(Audio)
So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed.
The Lord wants to strengthen us to run the race with perseverance.
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it (see First Corinthians 9:24).
The Letter to the Hebrews was a reminder to the recipients to expect trials in life, but to see them in the proper context. Rather than seeing their hardships as signs that they had been abandoned, and therefore losing heart and giving in to weakness, they were called to see the difficulties they faced as God's discipline, given out of love.
My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
or lose heart when reproved by him;
for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
he scourges every son he acknowledges.
Jesus himself "learned obedience through what he suffered" (see Hebrews 5:8) and we in turn are being perfected in him. Jesus was able to receive suffering even to the point of shedding blood because he believed in the love his Father had for him as his Son. He knew that any discipline he endured was not for lack of the Father's love, but part of a larger plan to bring salvation. He ran his race with endurance because of his trust in the Father. He wants to help us to have the same trust when we encounter our own trials.
The risk is that when times get tough we stop striving for peace with everyone. It is a temptation to only strive for holiness when times are sufficiently easy and relaxed that it is convenient for us to do so. But holiness is necessary to see the Lord. If we neglect the grace God offers us, which he invites us to receive even in difficult times, we risk allowing, not just isolated problems, but a bitter root that may be resistant removal later. In difficult times we are tempted to ignore bitter roots growing in ourselves and in those around us. But our easiest opportunity to remove them is at their onset.
What does a bitter root look like?
They said, “Where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!
When Jesus calls us to the next level, as he often does through trials themselves, we make similar objections. It doesn't make sense to us. We forget that he has our best interests at heart and ask him to prove his good intentions all over again. At each new level of trial we may demand of him that he restart our faith from the ground up. But it needn't be this way. With his help, we can catch those roots before they even turn into words. We can chose instead to believe and honor him and so find the strength to run our race.
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (see First Corinthians 10:13).
Even in the midst of a situation like the one in which we find our world today, where Jesus is without much honor, where the lack of faith around us is amazing, he can still work anywhere we give him the room to do so.
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there,
apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.
Jesus loves us and will never miss the opportunity to respond to our faith, especially when that faith is expressed during trials and suffering. Let us recognize such trials as signs of love and receive them as opportunities for growth. On our own we cannot do this. But this is just what his grace is meant to make possible.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him,
For he knows how we are formed;
he remembers that we are dust.
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