SO THAT YOU CAN ALSO BE WHERE I AM
Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
Someone wrote to me and asked the following:
“Why am I, as child of God, having such a difficult time?”
With a smile:
One day I was talking to a pastor where I was ministering, who had also been through a difficult situation and has struggled in his life and then he said to me:
“Sakkie, being a Christian is not for ‘sissies.’” (Not easy)
Yes, I look at you and my own situation and I come to the conclusion that in fact: “Being a Christian is not for sissies.”
But then – you and I are Jesus’s soldiers in His kingdom, which He, you can but say, handpicked us, and if you are looking for a soldier to do something specific in a war, you look for someone who can take the “punch”.
After all Jesus told us, His followers, right from the beginning that to follow Him is not always going to be ‘moonlight and roses/sunshine and rainbows’:
JOHN 16:33 I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
You must also remember that Jesus said the following on occasions:
MAT 10:38 “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
During the time of Jesus, when someone saw you carrying a cross, they knew that a difficult road lay before you. So, when you take up your cross, in other words, deciding to be a follower of Jesus, you know in this world, things for you will not be easy. Because there is satan and he is going to make it as difficult as possible for you to stay on the narrow path leading to Heaven.
It is told of a great evangelist who one day after a service, made an invitation to people who requested prayer from him, to write it down and place it in a container by the door on their way out.
When he went through them so that he could pray for them, there was one that read as follows:
“Pastor pray for me, because it is going very well with me and my business.”
The following story was also told:
One day while a farmer and his cottar[a] (sub-farmer) was standing and talking, the wealthy farmer said to his cottar:
“Piet, mate, you must look a little at your spiritual life. We both regularly go to the same church, but look at how things are going for me and look how it is going with you. Clearly there is something very wrong with one of our spiritual lives.”
To which Piet answered the farmer, who was also a zealous hunter:
“Sir, if you now go hunting and you have a license to shoot two kudus and you have looked already for three days in the extremely hot sun, but you do not find anything. Then you come over a rise and see, not more than 70 metres away from you, two kudus standing together.
Immediately you shoot the one dead, but you miss the other one, because naturally the other one starts to run.
Which one are you going to chase after?”
To which the farmer answered: “Naturally the one that I missed.”
“Why?” Piet, the cottar, asked of the farmer.
To which the farmer answered: “Because the one antelope is already dead.”
Then Piet, the cottar, says:
“Sir, you said that there is something very big wrong in one of our lives and you are correct. Concerning satan, you are a dead antelope.”
The reason why we can endure the “hammering” with a smile and still believe in our loving Lord and trust Him, is because we have something that the people of the world do not have:
JOHN 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
I did not always have peace in my situation as the world understands it, but I always have peace, my God’s peace, because I know my God is in control.
In the time of my great hero Paul, there were a number of people who walked around bragging about what great Christians they were, and what great sacrifices they had made for their religion. Paul, amongst other things, called them the great ‘mister Christians.’ (Pretend to be high and mighty)
Then he said that he also spoke as a fool, and then he mentioned all the things that he had to endure. I share them with you again to show you the better your relationship is with our Lord, how fiercer the attacks are of satan:
2 COR11:23-27
23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.
24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea,
26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers.
27 I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
But because he, like us, had the Spirit of our Lord and together with that the peace of our Lord living within him, he was also able to write:
2 COR 4:6-9
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
8 We are
hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not in despair;
9 persecuted, but not abandoned;
struck down, but not destroyed.
How wonderful to know:
JAMES 1:2-4
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
If things start to overwhelm me, I remember that I am a child of God and He allowed the following to be written and I have made this my motto and war cry in my life:
ROM 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Therefore that is why I walk the path I am meant to walk in my life and I climb the hill that lies before me, because I know with great, glorious certainty when I reach the end of my life’s journey on this earth, there is a wonderful place waiting for me where I will live for eternity in our Lord’s perfection:
2 COR 5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
2 COR 5:2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling,
Yes! How glorious for each person, who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, to know this with absolute certainty, because our Lord says:
JOHN 14:1-3
1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.
2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
Greetings,
Sakkie