Seeznak

How to Feel Stuck for the Glory of God

 Don’t we all hit that brick wall of boredom at some point in our lives, when we feel as if our lives are static and useless? I’ve been there a few times, and I expect to be there again. It’s a feeling both great and small; great because everything worthwhile seems to be so far past my horizon, and small because of my inability to climb up from the tiny pit I find myself in.

Paul, of course, was crazy, but crazy in a way that helps me to see how those times in life that I feel trapped in uselessness might serve a greater purpose. Consider what he wrote to the Philippians while imprisoned in Ephesus:

12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

-Philippians 1:12-13

I see three things from this text which speak to us when we feel trapped in uselessness:

1. You are where you are for a reason.

Remember who Paul was writing to- the same Philippian church that was started during another prison stint, in which the earth quaked and wrists were unbound and a suicidal jailer was converted. God could have pulled Paul out of prison at anytime, but we know that God kept him there because his imprisonment was the greatest service he could make to “advance the gospel.”

1. Your limited circumstances display God’s unlimited glory.

It was through the confining chains of “what has happened to me” that God most used the apostle. While we’re not going to contribute to a new edition of the Bible, we can find encouragement in the fact that Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and probably I & II Timothy and Titus were written from prison. At Paul’s lowest point God gave him his greatest potency.

1. You have a job that you will never get fired from.

And that job is to display Christ. In the two verses, two groups of people are gaining knowledge of Christ because of the brick walls surrounding Paul: in v. 12, fellow Christians are being encouraged (“I want you to know, brothers…”) and unbelievers are being evangelized (“it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard…”).

You and I are not useless in any place, at any time. God’s mind-blowing purpose in our lives is greater than we can think or imagine. Let us celebrate a freedom that is greater than any bondage, be it spiritual, mental or physical.