Some Unusual Traveling Companions

The trails within the Sequoia National Forest are decorated with signs that are less than comforting to the novice outdoorsman.  In bold letters they proclaim: WARNING, BEAR COUNTRY!.  Below these words are instructions of how one can minimize the possibility of having a personal, face to face encounter with a bear.

I take these signs very, very seriously.  Having grown up in a part of the world where bears were only found on television, I have some preconceived ideas of what bears are like.  Most of them are a sort of a hairy, ten-foot tall, great white shark on legs.  Their favorite dish is camper wrapped in flannel, as in sleeping bag lining. 

Because I know how ferocious bears are I make my family take every precaution possible to minimize the chance of a bear encounter.  Every scrap of food is either burned or locked away in air-tight containers in the trunk of the car.  My three girls then search every square inch of the campsite for any scraps that could entice a bear to come calling during the night.  Finally, as a last act before bed time, I take the clothes we have worn through the day, clothes that may harbor a scent of food, and lock them away as well.

Funny thing.  I have only seen one bear while visiting the forest.  He didn't look at all like the ferocious creature Clint Walker battled in "Night of the Grizzly."  In fact, this bear took one look at us, mumbled something to himself like, "There goes the neighborhood," and trotted off into the woods.  Even so, I still do everything possible to protect myself from the grizzlies I fear are lurking behind every tree.

Though bears are in short supply, flies, gnats and other assorted insect life are always plentiful.  From ants on the picnic table to the constant buzzing of one lone mosquito in the tent at night, every camping trip I have ever taken has been filled with bugs.  The two official hand motions of camping are the slap and the scratch.  Yet, in spite of all of this, the bug repellant is usually forgotten until the middle of the night when it is needed the most.  Then I remember that it's under the sink back at home.

Bears seldom ruin camping trips.  Insects rarely leave them alone.  The threat of bears and the presence of bugs are constants of every camper's experience in the Sequoia National Forest.  In the same manner, trials are a constant companion on the journey of faith.  Most of us fear the great, life shattering trials and take every precaution against them.  Other trials are small and hardly given a thought until they come like gnats in a swarm.  In addition, there are other tests of a believers faith that seem to go on forever.  Though they seem small at the outset, by their duration their apparent size and strength increases.

 Gnats

The third plague upon Egypt in the book of Exodus was  the smallest of the ten.  It consisted of small, annoying insects, gnats.  A gnat is not usually considered the kind of animal that can topple an empire.  A rolled up newspaper and swift reflexes are all that you need to get rid of one.  Yet it was this third plague that prompted Pharoah's advisers to cry out, "This is the finger of God."  Their fear came not from the size of the insect but from its numbers.  The gnats were as numerous as the dust of the earth.

Many of the trials that we face on a daily basis are like the gnats in Egypt.  When looked at individually they hardly call for a second notice.  They appear small and insignificant.  Yet small trials rarely travel alone.  Like gnats, they come in swarms.

Persistent Buzzing

A distinctive buzz announces the gnats' arrival.  It takes the form of phrases like...

"Mr. Tabb, this is the school.  Your daughter fell and ...?!"

"Is this your mangy, garbage eating dog?..."

"Oops.."

"Honey, have you seen the super-glue?"

"Moooommmm, does grape juice stain?"

"Has there always been a dent on this side of the car?"

"The boss would like to see you.  By the way, did you remember that the Wilson account was supposed to be renewed last month?"

"You want it when?"

You get the picture.  We've all had the calm of the day broken with sound bites like these as the gnats travel over from Egypt and invade our lives.  What's odd is how they travel in swarms.  The damage they create individually is never great.  It’s their cumulative effect that makes our lives miserable.

Days will go by where life is as smooth and trouble free.  Then, suddenly, the wheels all come off at the same time.

Human responses to gnat trials

Our first reaction to the continuous onslaught of the gnats is usually anger.  To say we lose our joy is an understatement.  Gnat trials have a way of transforming one from a mild-mannered Christian husband and father into nitroglycerine, liable to explode with the slightest provocation.

These trials are maddening for they baffle us and take away our pride.  They seem so small that we are sure we can handle them in our own strength.  No one ever prays that God would kill a bug.  We feel certain that we can smash them. But we cannot.  They remind us of our limitations and our need to rely on the One who is greater than ourselves in every aspect of life.

Our second reaction is to try and escape to the greener grass that must exist somewhere in this world.  When gnats invade our workplace we begin to long for the escape the weekend promises.  When I was attending Bible college I dreamed of the free and easy road that seemed to exist in the wonderful, post-graduation world.  But there are gnats in every paradise we seek.

At times I find myself wondering why God doesn't create a giant can of Raid and kill all the gnats that buzz into my life.  Unfortunately, gnats are permanent this side of eternity. Days where everything seems to go wrong are some of the most accurate barometers of the validity of our faith.  By constantly scratching at the surface of our lives they reveal what is really inside of us.  The world is watching to see if what we say we believe is real.  Our reactions, not our actions, are the transmitters upon which this information is broadcast.

Gophers

Several years ago I uprooted my young family and moved them to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California.  At that time I did not realize that the land upon which we would live is made of solid rock.  Apart from a thin layer of topsoil, the dirt is made up of something we affectionately refer to as decomposed granite which is interspersed with real granite.  During the dry summer months, when the average rainfall is two reruns of "Singing in the Rain," it is virtually impossible to dig a hole deeper than one inch.  The ground stubbornly refuses to yield to a shovel.

Therefore, I was shocked to discover gopher mounds throughout my yard.  Somehow this cousin of the rat is able to dig its way through solid rock and make a mess of my lawn.  Part of my backyard looks like a war zone. I have tried everything short of firepower to get rid of these pests.  Nothing works.  One day I even shoved a water hose down the gopher hole in an attempt to drown the pest.  The next day he left his distinctive calling card as if to say, "Thanks for the bath."

Some of the trials that invade our lives are like gophers.  They stubbornly refuse to go away despite all of our best efforts to get rid of them.  Here I am not referring to the major, lingering trials that devastate our lives.  We will examine those later.  Gopher trials are the ones that are frustrating.  While they don't destroy our lives they are able to make life miserable.

Some physical ailments fall into the gopher category, especially allergies. For all my adult life I’ve lived with itchy, watery eyes, a runny nose, constant sneezing, and doing without ice cream (I’m allergic to milk, among other things). Though rarely life threatening, allergies can take away all the incentive to wake up in the morning.  All the remedies advertised have a minimal effect when the peak allergy season hits.  Frustrating is an understatement in describing the trial allergies become.

Trying Patience

Sometimes human beings mutate into gophers.  We all have one special someone who fits this description, some person who tries our patience just by breathing.  Be it their personality, their laugh or their general outlook on life, God places people in our lives that try our faith on a daily basis.  Some commentators believe that Paul was speaking of just such a person when he told of the thorn in his flesh in 2 Corinthians 12.  He called his thorn a "messenger of Satan" sent to torment him.  The term "messenger" is used in every other New Testament occurrence to refer to a literal being, either human, angelic or demonic.  Therefore, it is logical to assume that the Paul uses the term here to refer to someone who continually tried his patience and tormented him by their presence.

Persistence

Whoever this person may have been, they are a classic example of persistent, frustrating trials.  This thorn in the flesh, this messenger of Satan, simply would not go away.  Three times Paul prayed that God would do something to deliver him.  No doubt his intensity increased with each request.  If he was like me, all formality was gone when he prayed the third time.  His prayer was closer to the desperate cry of a drowning man than a religious exercise.  Yet each time God's answer was the same: No.

Persistence is the most trying aspect of gopher trials.  Once the gophers have us in their sights, they refuse to relinquish their attack.  What starts as little more than an annoyance soon grows into a enormous frustration.  Like water upon a rock they wear us down, robbing us of our joy, making life miserable.  They take us to our breaking point where we simply can't endure anything more.  If this were warfare, the gophers would be winning.

How can something like this defeat us?  How can something that appears to be well within our ability to overcome take us to the brink of surrender?  I believe there are two reasons.  First, we underestimate the size of the adversary.  A single gopher mound in a yard doesn't mean that only one gopher has invaded.  So too, below what appears on the surface to be a rather small and simple test of our faith may lurk a much greater problem. 

In Our Own Strength

This leads us to the second reason why gopher trials defeat us.  While underestimating their size we overestimate our strength.  We tell ourselves we can handle it.  Prayer is not the line of first defense.  Rather than depending upon God we depend upon our own ability.  Soon we discover that we are overwhelmed.  Yet this can lead to embarrassment and hinder our cries for help.  We don't want to admit defeat, we're embarrassed that something so small could devastate us so.

 All this leads us to God's purpose in allowing such trials into our lives.  God's answer to Paul when he asked for deliverance from his thorn in the flesh wasn't a simple no.  Second Corinthians 12:9 records the Lord's timeless answer to Paul and to all of us who are weary from wrestling gophers, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  God uses trying people and persistent difficulties to expose our own weaknesses that we might learn to depend upon the power of His grace.  Once we learn this lesson we will be able to say with Paul, "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9b-10)

Grizzly Bears

Most of us live in fear that something terrible and traumatic will sweep down upon us and change our lives forever.  Whereas gnat like trials are annoying and gopher trials are frustrating, grizzly bear trials are totally devastating.  Their names read like a who's who of disaster.  Cancer, bankruptcy, divorce, a runaway child – all the things we fear the most.

Thus, we take every step possible to protect ourselves from their onslaught.  Millions of dollars each year are spent on insurance policies, security systems, high fiber cereals and exercise equipment.  Like campers locking their food away in air tight containers, prudence demands that we take these steps to minimize the chances of coming face to face with catastrophe.

The Devastation of a Grizzly Attack

But there are times that everything we do to protect ourselves isn't enough.  Job lived through our worst nightmare when his life was rocked one fateful day.  He too was a man of caution, offering sacrifices for sins that might have been committed.  Moreover, he was a good and holy man.  God Himself gave this description of Job: "There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."  Yet none of this protected Job from the devastation that awaited him.

In a very brief period of time Job encountered most of the bears we fear the most.  Financial ruin, the death of a child and sickness were all thrust upon this one man, leaving him helpless to do anything about his situation.  Sometimes we read about Job's reaction to all of this and wonder who the hero of the story really is.  He utters words that show the depth of his pain.  Listen to a sample:

What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.

I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.  Job 3:25-26

If only my anguish could be weighed and all my misery be placed on the scales!

It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas.  Job 6:2-3

 I loathe my very life, therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.I will say to God, "Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me."  Job 10:1-2

We don't expect words like this from a saint.  They sound more like the words of one whose soul has been crushed than one who is rejoicing in adversity.  He simply asks the same question each one of us asks when disaster strikes, "Why God?  Why did this happen to me?"  Job was very human and his words reflect that fact.  He was also a man of faith and his words show that as well.  Perhaps the most difficult part of the trials he endured was the isolation he felt from God.  His prayers seemed to bounce off of the ceiling and fall to the floor unheard and unanswered.

The Helplessness of a Grizzly Attack

Mercifully, most of us will not experience the depth of despair Job had to endure.  Yet at the same time, we have no guarantees that disaster will spare us from its uninvited presence.  We all know people, perhaps you are one of them, who have had to endure bitter, bitter trials.  No one can really understand the pain that descends upon the soul in that hour.  No one can relate to the helplessness we feel.  Hearing that God is in control and that He'll make everything work out for our good rings hollow when your dealing with life shattering grief.  Its impossible to keep a smile on your face when the only prayer you can muster up is "Oh God, why?"

These days come.  Our greatest nightmares do come true.  Trials as big and ferocious as grizzly bears attack believers as well as the unbeliever.  Yet there is one wonderful assurance we have as believers in Jesus Christ.  No matter how terrible or devastating the storm may be, we never go through it alone.  Before He ascended into heaven Jesus made us a promise that He would never leave us nor forsake.  Thus, not only will He be with us through  the trials we face, He will not abandon us in the middle of them.  Knowing this, we are able to endure any trial, no matter how ferocious the bear may be.

Gnats, gophers and grizzly bears are out there waiting for us as we walk with Christ.  Clinging to His hand by faith doesn't insulate us from any of them.  The rain falls on the just and the unjust, as well as the flood waters they spawn.  We will face trials.  Our faith will be tested on a daily basis, for God never promised us a trouble free life.  Knowing this we can prepare ourselves for the hardships that lie ahead on the path of faith.

©1996 Mark A. Tabb