Trapped is an opportunity

             There are times when our hearts are very heavy and painful.  This is mainly when loved ones are suffering from disease and seeing themselves at the crossroads of life and death.  When we see them going to unimaginable physical pains and sufferings with our own eyes, our hearts is very heavy and painful.  What I can do is to be beside them, pray for them, share the word of God and praise God.  Nevertheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear the tears of my heart when I pray for them.  Then, when those dear ones leave me, I lead their funeral services with the power of God's great grace.  But my heart longs for them in their memories when I come to the church on Sunday morning and see their empty seats.  However, the amazing grace is that God is giving His love more deeply in times of difficulty and hardship.  Particularly at the end of last year, I sent brother in Christ Ahn Dok Il to God the Father and experienced greater and deeper love of God.  It is the grace of God.  The little realization God gave me is that the harder the heart, the more God gives His love.

                Look at Exodus 14: 3-4: “Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.'  And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this.”  This is what God said to Moses that Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, would think that the Israelites would be hemmed in by the desert so he would pursue them, but God would gain glory for Himself through Pharaoh and his army, and the Egyptians would know that He is the Lord.  And according to the God’s words, even though Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds (v. 5) and pursued the Israelites (vv. 6-8), God revealed His great power (v. 31) and gained glory for Himself through Pharaoh and his army so the Egyptians knew that He is the Lord (vv. 17-18).  That is, God made the water flowed back and covered the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the Red Sea, so that none of them survived (vv. 27-28).

There are times when we can't see any solution to our problems of our lives no matter how much we look at the north, south, east, and west.  We are constantly trying to get out of that trapped situation amid fear, anxiety, and extreme stress.  But as we keep on doing so, we sometimes get into deeper swamps and become desperate and even are in despair.  At that time, we even feel and experience our helplessness and powerless deeply.  So God enables us to look only to the Lord and cry out to Him (Jon. 2:4).  The blessing is that God speaks loudly to us with megaphone in the midst of the crisis and enables us to hold onto the word of God's promise and to endure in faith.  And eventually, God works all things for the good of us who love Him (Rom. 8:28) and fulfill His promise to us so that we can praise God.  I believe that sometimes the Holy Spirit blocks our way so that we may be trapped, just as God lead the Israelites around by the desert road toward the Red Sea, even though there was shorter way, the road through the Philistine country (Exod. 13:17-18), and made them to be trapped in front of the Red Sea (14:3).  For example, the Holy Spirit not only blocked Apostle Paul from preaching the word in the province of Asia, but also blocked him to enter Bithynia (Acts 16:6, 7).  Likewise, I think the Holy Spirit often block our way.  Of course, as the Holy Spirit blocked Paul from going to Asia but led him to Macedonia (v. 10), the same Holy Spirit sometimes closes the door we want to go, but also open the door for us to go in God’s time.  However, the doors are often closed and open, but sometimes we are trapped in our lives from north, south, east and west.

                When I thought of a person who had been trapped, I remembered Joseph in Genesis 39.  Since Joseph was well-built and handsome (v. 6), the wife of his master Potiphar who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard (v. 1), kept on saying to Joseph, “Come to bed with me!” (vv. 7, 10) “day after day” (v. 10).  But Joseph not only refused to go to bed with her, but also he refused to even be with her (v. 10).  But one day Joseph went into his master's house to work and none of the household servants was inside except his master Potiphar’s wife (v. 11).  When she caught Joseph by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” Joseph left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house (v. 12).  “When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants” and lied that Joseph came in to sleep with her (vv. 13-14).  When her husband Potiphar returned home, she said the same lie to him as well (vv. 16-18).  As a result, Joseph was put in prison, “the place where the king’s prisoners were confined” (v. 20).  But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer (v. 21).  So the “chief jailer committed to Joseph's charge all the prisoners who were in the jail; so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it” (v. 22).  And the chief jailer didn’t supervise anything under Joseph’s charge because the Lord was with Joseph; and what he did, the Lord made to prosper (v. 23).  God made Joseph to be prospered by not only helping Joseph to interpret the dream of the Pharaoh’s cupbearer (ch. 40) but also the dream of Pharaoh so that he eventually not only was delivered from the prison but also to be exalted him and made him prime minister of Egypt (ch. 41).  Thus, God prospered Joseph, a slave who was in prison (39:2, 3, 21, 23) and exalted him to be the prime minister of Egypt (41:41).

When I thought of other people who had been trapped, I remembered Paul and Silas in Acts 16.  They were also imprisoned in prison unfairly like Joseph, but Paul and Silas prayed and praised God at about midnight (Acts 16:23-25).  It makes sense that they prayed to God, but how could they praise God in that imprisonment situation?  In particular, if we were to praise the things that God had done in our lives as Pastor Hong Sung-kun said, how could Paul and Silas praise God in that situation where they were not yet miraculously delivered from prison?  When I thought about Paul and Silas praised God in the imprisoned prison, I thought about the power of praise.  And I personally believe in the power of praise.  Eventually, when they praised God in prison, suddenly there was a violent earthquake that the foundation of the prison were shaken and all the prison doors flew open and everybody’s chains came loose (v. 26).  Then the jailer who saw the prison doors open he was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped (v. 27).  But eventually he had come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ through Paul and his whole family as well so that he was filled with joy (vv. 31-34).  As a result, the God of salvation not only delivered Paul and Silas from the prison, but also saved the jailer and his whole family and revealed His power of salvation and His glory.

Therefore, even though we are trapped like Paul and Silas, Joseph, and the Israelites, I hope and pray that we can pray and praise God so that we may experience not only God’s deliverance but also we may see the power of God so that we may be able to glorify God.

Experiencing God's love more, greater, and deeper by God who extends His kindness when I am trapped, so that through His love I endure any kind of hardship, and finally praise the Lord for His loving-kindness is better than my life,

Pastor James Kim