Well, my mistake, I thought that I was done in our Kingdom Offerings conversation concerning more. But then I had knee replacement surgery two weeks ago and now I have another take on “more”. Because in some circumstances, I simply cannot stand any “more”. So let me illustrate.

This is Dave Scherrer of One Hundred-Fold Ministries, and you’ve stumbled one way or another onto our podcast environment called Kingdom Offerings. So, I did a knee replacement about 13 years ago and I gotta say it was rough. I got an infection and the recovery was a bear. Physical therapy was, let’s just say it wasn’t any fun, but that was 13 years ago. And my mindset now on the other prospective knee surgery was “It can’t be that bad”, “The last time I had this done was a one-off”, “Usually it’s not that bad”, “I should be fine”, “I can handle a little bit of pain”. That’s how I’ve been thinking.

Fast forward now to now today at age 70, and my latest surgery was two weeks ago as I record this tonight. And this time around, I had a nerve block to protect me from the pain of the direct aftermath of the surgery.

But I gotta say, some 16 hours later, the nerve block wore off and the pain started to set in. And for the next 10 days for me, I experienced pain, torturous pain. So let me just whine for a second, if you don’t mind. They gave me oxycodone for pain mitigation. Those are important, of course, but this had two side effects for me – nausea and sleeplessness.

Yeah, weirdly, oxycodone keeps me awake. So, this time around, even with an anti-nausea drug, I was still feeling weak. I didn’t have much of an appetite. If I took a pill to combat the pain, I couldn’t sleep. If I decided to skip the pain pill or to cut back, so that I could get some sleep, I couldn’t sleep because of the pain.

So, when I tried to get up and do some exercises on the knee, I was out of my head in pain. By the fourth or fifth night without much sleep and still in overwhelming pain, my mood became very dark. I consider myself a pretty buoyant person, so this onset of doubt and defeat came as a bit of a surprise to me.

And in a way, it even made it tougher because in this case, my old tricks just didn’t work. I used to say things to myself like, “Just try harder”, or “Ignore the pain”, or “Tell yourself that all things must pass – it’s going to be fine”. All of these were fruitless against this onslaught of pain and exhaustion. Then I started PT and that simply reinforced how far I had yet to go and how discouraged I was.

So this is a week ago and I was in a moment. Okay, now, enough of all that. I want to pull back for a moment from my complaining and I want to think about those who have suffered not only horrific pain, but also the grief of staggering loss in relationship and the additional despair and fear of things that seem like they will never get better. Eventually there is a suffering in which it seems like I cannot take any more.

So I’m going to keep this short today as I find it a little hard to concentrate for one thing. And our Kingdom Offering here today doesn’t give me the time to address all the issues associated with pain and grief and sadness and loss that the world is suffering and that we are suffering. But I wanted to reflect on one small part, my little takeaway journey for me in my relatively small moment of pain.

The fifth or sixth night of the pain and sleeplessness, I said to God in the darkness, not out loud, I don’t think, but it was just as real in my head. I said, “I can’t take any more of this”. I said, “You will have to give me more of you”. And that moment, that confessional moment, opened a door for me.

It was not only a door to God, but it was also a door to an inner place of my soul. I want to say that it has not happened all that often in my life that I have come to the proverbial end of myself. On a handful of times, I face this moment of deep truth when I discover that I am not enough. And maybe you listening in have been able to come to the somewhat grim reality that I am not only not enough, but in my own strength, I tend to make matters worse.

But I think I can say with good confidence that it is in the crucible of a crushing fire that my soul is purified and refined. It doesn’t seem to happen in the best of times. It seems to happen in the worst of times when I think I can barely stand any more. I know in my mind that it’s true, that I am not enough, and that I will mess it up when I do things in my own power.

You see, I am not, and I have never been, enough for the circumstances of my world. I know that. But the 16 inches from my head, where I know that, to my heart where I feel that, is sometimes a very long journey. So now at the end of two weeks, the pain is starting to lessen. I’m getting a little bit of traction in my exercises. I’ve once again found that in the middle of the night, the sufficiency of Christ in all things.

Now some of you are rightly saying to yourselves, “What a weenie”, “So many more have suffered so much more pain than that”. And both statements are true. I am a weenie and others have suffered far worse than I’ve suffered in these last couple of weeks. Indeed, I cannot fathom the depths that some must suffer in their walk of life.

Still, my story is my story. Your story is your story. And at the end of every story, today I am convinced more than ever of the sufficiency of Christ for our moments, even in the moments where we cannot take any more. So let this verse encourage you as it has me. It’s frowned in the book of Romans chapter 15.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope, and I would say all the more hope.

This is Kingdom Offerings. This is the podcast environment of One Hundred-Fold Ministries, and so thanks for listening in. This is Dave Scherrer. I think I’m gonna go grab a nap. Take care.