Learn To Accept Reality
first broadcast on November 13, 2006
Transcript
Paul David Tripp: Our lives just aren’t predictable. Our lives just don't work the way we’ve planned, and with all of our strategizing, and all of our planning, and all of our work to make our lives predictable and comfortable, we’re always dealing with the unexpected.
Kate Crowley: From Paul Tripp Ministries, this is Right Here, Right Now, connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Here, now, is Paul Tripp.
PDT: It's hard to talk about it even now. It was a call that no parent ever wants to get. We were told to get to the hospital as fast as we could because our daughter was there in ‘Trauma Care’. She had been in an accident, and she was very, very seriously injured.
I was out of town, and Luella, my wife, called me. She told me to get home as fast as I could. That trip home seemed like it took days, not hours.
I didn't know what I would be facing. Our daughter, Nicole, had been walking down the street in Center City, Philadelphia, when out of nowhere, an SUV came up on the sidewalk and crushed her up against a wall. She had massive, internal bleeding. She had multiple breaks of her pelvis. She had injuries to both of her legs.
I will never forget walking into that intensive care room and seeing my daughter lying there with her terribly broken body. I felt so incredibly unprepared. I felt so completely helpless. I bent over her bed and went to kiss her. I began to cry. She could sense that I was there, and she began to cry. We just didn't know what to do.
You struggle with knowing what to say; your mind is filled with all the possibilities of what could happen in the days to come; you wonder where all of it will end, and you can’t help but cry. “Why, why, why did this happen?”
Music: “What’s the World Got in Store?” by songwriter, Jeff Tweedy
What's the world got in store
What's the world got in store for you
What's the world got in store for you now
What's the world got in store
What's the world got in store for you
What's the world got in store for you now
KC: This is Right Here, Right Now with Paul Tripp. Paul has more to add to his series, “Survival Skills for a Fallen World,” from the book of I Peter.
Well, here we are in our second week of programs, and we’d like to thank you for being a part of this new radio outreach from Paul Tripp Ministries. Tell your friends that Paul is here each weekday at 11 A.M., on WFIL. And his goal is to remind you every day that there really is help in Jesus Christ, right here, right now.
For more information and a complete list of CD’s by Paul, visit Paul Tripp Ministries.org. That’s all one word, paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org. “Survival skills for a Fallen World,” Right Here, Right Now, continues with Paul Tripp.
PDT: If you think about any given day, any given week, any month, any year, you know that you’re just constantly facing the unexpected. Your life doesn't work according to your plan. It just doesn't. If you haven’t figured that out, you’re probably pretty comatose.
No, maybe it’s not some big, cataclysmic event like the accident of my daughter, but you're constantly dealing with things you didn't plan. Maybe it's just something as simple as traffic that made havoc out of your day before it ever began. Or maybe you get a phone call from a friend who needs your help, and your day ends up being very different than what you thought it would be.
Perhaps your boss told you that the company you work for is dissolving your division, and your services will not be needed. And, you’re driving home; you're thinking of what the future is going to be; you're thinking of how you’re going to tell your husband or your wife; you’re thinking about how you're going to pay your bills; you just can't believe that, all of a sudden, you're dealing with something that you never thought you would ever deal with.
Or maybe one of your children just brought home a note from school that tells you he or she is having struggles with his learning, and all of a sudden, you're going to be in all kinds of school appointments. You're going to be dealing with things, again, that you didn't think that you were going to be dealing with. Or, maybe you just got a physical, and your doctor has told you that he wants to put you through some more tests.
You see, every day in some way, all of us are dealing with the unexpected. Every day, all of us are surprised by what life brings our way. Every day, we’re turning corners that face us with things that weren’t in our schedule and that weren’t in our plan but that we’re required to deal with.
Maybe it's an unexpected situation. Maybe it's an unexpected bill. Maybe it's an unexpected conflict. Maybe it's an unexpected opportunity, duty, responsibility. But the fact of the matter is our lives just aren't predictable. Our lives just don't work the way we’ve planned, and with all of our strategizing, and all of our planning, and all of our work to make our lives predictable and comfortable, we’re always dealing with the unexpected.
Maybe you feel stuck in a job you never thought you'd be stuck in, or trapped in a relationship you never thought you'd be trapped in, or dealing with an issue that you never thought you'd be dealing with. Maybe you're facing things as a parent that you never thought you'd be dealing with in your family, or dealing with something in your marriage that you never thought you'd be dealing with in your marriage, or dealing with something physically that you just didn't think you’d be dealing with.
You’ve been pretty healthy, and you've taken your physical invincibility sort of for granted, and now you're dealing with something. Maybe you're living in a location that is very different from where you thought you'd live. You see, you and I don't need to read a gripping, mystery novel because we’re always dealing with the mysteries of our own lives. Our lives are a mystery. Have you ever wondered why?
Music: “Trouble Me”
Trouble
Trouble me, disturb me with all your cares and your worries. Trouble me on the days when you feel spent. There's more, honestly, than my sweet friend, you can see. Trust is what I'm offering if you trouble me
PDT: My dad was a hard-working man, sort of the definition of the American, Protestant work ethic. First up in the morning, last to go to bed at night, not only worked a full-time job, but had some businesses out of our house. And for reasons, I’m not sure I understand, my dad had focused on this one part of this dream of work and work success that he had never been able to experience. He had never gone out and bought a brand-new car.
He’d always wanted to buy a brand-new car, but he had never been able to do that. And in 1959, my dad was able to go out and buy a brand-new Plymouth Belvedere. Now, I don’t know if you know what that car looked like, but it was a very ugly automobile. It was two-tone peach and cream. This car looked like a bad dessert, and it had great big fins on the back. You couldn’t drive this car in the wind. But my dad was so proud of this car.
I’ll never forget him wheeling that car into the driveway. It had that cream-colored interior made of that plasticine substance, fake leather called naugahyde, type of stuff that, if you sat in the car above 70 degrees, you'd stick to the seat…big, white steering wheel, push button automatic. My dad was so excited about this car. He had us go out to sit behind that big wheel.
The next day, he decided, since he had a new car, he would go down to AAA and join AAA. It just seemed like the right thing to do. He stuck my brother, Mark, and I in the car; we were just real young little guys, and drove us down to the center of Toledo, Ohio, to AAA on that Saturday…probably driving faster than he should, wheeled that car into the lot of AAA, was blinded by the sun, and totaled it on a post in the middle of that lot.
I’ll never forget my dad getting out of the car and mumbling to himself. “Well, I guess I should join AAA anyway.” He walked up to the front door only to discover that it was closed on Saturdays. And I will never forget my father walking back and standing in front of the car, now his broken dream, with both fists clenched and screaming, “What in the world is going on?”
You see, if you haven't cried that, you probably will someday. And if you haven't cried that, you're probably near somebody who is crying that way right now. How do you make sense of your relationship with God and the things that are happening in your life in the here and now?
Maybe the two most important questions we can ask in all of life are these: First, what in the world is God doing; and second, how in the world should I respond to it? You see, you can't be what you're supposed to be in the here and now and do what you're supposed to do as you deal with the mystery of the unexpected if you can't answer these questions.
Listen for a moment to what the apostle Peter wrote to people who were suffering through the unexpected…
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power to the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in this last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Think about this: of all of the descriptive words in the human language, of all of the adjectives that he could've employed to describe the here and now, notice the three words that Peter uses: grief, suffer, and trial.
Why would he use these three words? Why, of all the words, does Peter think ‘grief’, ‘suffer’, and ‘trial’ are the most adequate words to describe the here and now? Well, he gives us a physical example to help us to understand why he chose those words. It's the example of metallurgy. You see, when the metallurgist mines a metal, it is in ore state.
Ore is not very attractive, and ore is not very usable because ore has imperfections in it. And the metallurgist instinctively knows that he has to add a catalytic agent and white-hot heat, and he will, in the process, boil out of all of that metal all of those imperfections so it reaches its highest state of strength and its highest state of beauty.
Now, get the application of this example. When you and I come to Christ, we’re ‘oreific’ Christians. We have imperfections in us that rob us of our strength and rob us of our beauty. God couldn't possibly leave us in that condition and still love us. He is committed to complete the work that He's begun in us. So get this principle; it’s very, very important.
God will take you where you do not want to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. God will take you where you do not want to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. God is not working so that you will be thrilled with your life. God's not working hard so that you can have a smile on your face. God is not seeking to deliver to you your own personal definition of happiness. No, He's actually working on something that's much, much better.
He wants more for you than you want for yourself. He's in the process of radically transforming us into what we were meant to be when we were created. So, God is going to take us where we do not want to go in order to produce in us what we could not achieve on our own.
You see, that difficulty in my life has purpose and meaning. Those situations that are unexpected, those trials that I didn't think I was going to face, those difficulties that are obstacles in the way of my definition of a comfortable, happy, satisfying life are not the result of God turning His back on me. They’re not the result of God forgiving (forgetting) me; they’re, in fact, the result of God remembering me.
God realizes that there is still ‘oreism’ in me; there are still imperfections in me; there are still things that I struggle with that rob me of my strength and rob me of my beauty. God realizes that I'm not finished yet. The job isn't done yet, that I'm still broken in many ways.
And so, God will take me where I have never planned to go in order to produce in me what I could not achieve on my own. That's why I face the unexpected. That's why I deal with the unpredictable; that's why I'm always going to have to accept mystery in my life, because I'm not in fact, in charge of my life. God is, and He’s doing something good.
Music: “Befriended” by Matt Redman
Befriended, befriended by the King above all Kings Surrendered, surrendered to a friend above all friends
This will be my story This will be my song You'll always be my Savior. Jesus You will always have my heart
You're so worthy my greatest gift would be the least You're due
Jesus, You’re so worthy My greatest gift would be the least You're due
My greatest gift would be the least You're due
PDT: If what Peter says is true, then think about it. Here's what we all need to be doing. In the midst of the unexpected, in the midst of the unpredictable we all need to be comforting one another with the theology…(Get this term.)…of ‘uncomfortable grace’.
Now, you see, if you are one of God's children, you need to tell yourself and the people around you that unexpected difficulties just plainly and simply are not the signs of God's unfaithfulness and inattention. Rather, they are sure signs of His presence and love. That's so different from the way that we normally think. We normally think if God loves me, then, He is going to bring all these good and wonderful things in our lives. But it's our definition of what's good; it's our definition of what's wonderful, and they tend to be things that are pleasurable and comfortable, rather than what God has in mind for us.
You see, God could not love you and be satisfied with leaving you just as you are. Think about it. Your ‘oreism’ showed last week. It did! Be honest! Be humble! Maybe it was in a moment of anger. Anybody angry out there? Maybe it was a struggle with envy. Are you ever jealous, envious of somebody else? Maybe you let a conversation descend into ugly gossip. You didn't want to go there, but you ended up going there in the end.
Maybe you're struggling with lust, and it's eating up your thoughts; it is a private, secret thing, and you know it's wrong. Perhaps you were at a party, and you did everything you could to put yourself in the center of attention. Maybe you've been real irritable with your husband or your wife, and you have been hard to get along with this week. Or, maybe you’ve been all too impatient with your children, saying and doing things you really shouldn’t be saying, or you really shouldn’t be doing.
You see, all of us, every day, demonstrate again and again that we need God to continue to work on us. You see, God loves you too much to leave you unfinished. He cares for you too much to leave you undone, so He comes to you with uncomfortable grace. Sure, you and I want the grace of relief. We want the grace of release, and the grace of release and relief will come someday. But what we really now need is the grace of refinement.
Are there places where you’re crying for the grace of God, and you're not realizing that you're getting it? But it's not the grace of release, and it's not the grace of relief. It's the boiling grace of personal transformation.
You see, God will take you where you do not want to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. In those unexpected moments, don't run away from your Lord; run to him. You are not being forsaken; you are being loved.
(Music Interlude)
What does all of what we've talked about today actually mean? Well, here it is. I think this is tremendous. You can look mystery in the face and have hope. You can live in the middle of a life that you don't really understand, that you can't really figure out, and rest. You can deal with the unexpected with joy. You can accept mystery, and you can do it because you can look through the clouds of mystery and see a God of love who is actually near when He seems far.
It's actually active, when He seems passive, who is doing something very good right in the middle of when things seem like they're going very bad. Are there places where you just can't figure out what God is doing? Are there places where it feels like He's not near? Where, right now, in your everyday experience are you dealing with the unexpected? God is at work in your life. He hasn't turned His back on you.
You see, you can accept mystery because, in the middle of the unexpected, there's love and grace and help to be found. God is right, smack dab in the middle of your unexpected moment, and He's up to something very, very good.
KC: Even though life sometimes can be a puzzle, God is there to help us put all of the pieces together. Thanks, Paul, for that important reminder.
You’ve found Right Here, Right Now from Paul Tripp Ministries, and the new series entitled, “Survival Skills for a Fallen World.” If you're wondering if there's hope for you in your situation, well, there is. Go online, and take a peek at the book, Lost In The Middle by Paul Tripp. In it, he explains how moments of pain can also be moments of God's grace. That’s Lost In The Middle, Paul Tripp’s new book. Go to paultrippministries.org; that’s all one word paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.
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Tomorrow, Paul shares, “How You Can Rest in God's Sovereignty,” from the series: “Survival Skills for a Fallen World.” Now, for Paul Tripp and all of us at Paul Tripp Ministries, I’m Kate Crowley, reminding you that, in Jesus Christ, there really is help, right here, right now.