When disappointed to see a hole six inches in diameter near the top of a thick, evergreen bush of ours; I assumed the obvious defect was the result of the severe winter’s huge icicles. I had knocked from my roof numerous icicles measured better in feet than inches. As soon as the beautiful spring weather made obvious the unnatural cavity near the top of our bush, I became annoyed at the disfigurement. “What needless damage,” I thought, as my mathematical mind longed for symmetry and completion.
Just a few days later, my husband – knowing how I love birds – excitedly asked me if I had seen the baby robins yet. “Where?” I asked. You can guess his answer . . . “In the bush under the kitchen window.” I rushed with my little nephews to see the oddly cute baby birds. How precious they were tucked away in the six-inch recess of our otherwise perfect bush. What a secure nest in which they rested, safely on the inner branches of the evergreen.
So, after all, the annoying hole in my bush is not just a hole, it is a portal . . . to new life. The dark cavity I thought a result of the random damage of winter months was a truly purposeful haven where life could begin.
And so it is with our God of creation. He shows us that holes can be portals. He shows us that seemingly bad or needless things can – in all reality – be entrances to life.
Romans 5:3-4 says, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (NIV)
I can no more definitively explain how suffering results in hope than I can explain how robins construct sturdy nests with little beaks, or how God brings tiny birds out of eggs and makes them grow.
But I know this, for people redeemed by God through Jesus, behind every dark recess there is the victory of life. For the Christian, every abyss of suffering is truly a portal to perseverance, character, and – ultimately – hope. I have known no suffering not accompanied by the need to persevere; I have known no trial that could not result in increased character, and I have known no heartache that the hope of Jesus could not soothe.
Our suffering is not an inconvenient hole in the otherwise orderliness of life; it is a portal to hope when viewed through the perspective of God.
And, even now as I write this devotion, the baby robins chirp, “Amen!”