grateful for Christ

There are countless ways to hurt in this world, and everybody has experienced their own flavor of pain.  When we have experienced or are currently experiencing a particular brand of ouch, we run the risk of invalidating the pain of others.

A person suffering from a physical ailment might not take a person seriously who suffers from something like depression or anxiety, assuming that physical pain is the only one that causes true misery.  I myself have been guilty of the opposite: thinking that my mental and emotional pain far outweighs a merely “external” physical condition.  Then I had nose surgery that completely clogged my sinuses and left me choking on blood, unable to talk, eat, or drink for several days.  Miserable.  In fact, I found myself doing it just moments ago when I stumbled across a blog post written by a woman whose blog is about her infertility.  In an instant, the thought came to mind, “I wish all I had to deal with was infertility.  Why can’t she just go on with her life and trust that if she is meant to have a child, it will happen?”  Hypocrisy runs deep but can’t hide…

So, I guess all I am trying to say is to always take another person’s pain seriously.  Don’t invalidate their pain by trying to tell them something far worse that somebody else had to go through.  Comparison simply does not make things better.  Trust me, I’ve tried it on myself.  All I end up thinking about is how both me and that other person are miserable.

Jesus had a good approach, though it wasn’t exactly about suffering.  In the well-known story of busy Martha complaining to Jesus that Mary was just sitting at Jesus’ feet instead of helping out with the chores, the Lord did not merely rebuke Martha’s priorities.  Instead, He first validated her feelings by saying, “You are worried and upset about many things.”  Then He went on to gently correct her.

This calls for wisdom, because every case is different.  You can never go wrong by loving the person (see 1 Corinthians 13 for a good description of love).

These are just two little thoughts I had today on how to proceed when suffering.  I pray that this isn’t like the blind trying to lead the blind.  Please, Father, let these words be living water to others’ souls.

1. Maintain your relationship with God. This should be obvious, but it is the most vital thing.  Typically when we are suffering our natural instinct is to search for a way out.  As Christians, however, we know that step one in all situations is to affirm God’s supremacy in our lives.  Our natural man cries out, “Curse God and die so that you can be free from this pain!”  But in Christ we take a cue from Mary (Jesus’ mom) and say, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.”  Only then do we begin to prayerfully look around and see if our Father has given us a way out.  If not, we endure, abiding all the while with our Friend, until our deliverance comes.
2. Consider others. Pain tends to blind us to anything but our own pain.  We easily latch on to fixing what feels to us like the most pressing need: the alleviation of our suffering.  However, if we take our eyes off ourselves and instead look at others through Christ’s eyes, we will find out how much more sensitive we are to their suffering than if we were plodding through life without trouble.  Be careful, though.  Because of your suffering, you might truly be too blind to offer any help to others, but you can at least pray for those you see suffering.  Then, if God gives you anything to share, share it.  If not, know that your prayers will reach the throne of God–just pray for them with the commitment with which you hope others are praying for you.

Because of who God is, I always want to be grateful.  When life gets tough, it is hard to be grateful, but we must bear up under the strain of it and find a reason to glorify our King.  I submit that in the midst of all trials there is something for which to praise God, and it is pleasing to do so.  It won’t take away the problem and it might not lessen the pain, but it will allow the thought to enter, if even for a moment, of God’s goodness.  This is comforting and good.  May God be forever praised for His compassion, known for His love, and exalted for everything.

As I’m starting down the path toward grad. school (as soon as I finish my undergraduate thesis this year), the thought of how to serve God by serving His church while working as a college professor has been in and out of my head.  Today it moved a little farther, into my heart.  For a while, the way I have been thinking about it is that I would likely take some of the students under my wing as a small church group.  It struck me today that a church should not have just one mature soul (not that I am yet mature) in it, unless it is just being formed.  Instead, a church should be composed of enough mature Christians that any one of them could leave/be taken suddenly without affecting the spiritual growth of the church as a whole.

In the prevalent church structure, a church is basically a group of “laypersons” operating under the tutelage of a “pastor.”  However, as it was originally conceived, a church operated with everybody having an essential, though likely duplicated, gift.  A few people would have the gift of prophecy, others service, still others teaching or knowledge, and others administration, tongues, healing, etc.  Each position (i.e., gift) would be essential, though several people could provide that service, depending on the Holy Spirit.  This all hinges on the maturity or faith of the Christians involved.

So, with regards to my thought of having my own little church-o-students, I don’t think it would be a healthy way to go.  Whatever gifts I can offer them will not suffice for their needs.  Certainly God could and would use some of them to contribute too, but there would need to be others of greater spiritual maturity.  As such, it would have to be a more geographically-based church demographic than age-based.  Therein, as they say, lies the rub.

The spiritual maturity of the church-at-large is quite disappointing, at best.  For the most part, people have substituted the word “skills” for “gifts” and think that their knack for cooking ribs is their spiritual gift.  While that may be of some value to the church, it is not a spiritual gift.

Spiritual gifts come through the power of the Holy Spirit and are spiritual in nature.  These gifts meet spiritual needs, though they may address physical needs as well.  In writing of the many spiritual gifts, Paul notes that “all of these must be done for the strengthening of the church” (1 Cor. 14:26).  The church will hardly be strengthened if none or only one of these is done.

Due to this confusion over the definition of spiritual maturity, Christian maturity is largely defined as the number of years a person has been a Christian, rather than being defined by the quality of their relationship with God.  Other times, it is defined by the number of bible verses a person can quote, how many times they say “amen” during a sermon, some aspect of their demeanor, whether or not they can babble in tongues without edifying the church through interpretation, or other such false indicators.  So, the people who are available as spiritual mentors are only as spiritually mature as they should have been when they were two or three years into the faith, if that.  Look at what brand new Christians accomplished in the infant church of Acts.  None of that is seen today, by and large, in places where there are supposedly many mature Christians.

I have no doubt that a spiritually mature eighty year-old woman who came to Christ at seventy would have far greater rapport, credibility, and spiritual effectiveness with college students than a young, hip, “revelant” thirty-two year-old pastor or even a lifelong church board member of typical spiritual maturity.  If there were many such mature Christians operating in their spiritual gifts, then I imagine some strong spiritual benefit coming to everybody in the church.  The more, the merrier, then.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that I am nowhere near sufficient to the task of leading even one person spiritually.  There needs to be many more, and we must all be mature, for one another and for the less mature.  We all need to build one another up.  So, rather than start my own student church, it would be best to be part of a group of mature Christians who would live and meet within walking distance of the campus.  They would be the spiritual foundation for the students.  That way, if I or any of them could no longer be there, the church would not suffer.

For every good thing of God there are ten thousand counterfeits.  I will not attempt to list them.  Rather, I wish to speak of one that has come to my attention in recent weeks: false patience.

First of all, what is patience?  My definition: the willful state of bearing an undesirable circumstance in peace and trust.  False patience, then, is to perform some counterfeit version of this, while true patience is to fulfill the authentic meaning of patience.

We may find it easy to commend ourselves on how well we are bearing some particular situation.  We say, “Even if this should go on forever, I will be just fine.  How patient I am!  Oh, but at some point it would be nice if it ended.”  I would submit that this is the spirit of false patience in action.

False patience really does not mind much the trouble that it pretends to bear.  It confuses the fact that it would like to have the situation be resolved, if possible, with the heartfelt conviction of true patience which bears the situation gracefully only because there is a trustworthy promise that resolution will one day arrive.  True patience can’t stand the thought that its circumstances might never change.  It only weeps with patience because of the promise, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh” (Luke 6:21).  False patience doesn’t mind so much the circumstances; therefore it does not matter if it is resolved or not.

Due to this fact, false patience is an easy thing, and it is often pushed on others just as easily.  “Oh, you must simply trust God!  Be patient.  All is well though you cannot see it.  The sky is always blue above the clouds.  I, too, have been through many troubles, but God let me bear them with ease.”  Watch out!  Do not be careless with another’s suffering.  Don’t you know that “Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart” (Prov. 25:20)?  Instead, we are to “weep with those who weep.”  Was the most patient person in history (Jesus) at ease in the garden of Gethsemane?  No!  His sweat was like drops of blood!  Patience is not easy.

True patience is hard.  Patience wants resolution just as badly as the most impatient person on earth wants it.  The difference is that the patient person does not rush to speech or action in order to counter circumstances that have been decreed by God for our good.  The impatient man plots and schemes to find a solution.  Unfortunately, acting when we should be waiting on God only breaks things and causes greater trouble down the road.  Consider Abraham’s decision to sleep with Hagar in order to have a son.  Ishmael’s descendants are traditionally understood to have formed various people groups that were enemies of his other son Isaac’s (the promised son who eventually came around apart from Abraham’s efforts) descendants.  Not only that, but Abraham’s actions had painful personal consequences for him, his wife, Ishmael, and Hagar when they decided to part ways.  If Abraham had shown proper patience, he would not have taken matters into his own hands, because the time for him was not right, but he would still have longed for the birth of his son.  There is a time for our own efforts, but it is not during times of waiting.

False patience typically avoids making effort that should be made, because it is waiting for something that it is not supposed to be waiting for.  It sits around waiting for something to happen when it can act in a perfectly loving-to-God-and-others sort of way.  This, I think, is the way to tell the difference between times where we are truly supposed to be waiting and times that we are not.

True times of waiting leave us no room to act without sinning, breaking things, dishonoring God, or hurting ourselves or others.  If I cannot participate in the reconciliation of a relationship because the other person has explicitly cut me off, then I can only wait in patience on that matter.  God will eventually soften the other person’s heart (and, of course, change your own heart in the ways it needs to change), and then reconciliation will happen.  Until then, you will only violate your obligation to lovingly submit to the other’s will until the other person is ready to talk.

False times of waiting, as previously mentioned, have no constraining reason why we cannot be acting.  They are often rather arbitrary.  “I am not supposed to look for a job right now (though I need one badly).  Instead, I will wait for one to be dropped into my lap.”  Unless God has specifically told you to not to act, then you must receive your circumstances as God’s mandate to act.  And when God wants you to wait, you can usually see the obstacle that keeps your situation from being resolved.  For Abraham, the obstacle was either his or Sarah’s infertility.  There will actually be a real obstacle if you are truly to wait, I think.  Otherwise, you are probably just being lazy because you don’t care that much.

Mind you, this is all based on recent experience, so it might not be entirely true.  I think I have the Spirit on this, but I could have messed it up a little.  Thoughts?

Terrible hurt, anger, fear, and confusion can arise when we don’t like where our circumstances take us.  In other words, when things don’t go our way, we get upset.  The love of your life suddenly withdraws from your life, it hurts.  Somebody scams you out of thousands of dollars, you get mad.  You can’t see any way that some terrible situation can be resolved, you get scared.  What you know with certainty seems worlds apart from the facts of your present reality, you get confused.  How do you deal with it?  Many well-meaning people will tell you, “Just trust God.  He’ll work everything out for the best.”  Unfortunately, in your present circumstances that just doesn’t seem to do it.  Why?  Because you are still upset.  Who can surrender to an objective truth while his subjective heart bleeds, festers, and fights?  The first step, it seems to me, is to–quick, guess!–waive your right to be upset.

First, consider that there are a few reasons that come to mind why we might get upset about our undesirable situation:

1. We think that we or somebody else, by wrongful act or negligence, brought it about.
2. We feel that we have no ability to change/resolve it.
3. We just plain don’t like the situation itself, regardless of how it happened or whether or not it can be fixed.

An objective approach would be to answer those concerns one-by-one.  Let’s see if it helps:

1. Why are you upset?  If you messed up, God forgives you.  If somebody else messed up, you must forgive them.  Besides, God is ultimately the one from whom all our circumstances come, anyway.  Problem solved?  No.  I am still upset that I or this other person–or even God, for that matter–made this happen.
2. All circumstances are ultimately in God’s hands.  He will resolve the situation in His time.  Accept it, trust Him, and be at peace.  Problem solved?  No.  I am upset that there is nothing I can do–I feel completely helpless.
   
3. Remember that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.”  Also remember that “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”  Therefore we should “rejoice in suffering.”  Problem solved?  No.  I am upset because this is a horrible thing to go through and I want it to end.

In all the cases, the reasons do not really matter.  When you are upset, me trying to reason with you either does nothing or, more likely, makes you even more upset.  Chances are you already know what I am going to try to tell you anyway, because it’s the same thing everyone tries to tell you.  Quick and easy advice seldom gets to the root of the matter–and it takes serious spiritual insight to do that.

Now is where I repeat my nice, pithy, seemingly simplistic solution to the matter:  Waive your right to be upset.  That sounds so lame that it reminds me of the scene in the movie What About Bob? where Richard Dreyfus as the psychiatrist writes neurotic Bob (played by Bill Murray) a prescription giving him permission to “take a vacation from his problems.”  Nevertheless, it does get to the root of the matter.

You see, the well-intentioned Job’s comforters, when they try to pit their reason against your emotion by objectively explaining away the significance of your situation, essentially tell you that you have no good reason to be upset.  This invalidates you and only makes you feel worse.  Now, in certain cases your friends may be right in telling you that you have no legitimate cause for your emotional response; however, it still doesn’t help the matter, because, right or wrong, you still feel the way you feel.

What stops “waive your right to be upset” from being yet another worthless statement?  As I previously mentioned, it gets to the root of the matter.  You feel you have a right to be upset.  Somebody telling you otherwise does not help the matter.  As long as you will to remain upset, no amount of balm will heal your hurt (Jer. 8:22 - “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?”); ten thousand apologies will not suffice to pacify your anger; assurances from Almighty God will not overcome your terror; nor will any bright light be enough to pierce the darkness of your confusion.  All you can do is sit and be miserable, but that only leads to a downward spiral to complete destruction.  Eventually, you will become so hurt, angry, scared, or confused that things will break.  You will become so hurt that you take that hurt out on others or pacify it in some unhealthy way.  Your anger will burn until it leads to some form or another of murder.  Fear will reduce you to an emotional, spiritual, and perhaps even physical fetal position, rendering you incapable of dealing with daily life.  Confusion will gradually pull apart everything you have ever thought true, casting you into a pit of darkness with nothing to help you find your way.

As such, it is to your benefit to be rid of your emotional upheaval.  You certainly can’t convince yourself that you are okay with the situation.  No amount of balm All you can do is choose not to be upset, though you may have every right to be.  This is the internal state of heart from which Jesus’ pronouncements come when He tells us to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, give up our tunic, and walk the extra mile.  Though we certainly have a right to be loved perfectly (“Love your neighbor as yourself”) and have a perfect life free from trouble (i.e., eternity with God in heaven), in this world it will not happen.  People are evil and will always wrong us in some way or another, and as Christ has said, “In this world you will have many troubles.”  We can protest until we turn blue or we can waive our right to be upset.

Only after we have given up on being upset will we be able to see what God is really doing.  Only then will He be able to manifest the perfect disposition of Christ into our lives.  At that moment, we will truly be able to “rejoice in suffering,” and how our situation came about, how it will be resolved, and how long we must be in it will not matter.  Praise God that He has given me this insight, because it is precisely what I need for my present situation. 

When creative people talk about their work, they often mention the need for inspiration. This is just a brief note about inspiration that I learned a few nights ago:

Unfaithful hearts seek what they want/need from any source that offers it. Those who wish to speak, write, or otherwise create should be aware of the source of their inspiration. I wrote something very true the other night to express how the worst night of my life felt, and I ended up very accurately quoting the chaotic, vile voice of the evil one in order to portray what I experienced. It was then that I realized that just because something is true in some sense doesn’t mean it should be expressed.

If I would be faithful to God, it means I must commit myself to giving voice to the only one worthy of speaking: God. I will not, for the sake of finding inspiration, prostitute myself to anything that so much as grants me a creative urge. A great many things simply aren’t worthy of being expressed. It seems that this applies in more areas than just creative endeavors, but it is just a token to think about.

Glory to God for allowing us to express Him. Even the most insufficient attempts at expressing God tend to turn out well because of the greatness of the Subject. Praise Him always.

The author of the book of Hebrews mentions a day called “Today” in which God is to be heeded.  Verse 3:13 (NIV) says that we are to encourage one another daily, “as long as it is called Today,” so that none of us will become “hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

It is strange to our ears to think of the present moment as having a name, because a name implies a special significance.  Individual ants, birds, and wildebeasts have no names.  One ant is the same as another ant.  Only those taken as pets might have names, and that is because a pet is an animal specially chosen by a person.

Similarly, Today, or Now, has more significance than any other time.  Now is the most important time, and Today the most important day.  Think of all the other times in your past; they are so many, and yet you remember comparably few.  Only a few days of thousands will be recalled or be “given a name,” if you will, and those only because they held some special significance.  As for the future, it will soon enough become the past.  Why is this distinction important?  What is so special about Now?

Now is the only moment in which change is possible.  We are not sufficiently wise or powerful to do anything but make haphazard stabs at our future path.  Likewise, as hard as we may gaze into the past with hindsight and regret, it cannot be changed.  The only thing we have to work with is Now, and our medium for working is our will.

We cannot particularly change much about Now, but we can choose to respond to God.  Now may be the worst moment in our lives.  We may be helpless, confused, and hurt about what is happening, but if we let those things have their way we will only spiral downward into destruction.  Thankfully, we can turn our gaze to Christ and remember who He is.  As long as it is called Today and Now, no matter our situation, we have the opportunity to choose to place our faith in Him, be faithful to Him, and give Him praise.  Sooner or later our Redeemer will come and turn our present hell into a distant memory.