What Sentence Does God Write?
by Gary L. Cox
8We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, (2 Cor. 1:8-10)
The sentence that God ‘writes’ to teach you to trust in Him is the sentence of death. This is a crucial issue of faith. It is the work of Christ’s death on the cross that enables you to be delivered from the fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15). Faith always involves trusting God concerning that which is already dead and passing away. You are called to surrender, to let go of what you seek to hold on to. Each day God gives each of us an opportunity to die in some way. When you do so it causes you to trust in Him.
The Essence of Discipline
You often see the ugliness of human nature as your children grasp, tug, complain, and whine against the sentence of death. It is the same with you. You look ugly when you are unwilling to die, when you try to hold on to how you want things to be, and when you try to do everything in your own limited strengths and abilities.
You need to see discipline of your children as an opportunity to walk with your child through a small death. Your role is to give support through this crucial time. Your insistence that they walk through this valley of death shows them that you love them. It is a privilege to be able to walk with them through it.
Death Personified
An illustration of the ‘sentence of death’ is Abraham’s obedience to God when “By faith Abraham, was called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (Hebrews 11:8). To do this required a death to his own will and for him to go beyond himself and trust in God.
Refer again to 2 Corinthians. 1:8-10. This is how it feels when God writes the sentence of death. You’re pressed out of measure. Take the example of baking a cake. If you go to measure one of the ingredients and the box is empty before your measuring cup is full, you’re out of measure. God’s sentence of death presses you above and beyond your strength; you don’t have enough to measure out. God loves us enough to push us beyond our own measure. He never gives us something we cannot endure by His grace, but He always considers our strength, and the extent to which the situation is beyond our strength is relative to who we are. In other words, He will not give the same ‘beyond strength’ situation to a two year old as he does to a forty-two year old.
Who among you, when faced with the sentence of death, is equal to the task (2 Cor. 2:16; 3:5-6)? None of us in our own strength.
Enduring Strength
God continually puts you in situations that push you beyond your own resources. It is when you are beyond the sense of your resources that you will recognize your lack, die, and trust in him. Strength is the inward capacity to endure difficulty because you know that your Redeemer lives. When you get to the point that you are burdened beyond measure, above strength and despairing of life, it is easy to enter into self pity. Instead you need to trust God and focus on Christ. All of your needs may not be met and your problems may not be immediately solved but your focus can be clear. The victory of the Christian life is to find no adequacy in yourself and then trusting in God. You need to be willing to die, to no longer be in fear of death, but rather be willing to surrender that which you cling to.
As homeschool families you should be encouraged because you are frequently burdened beyond measure, above strength, and sometimes despairing of life. In a sense it is helpful to evaluate the areas of your life that are causing the pressure. You can rejoice when you discover that these pressures are in areas that God has called you and that through your lack of sufficiency you can continually deepen your trust in God.
Many times you may discover that you are feeling pressure because you have plowed ahead and gotten ahead of God. You have leaned on your own understanding and may be experiencing chastisement. That is when God will bring you to the end of yourself so that you might learn to trust in God.
Revering God
In this kind of discipline your goal should be to desire God to reveal to you His holiness, that you might know Him more intimately. You need to be much mindful of approaching God with respect and reverence and to teach and exhibit this to your children.
1 Corinthians 3:17 remind us that we are God’s temple and God’s temple is sacred. When we approach our children to teach them we are filled with holiness because of this fact, and we want to enable our children to grow in their filling of holiness. (Ps 99:9; Rev 4:8, 11)