute the man next to me claims to be a martial arts instructor specializing in taking full-force kicks to the groin.

No matter how many books I remove from my suitcase, it will always be 4.5 pounds over the maximum allowed weight, so go ahead and pay for overweight bags when I reserve my ticket.

One of my favorite childhood activities was playing in the backyard with my brothers. We climbed trees, jumped out of swings, ran through water sprinklers, chased the dog, and gathered buckets of chinaberries to have chinaberry wars (a painful experience for the sister of two future baseball-pitching brothers). I learned to run fast and climb high. Inevitably, we ended up near the back fence digging holes and dragging out the water hose to create little lakes. I fashioned mud pies while my younger brother was assigned the task of tasting them. But I was never successful in coercing my older brother to sample my wares.

During those days in the backyard, with my limited experiences of the world, my mind couldn’t even imagine the fun I would encounter and the distant places I would visit later in my grown-up life—hiking near the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, riding horses in Colorado, seeing the moon glisten on the white sands of Pensacola, Florida, splashing in the waves on the beaches of Santa Barbara, California, and tromping through the misty green footpaths of England. My childhood eyes couldn’t see that far or even imagine the experiences and the grandeur of the places I would visit. I was content to make mud pies.

Today, as an adult, I sometimes find myself in that place of being content with less than a-child-of-the-king existence, like a child playing with mud pies, when God wants to show me so much more—He longs to reveal His wonders to me. C.S. Lewis once said, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.” 

Far too easily pleased. Like Lot, who became comfortable and complacent with Sodom, and his wife who was even more entrenched in the allurement of her culture. She craved the delights of Sodom; God’s will mattered little to her. As a child prefers mud pies to a vacation abroad, Mrs. Lot desired the pleasures and comfort of Sodom more than the riches of God.

I wonder how many of God’s treasures pass us by because we don’t have eyes to see that far—the ability to imagine the goodness-beyond-comprehension of our God. And so we settle for the comfortable, easy existence. Lives of going-with-the-flow because it offers counterfeit peace. Choices that lead us to avoid conflicts and struggles, but miss out on the deliverances of a majestic, mighty God. We miss the joy of journeying through life with God.

What part of God’s character do we miss when we find ourselves wanting those things that aren’t best for us, not comprehending what He has in store for us, and not fully understanding the depths of His love? What heavenly mysteries remain unknown to us because we don’t desire them? What riches reserved for us wait in heavenly vaults? What blessings do we forfeit because we’ve become content playing with mud pies in the backyard of less-than-royal circumstances?

Our hearts so easily take for granted the gift of His grace, so quickly dismiss our position as heirs to the King of Kings.

“…eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9).