There is a great quote from C.S. Lewis that states “Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment.” (The Problem of Pain) It’s another way of saying that it’s in the irritants, the things that don’t go our way, the ways that life can corner us that we come to personal discoveries of what our internal makeup REALLY is.

I remember as a guitar instructor how many new students would tell me that they were great players. Then I brought out the great equalizer for new musicians – the metronome. The frustration that they faced as they tried to keep up with that click, click, click was a lesson in where their skills truly lay. I feel the same way about my spiritual walk; I would be doing great if all the circumstances would just line up to my agenda and get out of my way. But they don’t – and that’s the point.

The apostle Paul talks about his qualifications to be an ambassador for Christ. Here is the resume that Paul considers relevant:

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. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored 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. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

2 Corinthians 11:23-29

It was the places where things didn’t go well that Paul uses to validate his ministry. In other words, we become more aware of the reality of grace when things don’t go our way than when things do. A friend once said to me, “Don’t pray for the boldness of a lion when you keep placing yourself in rabbit situations.”

Add to that a God of whom Scripture states loves us with a jealous love. He loves us so much that He will pull down anything that stands in the way of a relationship with Him. He will deliver us from a spirituality that feels good in isolation but won’t stand up to adversity. He loves us so much that He watches our raised hands in worship, listens to our self righteous boasting of our love for Him, then He throws a wrench in our plans to show us how much of our spirituality is hype and how much is real. It’s God’s love that places us in situations that make us question, that demands answers that our current views can’t address. It’s in that place of crisis that He upholds us, comforts us and leads us past the veneer of our current spirituality into real relationship with Him. Therefore Paul concludes his biography with this amazing statement:

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.

It’s grace under pressure that brings us to this understanding. The grace was always there, but it’s the pressure that makes us aware of it. God is in the pressure point, and it’s on the other side of that pressure point where we can be freed from shallow spirituality and put into real relationship with our Creator.