Hardship non-interchangeables

"I give you this testimony : if it had been possible, you would have torn out your eyes to give them to me." Galatians 4. 15

Parents go to the doctor who follows their sick child to check with him. On the way, the father said to the mother : "I would rather have cancer myself and our child will not be sick. During the interview, the doctor said : "You know, we do not choose his illness." What a lesson for this Christian couple ! We are not masters of the trials that happen to us or reach our loved ones and we have no ability to choose or exchange them.

The Galatians had felt the same desire for Paul. Possibly suffering from an ocular affection, the apostle who announced the gospel made them compassionate, to the point that they would have liked to give him their own eyes ! But it was impossible.

If, as Paul says a little later in the same letter, we are encouraged to carry the burdens of each other to fulfill the law of love of Christ (Gal 6: 2), it remains none the less that "everyone will bear his own burden". "The heart knows its own bitterness," said Solomon (Prov 14. 14). The tests are not interchangeable and God knows what is necessary for everyone.

He knows it in his wisdom which takes into account infinitely more parameters than those which we embrace by our limited mind.

He knows it in his sovereignty which can interrupt the ordeal, give it a new form or prolong it.

He knows it in his mercy, which comes to our aid in the very furnace, to make us feel the help of his presence.

A hymnist sought to poetically express this subject :

"I would not have chosen maybe

My way as God did."

Indeed, to choose, we would have opted for another path, another hardship... However the song continues :

"But I accept without regret

The holy will of the Master."

Easier to sing before and after the ordeal than during... Only the love of Jesus can help us do it.

Source (Pleasing the Lord)