What’s the point? When we’ve fought and strived for so long, the “why” question naturally comes up. There is likely a cause to our fight. It’s probably not pointless. However, the goal of the fight could also be us, that is, the fight is part of our sanctification. A fight shapes and forms a person. It is both a test and sharpening of character. Michelangelo says, painting is the art of adding to create an image while sculpting is the art of removing the unnecessary parts to reveal the artwork within. Sometimes we’re expecting God to paint our lives when he’s actually sculpting it. The sculpting process rarely feels good, but God uses it in combination with his grace to sanctify us. At those times when the fight is the fiercest and we are the weakest, we would rather God give us a way out than to give us more grace. We want an escape but God is not about escaping but about entering. Instead of giving us an escape, he is more likely to enter into our situations with us, giving us strength of grace. We’ve seen this ultimately demonstrated in the gospel – instead of escaping our world, he chose to enter it. But is God indifferent to our struggles?
We ask, why doesn’t God care enough to take us out of the fight? It’s in those most intense and weakest moments that God tells us it’s precisely because he cares that he doesn’t leave us the way we are. He’s not an escapist and he’s not an enabler. An enabler would save us and leave us the way we are in our marred and broken state. In our fights, he reminds us that he is not an enabler – he is creator. One of the greatest graces of all is to rest gently in the hands of the Creator who offers us full access to his grace through the sacrifice of his Son – the perfect God-man who died for imperfect people so that the one who had the most grace gave it to those who needed it most. He gave us Jesus so we may go into eternity but also so we may fight on for one more day.
Brian See Chan 