By Pastor Greg
A woman brought a very limp parrot
into a veterinary clinic. As she laid
her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the
bird's chest. After a moment or two, the
vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, Polly has passed
away." The distressed owner wailed,
"Are you sure? I mean, you haven't
done any testing on him or anything. He
might just be in a coma or something."
The vet rolled his eyes, shrugged, turned and left the room, returning a
few moments later with a beautiful black Labrador. As the bird's owner looked on in amazement,
the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and
sniffed the dead parrot from top to bottom.
He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet took the dog out but returned a few moments later with a cat. The cat jumped up and
sniffed delicately at the bird as well.
The cat sat back, shook its head, meowed and ran out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said,
"I'm sorry, but like I said, your parrot is most definitely, 100%
certifiably dead." He then turned
to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed
to the woman. The parrot's owner, still
in shock, took the bill.
"$150?" she cried, "$150 just to tell me my bird is
dead?!!!" The vet shrugged. "If you'd taken my word for it, the bill
would only have been $20, but what with the Lab Report
and the Cat Scan..."
If only this woman could have
accepted what the vet had said earlier.
If only she could have accepted his “no”. However, like many of us, we just don’t like
being told “no.”
A man in the Bible named Paul had to
deal with God’s “no”. The Lord sent him
to preach throughout the Roman Empire.
Paul had great success leading many Jews to the Lord, but his greatest success was in helping countless
non-Jews find eternal life in Jesus. He,
and the other members of his missionary team,
traveled around the Mediterranean Sea ministering in many cities. They preached the Gospel of Jesus from
Lebanon to Syria, Turkey, the island of Cypress, Greece, and eventually
Rome. Yet throughout all his travels,
Paul had something that continually worked against him. He called it a “Thorn in the Flesh”.
In his second letter to the church
in Corinth (which was located in Greece), Paul tells them that before he
started these missionary trips, he had a supernatural encounter with God. In paradise, God spoke to Paul revealing
things that he just could not put into
words. This encounter with God could
have become the central thrust of his work.
Paul could have boasted about this over and over again, but he doesn’t. Paul writes, 6 “If I wanted to
boast, I would be no fool in doing so,
because I would be telling the truth. But I
won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can
see in my life or hear in my message, 7 even though I have
received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from
becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from
becoming proud. 8 Three
different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time
he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I
am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so
that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I
take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions,
and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong”
[1]
(2 Corinthians 12:6-10).
Whatever the thorn might have
been, it was not the
issue. The main point is that three
times Paul asked the Lord to take it away.
Yet God says, “No.” Paul is told that God’s grace is all he needed. He is reminded that the power of God is best
revealed through a person’s weaknesses.
The message Paul preached seemed genuine BECAUSE of his weakness; his
“Thorn in the Flesh”. Paul’s acceptance of God’s “no” is an indication that
he had indeed allowed God to become Lord of his life, that he had prayed, “Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the
glory”.
God’s “no” must be understood in
terms of His character. Here we see Paul
wanting God to remove this thorn, yet God’s “no” was wrapped in His love and
divine wisdom. GHod informs Paul that if
the thorn was removed, he may battle pride issues (become arrogant and
self-righteous) which would destroy his ability to minister. God didn’t say “no” because He was angry or
disappointed with Paul, but because the Father knew what the outcome would be. God answered Paul asking him to simply rest in His grace. “My grace is sufficient for you” – meaning that
Paul was to trust in the love of God.
Have you ever heard God tell you
“no”? It’s not an easy word to
hear. I have found that this is one of the most difficult aspects of our relationship
with God and with Jesus. It is one thing
to call them Lord. It is far more difficult to permit them to be Lord of our
life, especially when they say “no.”
Maybe you expected God to say
“Yes” to your prayer. Maybe you demanded He say “Yes,” threatening to walk away if things didn’t go
your way. Of all the lessons I’ve
learned about prayer, from courage, to
faith, to boldness, I think this one is the most difficult. It’s the point where Jesus teaches me to say,
“For Yours is the Kingdom and the power
and the glory forever.” It’s the lesson where I say, “As You wish.” It’s
when I can accept God’s “no” because I have come to understand God’s grace.
There are no magic prayers or
secret formulas that will cause God to answer “yes” to all our prayers. Those books that tell you God is just waiting
to give you all that you desire simply are not true. The people who wrote these books have
forgotten that God is our Father. He is
Lord. He is the potter; we are the
clay. They disregard what God said
through the Prophet Jeremiah. “So I went down
to the potter’s house and found him working at his wheel. 18:4 Now and then there would be something wrong
with the pot he was molding from the clay with his hands. So he would rework
the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. 18:5 Then the Lord said to me, 18:6 “I,
the Lord, say: ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter
deals with the clay? In my hands, you, O
nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand” [2]
(Jeremiah 18:3-5). If God is our Lord
and Master, then we must learn to accept His “no”. Yet as
Christians, we have been promised God’s grace.
His grace is what helps us accept
His “no”. Like Paul, we receive the
grace we need to accept God’s “no”, and that Grace comes through a relationship
with His Son, Christ Jesus.
God is not a Grandfather who spoils us and gives us ice
cream and hour before bedtime. He is our
Father, and our Father knows what is best for us. However, what’s best for us is not always
what makes us happy. And the sooner we
realize this, the sooner we will be able to pray, “Yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen”.
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