Imagine your telephone rings one day and a pleasant voice says, “I’m a representative of Carol Joy Enterprises, and do you remember entering a drawing for a month-long, all-expenses-paid vacation to the English countryside? Guess what—you’re the winner!”
You might begin to dance around the room. “Are you serious?! I can’t believe it! I’ve never won anything in my life!”
Immediately your head fills with the images of green, rolling hills you saw on the poster in the store. Quaint cottages with thatched roofs. Narrow cobblestone streets. Sheep grazing in the meadows. Stone fences. Delightful shops. Now it is all to be yours: a free package of airfare, lodging, food, and activities.
“Come to our offices tomorrow at 11 o’clock, and we’ll give you the details,” the representative says. That night you can hardly sleep. A free vacation!
The next morning you sit across the desk from the woman.
“Okay, on May 17, you have a 7:40 p.m. flight out of Kennedy airport, so you’ll need to be there by 5:30,” she says.
“Kennedy airport?” you ask with a frown. “I don’t like Kennedy. It’s really hard to get there from where I live, especially in rush hour. I thought I was getting a free vacation in England.”
“Yes. It all starts by catching a flight from Kennedy,” she replies. “You’ll have to wait in several lines and have your luggage checked and show your passport, and then you’ll be flying all night to London.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” you complain. “What if the plane goes down in the ocean?”
The woman rolls her eyes. “Look, it’s not going to go down.”
“Well, I get nervous in an airplane.”
She ignores you. “And then when you get to Heathrow airport in London—”
“Wait a minute! You said I was going to the English countryside.”
“Yes, well, first you have to stand in line at the customs checkpoint. When you finally get to the front, they’ll ask you some questions and stamp your passport. Then you’ll have to get your luggage and haul it to the bus, which will take you into the city to catch the train. It’s a three-hour train ride to your hotel.”
You’re getting irritated. “I don’t want to do all that,” you insist. “I just want to go straight to the little English village.”
At this point the woman is ready to disqualify you and pick another winner!
The hard facts
We have all met Christians who expect their trip to heaven to be one smooth ride from the time they accepted Christ straight to the pearly gates—especially here in America, where the culture is overwhelmingly pleasure-oriented. Unfortunately, a lot of gospel preaching adds to the problem, omitting the hard facts of spiritual life.
We don’t linger very long in passages such as this one:
“At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. … The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. There was a plot afoot … to mistreat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the cities of Lystra and Derbe, where they continued to preach the good news” (Acts 14:1-7).
People think the Christian life is going to be a breeze, and it’s not. Trouble breaks loose in their lives, and all of a sudden they’re crying, “Where is God? Nobody told me this was going to happen.”
Paul did not do this. “The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe. They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,’ they said” (Acts 14:19-22).
The Greek word translated “hardships” means to break, crush, compress, squeeze. Paul included this kind of honest teaching in every town where a church had sprung up. In the kingdom of God, hardship and persecution are par for the course. That’s just the way it is.
Some of the pain we endure can come from within our own family. A relative says, “So you’ve gotten religious, have you? What do you think you are—better than us now?” It hurts to hear those kinds of words.
We have often seen new converts in our church face this kind of thing. When they were partying all night and doing drugs, no one seemed bothered. But now that they are following Christ and coming to church regularly, it sets off a reaction from their own flesh and blood. “Why do you always have to be in church? What are you, some kind of fanatic?” Prior to this they didn’t care, even if the person was stoned out of his mind.
It is vital that we not be misled. If the Master whom we follow was crucified, on what basis do we think we will escape trouble?
Rough start
When I read these kinds of Scriptures, I think of Denise Tsikudo, a woman in our church who came to the Lord in early 1993. At that time she was a single mother with two daughters; she had no religious background, other than a stint in witchcraft. Her recreational drug use had increased, and so had her binge drinking, to two or three times a week, which created a sense of depression. This nudged her toward church, where she soon gave her heart to Christ.
She stopped drinking. She quit smoking. But did everything run smoothly thereafter?
Within just a few months, Denise suffered the sudden loss of her mother. There was no warning; Denise found her dead on the bathroom floor of her house in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where she lived alone.
Once the shock subsided, Denise had to sort out her mother’s legal affairs, a complicated task. Disagreements arose among the relatives. What should be done with the house? Denise’s aunt urged her to take over the property, even though it was in a high-risk area and she had little money for taxes and upkeep.
Her sisters and brothers rebuffed her now that she had “gotten religious.” Her partying friends were critical of how much time she now spent in church.
In July, she signed up for our Foundation Bible Class, an introductory course in the Christian faith. The first Thursday night session went well, she remembers. She returned home that night to a quiet apartment, since her girls were with their father during the summer vacation. She settled into bed.
Denise was working a late schedule the next day, so her alarm did not go off until 9:15. Denise opened her eyes—and there in the doorway stood a stranger with his T-shirt pulled up over the bridge of his nose. Only his fearsome eyes could be seen. In his right hand was a silver revolver.
She rubbed her eyes; this was not a dream. The man began moving forward.
“What do you want?” she cried out.
He ordered her to stay where she was on the bed. Oh, my God! Denise thought to herself. Where did he come from? How did he get in here? Jesus, help me!
Denise continued praying as the man pushed a pillow over her face. Oh, God, don’t let him kill me! I’m alone in a four-story brownstone; everybody else has gone to work. Help me, Lord!
In the ugly moments that followed, Denise glanced to her right and saw the gun lying on the bed only inches from her head. When her attacker finally stood up, he seemed to linger in the room for a while. She managed to remain motionless and quiet. Not a whimper escaped her lips. Eventually she heard his footsteps heading down the hall and out the front door.
Denise sat up, quivering. She called 911, and a squad car soon arrived with a policewoman, who gently guided Denise through the reporting and the trip to the hospital.
Within a few weeks, Denise decided to move. She opted temporarily for her mother’s vacant house in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It wasn’t the safest neighborhood, but at least it was rent-free, she thought, and perhaps she could save for something better.
That winter proved to be one of our area’s coldest in years. Snow piled up and stayed. Ice penetrated Denise’s roof and leaked into the house. The boiler broke, leaving Denise and her daughters without heat. And one of the girls contracted chicken pox.
For this to happen to anyone is horrendous, but how does a new believer cope, much less move on?
Damaged goods
Soon after her assault, while Denise was still traumatized and afraid to go out, she managed to make it to one of our Sunday services. Choir auditions were announced that day. Denise loved to sing and somehow got the courage to fill out an application, despite her battered and bruised soul.
After passing the vocal test, female applicants are interviewed by my wife, Carol, so she can hear their testimony of faith in Christ, learn more about them, and be sure they want to minister to people rather than just sing music. Denise was the last person Carol interviewed that day. She opened up to my wife and shared the horrific, still painful events of the recent past: the rape, the terror, the fear.
When Carol came home, she told me about a special choir applicant and her tragic story. “She’s a new Christian, Jim, and right now she’s ‘damaged goods’ emotionally. But I sense the Lord wants her in the choir even though she hasn’t completely recovered.”
Carol said I would be meeting her the next evening, when I was scheduled to give a final talk to all the approved applicants.
Denise entered my office with about six other people. As I greeted each with a handshake, she was the only one who avoided eye contact. She never looked up as I spoke on the choir’s potential to bless and serve the congregation. She kept staring at the floor, glancing sideways occasionally.
When I thanked each of them for their interest in serving the body of Christ, she was expressionless amid all the happiness of the others. A sad numbness enshrouded her.
As the choir sang the next Sunday, I searched the alto section for Denise. There she was, properly looking at Carol, singing all the words—with no expression whatsoever.
But over time, the Lord began using the other members during practice times, their seasons of prayer, and the Sunday services to lift Denise from her pain. The challenges of that winter did not disappear overnight. But she began to evidence a new spirit.
Months later, as the choir sang a beautiful praise song to the Lord one Sunday night, I noticed Denise in the front row with a joyful radiance on her face, hands lifted high with no self-consciousness whatever. The lady who could not smile or even look at me was gone forever.
In time, the tide began to turn for Denise Tsikudo. One of the men from our church helped her make some repairs on the old house, and an agency called Neighborhood Housing Services gave her a three percent loan for a new boiler and weatherproof windows. Another man in the church, who had gone to high school with her, introduced her to his friend, Gordon, and a couple of years later they married. A solid Christian home has been built.
“Yes, I went through a lot of stuff that first year,” she says. “Through it all, I was just thankful that I had the Lord in my life to help me. What would I have done in similar circumstances without him? I would have given in to my pain and depression.
“But instead, I learned to cling to the Lord. The more troubles that happened, the tighter I had to hold on. And God was faithful.”
People do go through storms in life, and only God can hold us steady.
What’s God up to?
God is trying to do more than give us a smooth life. He is trying to make us like Jesus. He cares more about producing Christlikeness than he does about the American Dream.
Suffering prepares us to serve others in similar predicaments. Paul opens the book of 2 Corinthians by praising “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” (1:3-5).
God knows that times of trouble are part of the human condition. How else can he raise up an army of anointed comforters in his name unless they have been through the fire themselves? Then, with authority and conviction they can reach out to troubled souls, saying, “I do know what you’re going through. I’ve been there myself, and I can tell you that God’s grace is sufficient. Hold on—he will bring you through.”
Jesus told his disciples on the last evening just before the powers of darkness began to rage, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). God does not always take us out of difficulty; many times he takes us through it. The first shows us God’s power, which is omnipotent. The second teaches us the patience, character, and tenderness we need to bless others.
That is one reason why we must return to prayer meetings. They provide a place for us to hold one another up so we don’t quit the race. Trials can pull us down if we’re alone. When I look out on a Tuesday night and see single moms trying to raise teenagers, teachers working in the New York City public schools, men battling the powers of addiction, I know how desperately we must lift each other up from the muck of life toward the welcoming arms of God.
On Sundays when broken people come to the front for prayer and help, I often turn toward the choir and motion for members to come put their arms around these needy souls and guide them to the throne of grace.
More than once I have called for Denise, who has responded with love and compassion. The weeping person at the altar has no idea what this woman has been through as she puts her arm around her and begins to pray. She has survived the storm herself and therefore ministers with all the more tenderness to the one in need.
Adapted from Fresh Power by Jim Cymbala and Dean Merrill. Copyright 2001 by Jim Cymbala. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. Available at 800-727-3480.
Jim Cymbala is pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York City.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
