Being reduced to a smaller scale—especially to nothing— is not easy to adjust and to accept.  When I asked a friend in ministry who is now retired how he was doing, he thought for a moment before giving me his answer, “I keep reminding myself that I am retired.”  I knew what he meant.  He was used to pastoring a church; used to being called here and there, but now he is confined to mostly home. 

The truth is, we are all being reduced to a smaller scale—or being downgraded.  Just the other day my mother, who to that day had enjoyed a good health suddenly fell.  She told me that she got up from bed that morning feeling perfectly fine. But when she wanted to take something by the bed, she just fell.  We thank God that she did not fracture her hips, but for a time being she is confined to bed.

When Corrie ten Boom was in a prison camp in Holland during the war in Europe, she prayed that she would never be transferred to a concentration camp in Germany.  But God gave no as an answer.  Little did she know that God had a plan for her and her sister there.  They met many prisoners who had never heard about Jesus and had the honor to bring them to Him.  Looking back she said, “Many died, or were killed, but many died with the Name of Jesus on their lips.”  She, then, concluded, “They were well worth all our suffering.”

We do not always know the reason why God reduces us to a smaller scale, but we know that He once reduced His Son Jesus to a cross till His death for us.  And there is one more thing that we know: God reduces us to a smaller scale so He can increase us to a greater height. On that height we will be with Him, and only Him; there is no one else, just us. In the words of Corrie ten Boom, “There was a Presence that comforted me, a deep peace in my heart.”

Pastor Paul