The Life of Pc

I once read Life of Pi; a book about a guy whose family is lost on a giant sinking cargo ship that was taking he and his family from India to Canada in order to begin a new life.  The author brings you along with Pi (short for Piscine) on the lifeboat he was lucky to get to after the ship sank.  As if that were not terror enough, also seeking refuge on the lifeboat are a slowly dying zebra, a hyena, an orang-utan, and a giant tiger all left from the zoo Pi's father owned in India.  His father was bartering the remaining animals so the family had a decent start in Canada.

At one point in my reading, Pi had been in the open Pacific Ocean on the lifeboat for almost 4 or 5 days now.  The hyena had eaten the zebra and attacked to kill the orang-utan.  The tiger had just killed the hyena, and Pi fears every moment whether he will be next.  Will he die of some other means?  Will the sharks get him first?  What would he do IF the tiger did attack him?

I went to bed that night!

I wonder what will happen to Pi?  Furthermore, what if all the novels we read are actually some distant reality actually happening and solely dependant on my finishing the story?  What if somewhere somehow Pi really is just sitting on a lifeboat in outrageous fear, and if I had put the book down never to finish after Monday night he never would have found the canned drinking water, ration, and a checklist like you would find on one of those team-building exercises your boss brings to board meetings?  "You and 3 of your co-workers are stuck on a desert island, and you only have a box of matches, a can of water, a pencil..."

What if Pi were really awaiting my finishing the book?  I mean Yann Martel (author) wrote the entire book; it has an ending.  But what if somewhere Pi was really stuck on a lifeboat with a giant tiger and he did not know there was an ending?

Moreover, what if Pi knew there was an ending, but my reading to it is the only way to reach the ending?  I think Pi would be pretty pissed at me for going to bed last night.  He's probably pissed at me right now while I'm writing this while I COULD be drinking my coffee and reading the darn book.

I say to Pi, "You know what!  There's an ending written for you, and we will get to it in good time.  Just wait!"

"PC, shut up!  Just shut up!  I am the one stuck on the lifeboat with a ravenous tiger looking for human dessert."

"Pi," I say with agitation, "there's still plenty of book left, and the book is entitled, 'LIFE of Pi.'  I am sure you get out of this.  Just be patient.  I am a working man.  I cannot read all day.  I will read tonight.  Just wait!  It will be fine."

Then I come out of my distant land of Pi and into the reality of PC.

God says, "PC, you know what!  There's an ending written for you.  I wrote it, and we will get to it in good time.  Just wait!"

"God, shut up!  Just shut up!  I am the one down here with bills, a job, a marriage, a family, school, a ministry and Satan waiting behind every corner for PC dessert."

"PC," God says with tender agitation, "there's still plenty of LIFE left, and I have titled it 'LIFE of PC.'  I am sure you get out of these things.  Just be patient!  I am a sovereign God, and the author of your life.  I will get you through your life as I have written in.  It will be fine."

The Gift of Hardship

What is the thorn in my flesh?  I have recently discovered it to be a lot more than I have always pictured it to be.

I have always imagined it the incessant and irritating daily reminder of souls.  We often picture a glorified splinter, which reminds Paul, daily, that he is to be weak that God may bestow true power.  But there has to be much more to this thorn.

If it were only a glorified splinter, Paul would be a big baby to write in 2 Corinthians 12, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me."  Come on, would a big splinter be worthy of such pleading?

In those times, "thorns" were used as a military device, and it was certainly much more than a splinter.  It was much more like a big stake.  They would pound these stakes (not much bigger than a thick tent stake...but sharper and more jagged) into the ground all over the place in an open area they were retreating through.  This way, when the enemy came running through that field after them, they would be slowed down.  Big stakes protruding from the ground would slow any army down.

Now re-imagine the thorn in the flesh.  It takes on a little more intensity now.  So why would Jesus want to give Paul a thorn?  Well Paul was an amazing man who's testimony has been a root for the Christian faith.  He wrote most of the New Testament.  Now with accomplishments like that, can you imagine the arrogance he is capable of?  But he wasn't arrogant.  In fact, he was incredibly humble and vulnerable in his ministry.  I think it is for this reason he was given a thorn that so tormented him.

His torment brought Paul to this kind of humility that reached millions.  This thorn made him FEEL so weak that he could only depend on God.  We know this thorn cut deep into Paul, but was never removed.  It remained to continually bring Paul to brokenness and vulnerability, but it is this brokenness which forced Paul to rely so heavily on God.  Not by our strength; but God's.

The Message calls "the thorn in the flesh" the "gift of hardship".  I think it really can be anything for us.  We do not know exactly what Paul's "thorn" actually was, but we know what it did.  I think our "thorn" could be anything, as long as it does one thing...brings us to brokenness and vulnerability before a powerful God.

I wonder what my thorn...my gift of hardship may be.  Peter Scazzero makes a list: "What might the 'gift of hardship' God has given you be?  A child with special needs?  A struggle with an addictive behavior that forces you to be vigilant every day and attend meetings regularly?  Emotional fragileness with a tendency to depression, anxiety, severe isolation, or loneliness as a single person or widow?  Scars on your soul from an abusive past?  Childhood patterns...a physical disability? Cancer?  Real temptations to anger, hate, resentments, bitterness, lust, pornography, or judgmental?"