My sister Mary recently injured her shoulder. She didn’t remember any specific moment when anything snapped or cracked, but as the summer weeks passed, her pain steadily increased. Eventually she couldn’t lift her grandbabies or anything else. The diagnosis? A “frozen shoulder.” The remedy? Physical therapy.

When I asked how therapy was going, Mary said, “The woman pushes my arm until my shoulder starts to hurt, and then she really pushes.” As a result, little by little her shoulder has “thawed” and has became useable again. After ten weeks of therapy, it’s almost 100%.

God works on people in exactly the same way. He determines where we’re deficient or “frozen”, then designs a scenario for each of us that will involve stretching and pushing, which often brings pain and tears. But the end result is growth in spiritual maturity. The Lord doesn’t get pleasure from watching us struggle but does delight in our progress as we navigate through it. And so he lets the troubles come.

When our Chicago area home refused to sell, which would have brought needed financial stability, we had been ushered into God’s therapy room. Week after week he was stretching us, pushing us to the limit, improving our perseverance. Similar to Mary’s experience, it was unpleasant and even maddening. But God designs our therapy with perfection and knows exactly when to ease up. He promises not to overdo it.

During the holiday season of 2008, as we were about to take our renovated but unpopular home off the market, we got another carrot on a stick. A young couple toured our house three times in quick succession, which encouraged us to keep the house listed. Then one afternoon our realtor called: “Good news! They just made an offer, and this one looks solid!” It was Christmas week.

Although we wondered why a childless couple in their mid-twenties would want such a large house, as we signed the contract offer, we didn’t ask. Our realtor left with a big grin, and we did our best to share her enthusiasm. But after she walked out, we shook our heads and agreed, “It won’t happen.”

Within days the couple arrived with an inspector, who discovered tiny bits of vermiculite in the attic insulation, which had trace amounts of asbestos in it. Safety protocol was to leave it undisturbed, but our potential buyers said it had to be removed or they’d pull out of the contract. Even though it cost $8000, we decided to do it.

As 2008 rolled into 2009, Isaiah 52:12 was on my mind: “For the Lord will go before you; the God of Israel will be your rear guard.” We needed to follow God into a new beginning, forgetting the failures of our past. The buyers were still with us, and there was a flicker of hope that this time we might actually be selling and moving. But as Nate’s back had begun to worsen, I’d fallen on the ice and broken two ribs, which prompted a question:

Shouldn’t both of us be in physical therapy?

(…to be continued)

“To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness.” (Ecclesiastes 2:26a)

After our eager buyers disappeared, Nate and I talked. I’d always been his #1 cheerleader, but on that morning the balance had tipped, and I was lower than he was.

I told him, as recorded in my journal, “My optimism is gone. I give up. I still believe God is controlling everything, but the reason our buyers keep disappearing must be about something other than finances, houses and moving.”

Because I was looking for reassurance from Nate, I was disappointed when he didn’t give any. “I’m just going to work. I don’t know what else to do.” He was as depleted as I was and didn’t want to bring God into the discussion.

I shot back, “Until God chooses to rescue us, no amount of work is going to matter.” My comment was thoughtless and an expression of anger against God, not Nate, but Nate was the one standing there to receive it.

He kissed me goodbye and walked out the door, shoulders bent forward in an effort to favor his painful back. I went right to my prayer time, desperate for God’s encouragement but sure he couldn’t possibly say anything that would help. I landed in Psalm 38 and 39:

“Your hand [God] presses me down… I’m troubled… I’m bowed down greatly… I’m mourning all day… I groan because of the turmoil in my heart… I’m ready to fall… My sorrow is continually before me… Surely mankind busies himself in vain… I’m consumed by the blow of your hand…”

The author, David, must have felt just like Nate and I. He even spoke to the issue of Nate going off to work that morning, saying it was “in vain.”

As David struggled over fear, health issues and personal sin, he told God, “Don’t be silent at my tears, for I am a stranger with you…” and I started to cry, too. That’s exactly how I felt. I was stepping close to God in our crisis, and he was stepping away. My most precious Friend was becoming a stranger. What happened to his promise to draw near to me when I drew near to him? (1 Peter 5:7)

I read those verses again. In focusing on the negatives, I’d missed the positives: “My sighing isn’t hidden from you… Make haste to help me… What, O Lord, do I wait for? Deliver me… My hope is in you…”

This startled me. In the middle of all-consuming anguish, even when David still questioned what in the world he was waiting for, his faith in God hadn’t completely disappeared.

So what about us? Working harder wouldn’t help, and neither would beige paint or real estate savvy. God had brought us close to bottoming out in faith and financial matters for some other reason. But what were we supposed to do?

Nothing… but wait.

Although tears made it difficult to read, I kept going. Psalm 40: “I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up… established my steps… put a new song in my mouth.”

Really? Then I guess I was willing. Because I craved God’s rescue, I’d do what David did. I’d wait… some more.

(…to be continued)

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)

Most of us have heard this Christian counsel: “You can be honest with God. He’s tough enough to take it.”

When yet another house deal fell through for Nate and I, we began to play the blame game. Nate blamed the realtor, and I blamed God.

Today I read back through my prayer journal from those days and saw honesty being poured out to God: “I’m thinking, Lord, that you let us get close to succeeding and then deliberately take a sale away. I feel like we can’t win against you. I feel hopeless. Beaten down. What are we doing wrong? How am I praying wrong?”

It didn’t take long for God to answer those questions. The next day, as I read the devotional from “My Utmost for His Highest,” there it was: “God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God. It’s getting into perfect communion with God. [As you pray] have no other motive than to know your Father in heaven.”

I’d been begging God to bring a buyer and get the house sold. I’d even prayed for the family that would move into our home, asking God to bless them as they decided our house was the one for them. But praying with the intent to know the Father better? Wasn’t that off-topic?

Our panic to get the house sold had overridden everything else. “Sell the house, Lord. Sell it now! You just have to sell it! What’s holding you back? Hurry up!”

Since I couldn’t see any good reason why he wouldn’t bring a buyer, I viewed him as deliberately spoiling everything by actually preventing the sale. Beneath that line of thinking, however, was my sinful attitude that I understood the situation just as well as God did and was wanting to overrule his opinion. I was forgetting that he was omniscient, and I was shortsighted.

God’s reason for not selling the house might even be something that would eventually thrill me. But swallowing that was difficult. If I could believe it, though, then God’s silence and our long wait would become bearable.

Gradually the mind-set of my prayer journal began to turn. “I don’t understand why you do or don’t do things, but I guess everything’s under your control, God. It’s all up to you. I have no power to shape circumstances, and I want this truth about your sovereignty to soak into me like water into a dry sponge, until I can think like that without even trying.”

Nothing changed about the house. It still wouldn’t sell. But other things did change. Nate’s back began to bother him badly. He started working less and coming home earlier, exhausted from the pain. The economy continued to collapse, and his clients began telling him they were tight financially and couldn’t pay what they owed.

Feeling battered and bruised as we approached the holidays of 2008, we decided to take the house off the market for a while.

No one buys houses at Christmas time.

(…to be continued)

“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)