Embracing Truth: Gleaning Good from Hurt

Five dedicated missionaries from different places, we each arranged short furloughs in order to come together for a once-in-a-lifetime special occasion. That is how we found ourselves stateside, driving from the southernmost corner of Texas across state after state. Our destination? Wisconsin—to celebrate Mom and Dad Farrar's fiftieth wedding anniversary.

At one point we noticed something odd. It seemed that Viv was exchanging hand signals with an unknown man in another car.

"What are you doing???" her sister demanded. We weren't children, but still, a stranger?

Viv explained that she noticed the man occasionally lifting up his hands as he drove, as if in worship. She decided to test him out—was he or was he not a Christian?—by showing him the one-way-with-Jesus sign. When he responded in kind she was sure he was a fellow believer and began to wave furiously at him.

"Vivian!" the missionary closest in age to me remonstrated. "We don't know anything about this man! He could be an axe murderer!"

Despite Vivian's brushing our worries aside, we were none too pleased when we had to stop for gas—and the man in question pulled up right next to us. As we filled up, he approached and handed Auntie Gerry his card. We all gathered around to peer at it. I don't remember the name but I'll never forget what was emblazoned under it—the title "Prophet."

Okayyy ... we all thought. This is kinda weird. He continued exchanging pleasantries with us—if the news that Gordon Lindsey, founder of Christ for the Nations, had just passed away as he ministered in a meeting this man had been attending could be called thus—then pointedly looked us up and down.

"The Lord said He would put fat on our bones and He sure did on you girls!" He was referencing Isaiah 58:11 and Proverbs 15:30. Even though the "fat" used in those verses is widely accepted as metaphorical, referring to blessings of health, strength, and provision, his deliberate gaze left no doubt that he was inferring to fat of a purely physical nature.

I wanted to sputter, "Well, of all things!" but out of respect for his age, which seemed considerable, I kept mum. But his words sure affronted me.

The fact was that his words contained truth. We were one and all pleasantly "fluffy"—a euphemism if there ever was one, but, really, what woman in the world wants to be describe herself as fat?

We parted ways, but the affront lingered. The nerve of the man! While I don't think a card affirms one's calling, it is said that prophets are a brazenly truthful lot, so maybe he really was a prophet. Or maybe he was simply a rude outspoken man. Whatever the case, we all tried to forget about that inconsiderate encounter.

And yet ... a near catastrophe earlier that year had me wishing we had heard those words before that event and taken them to heart. You see, a few months before this encounter, found Auntie Trinie and me arriving for an evening meeting at la Manada Pequeña where Auntie would be interpreting. As the visiting minister went over key points he would cover with her, the better to prepare her for what she would be translating, something unexpected occurred. Auntie fainted. To make a long story short, she suffered cardiac arrest. Thankfully, we were able to revive her and, after much rest and care, she did recover. The doctor's verdict? For years her diet had been wanting. We could see the mercy of God that she didn't faint as we walked to the service, crossing some of the busiest thoroughfares in Mexico City at night. If only we had met that rude "prophet" before that time and started taking better care of our diet. Auntie's scary brush with death might have been avoided. The hurtful truth, if we had embraced it, could have saved us much pain—or would it?

Time and again throughout the Bible we see the warnings of prophets. On rare occasions, such as in the salvation of Nineveh through the ministry of the infamous Jonah, those words were heeded and mercy was obtained from the Lord. But the human condition being what it is, more often than not the stinging words, carrying with them an afront to the hearers' pride, fell on deaf ears.

The prophet Jeremiah advised the Jewish King Zedekiah to surrender to the Babylonian army that had come against him. If he did so, said the prophet, his life and that of many others would be spared. But Zedekiah considered it an affront to surrender to King Nebuchadnezzar. He stuck to his pride and was rewarded by being captured as he tried to escape. He saw his sons put to death, then had his eyes put out to live for the rest of his natural life not only as a prisoner, but with that last horrible tragedy ever before him. If only he had taken to heart the counsel of the prophet ...

Noah preached to his generation as he pounded away at the ark. He was laughed to scorn. No one heeded his words. No one repented. No one was saved from the physical disaster that soon assailed the world. No one but Noah and his family (2 Peter 2:5). If they had only listened ...

The prophet Micaiah warned King Ahab of Israel that he would die in battle if he attacked the Syrians. Did Ahab listen? No. He did what he wanted to do, listening instead to the 400 false prophets who fed his vanity and told him what he wanted to hear. He died (I Kings 22).

Sometimes truth hurts. If you have walked with the Lord any length of time, I'm sure you have a story under your belt of the Lord calling you out on something, chastising you. It's not a good feeling; it does cause emotional hurt, usually to our pride. But hopefully, we have listened and changed our ways during those times.

But maybe there have been other times when we have stubbornly stuck to our pride, avoiding the hurtful truth.

What if, going forward, we purpose to embrace the truths God shows us, despite the hurt, despite wanting to turn a blind eye to them? In every such case we can be sure that we will have a happy outcome. That hurt can become an avenue of blessing.

Lord, open our ears that we might hear what You are speaking us today and every day. Let us put pride and hurt to the side when those words sting and with courage embrace any seemingly harsh truth that You are in Your mercy extending to us.

"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matthew 11:15). (Jesus is recorded as saying this 14 times in the New Testament; Revelation includes it 8 times.)

"And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when y turn to the left" (Isaiah 30:21).