Reflections on 1 Corinthians 2:9
“However, as it is written: ‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’—the things God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9, NIV; Isaiah 64:4)
We often read this verse as a promise of heaven only, and it is that. But Paul goes right on: “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (2:10). The Remedy puts it in the past tense: “what God has done for those who love him.” The better things He has prepared are not all waiting for heaven. Many are within reach now.
It’s all good. That has been my signature statement since the beginning of my mature life. It means the pain and the embarrassment are all for my growth, and I am better off facing them head on than pretending they never happened. “It’s all good” means: find your blessing, make way for the healing, get out of the way of the Lord, and learn to rejoice, because the Lord is healing a damaged area in your life.
As Dr. Tim Jennings of Come and Reason Ministries often says, once there is brokenness there are no pain-free options; there is only healing or not healing. Most people understand this on the physical side of life but completely miss the emotional and spiritual equivalent. They go through life trying not to touch any emotional pain or deal with anything spiritual that upsets them, so the brokenness festers and becomes worse. It will not heal until you do the work to clear it. That means you will feel some emotional pain. Deal with it; deal with yourself. The payoff is worth any cost in the moment.
I am not speaking as one who has read books on emotional healing. I had to write the book, Whatever Good May Come, to do my own healing. There is no way to get to the other side without combing through the debris of the broken life you are in now. But the Father will give you the strength, and you will find you are a lot stronger than you ever believed you could be. “All things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28). Like I said, it’s all good!
The Father is standing with us, helping us grow through the hard times. Again and again we pass through the valley of the shadow of death, saying goodbye to yet another deeply embedded habit or comfort we used to console our broken self. But we can know there is something better. We will only find it when we let go of the hurtful thing we are holding onto, in the very place where the new and better belongs.
Open your hands. Be willing to let it all go. The better thing is waiting for a place to live in your heart and mind, and the old must be released before the new can come. Jesus said no one puts new wine into old bottles (Matthew 9:17). “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?” (Isaiah 43:19).
Look for the new. Sometimes it is easy to find. At other times we may need to do a bit of heart searching, to truly turn around and see with new eyes what will be most helpful. Explore all the good the Lord is placing within your reach, and find the best fit for you. We are all different, and our journeys will not all be the same.
Truth will come. Love will grow. You will become more for having passed through the fires.
