Suffering Myths 2--Exemptions...

Jeremiah, by Rembrant

Myth 2:  Committed Christians don't really suffer.  God either organizes their circumstances for the best or miraculously lifts them up so they can walk above it.

Malarky.

First, if God organizes our circumstances for our best then that will include growth opportunities, which will, by definition, include growing pains.  Childbirth hurts (believe me, my son PJ can tell you I know that all too well: he gets reminders often that he was worth all 32 hours)--and those are just the good things that hurt.  Pain is a gift that teaches us how not to injure ourselves or others.  That's why leprosy causes such devastation--leprosy deadens pain nerves and the patient destroys their own body without knowing it.  If you're alive, you're going to have pain. 

As for living above our circumstances, that's only partly true.  He does promise He will never leave or forsake us--that He will be with us, even to the end of the earth.  There was a time when I was really angry at God because I could feel how close He was to me, but I remained in debilitating pain and agonizing depression.  His love was just as real as my pain.  David, Jeremiah, Paul, and many others often cried out in tremendous pain--we know because their cries are critical passages within the Bible.  David often models the furious dance that acknowledges both extreme pain and God's glorious presence.  Jesus himself wept many times and was identified as a "man of sorrows, aquainted with grief."  Would God lift us above the pain from which He did not protect Himself? 

To the contrary, Jesus says:  "³³ I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”--John 16:33. 

A corrolary to this myth is that pain and suffering happens because of sin in our lives--also frequently malarky.  There are times when sin brings about painful consequences for us and those around us.  There are times we are blameless and suffering is just a result of the fallen world we live in.  There are times when, like Job, we suffer as a part of the spiritual battles that rage unseen around us.  There are times when God directly sends suffering into our paths as a tool to refine and change us. 

In the end, the question of "Why?" is less important than the question: "To what end?".  When we begin to try to partner with God through the pain, He redeems it as only He can--and the results can be so beautiful that it looks like God intended it, even when it's just His work-around.  In this way, every pain, every sorrow, every bit of suffering becomes an opportunity to display the glory of a God who can spin worthless, scratchy straw into gold. 

If you are still alive, you will have suffering.  Don't waste it. 

My provider

Yesterday, I had a meltdown in the middle of the day.  No one was here.  I needed to consult with PJ's therapy director but I just couldn't bear the weight of my pain anymore.  I usually do pretty well in general.  I know the path I'm on.  It's not an easy one, but I know my life is going in the right direction.  I'm walking in obedience and it's just a matter of being disciplined enough to stay on the path.  Unfortunately, my dreams at night tend to trip me up a bit.  That's when I have to come face to face with the pain of this path in ways I can't blow off.  So I had a meltdown.

As I laid in my bed in the agony of brokenheartedness, the phone rang.  That meant that I had to get up.  The Lord sent a good friend to comfort and encourage me.  She knows the struggles I face.  She knows how painful they are.  She called just to listen and encourage.  It was important to know that I am not alone.  It didn't change the path.  It didn't eliminate the pain, but it did help me recenter on Jesus and carry on. 

After my friend picked me up off the floor, I was able to meet with PJ's therapy director who helped me prioritize his work and moved me forward in getting him help.  Last night, PJ had great victories to tell me about from school.  This morning there was a small crack in the issues that hurt me the most.  Even my dog came and gave me big sloppy kisses to comfort my heart.  One of my morning devotionals was right to the point as well, reminding me that until I get the core issue dealt with, these things will remain unbearable.  The catch is that the core issue isn't my issue, so all I can do to deal with it is continue to choose to starve it out, like starving out a cancer, until the Father can be allowed to remove it surgically. 

Sometimes the way we have to walk is not going to be easy.  James tells us:

^"2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."--James 1:2-4

Ginny Owens once said in reference to this verse: "So there's going to come a day when I don't lack anything?!?  Well, it's not now!"  I'm not there yet either, but He promises we will get there.  In the meantime, my great Provider gives me all it takes to perservere. 

Thanks, Father!

Why, my soul, are you downcast?

Collage by Altered Angel

A few days ago, I wrote about taking every thought captive.  David frequently fought depression and fear, yet his actions rarely showed his inner struggle.  Throughout the Psalms, he gives us great examples of how to take our thoughts captive.  One of the best examples is in Ps. 42 and 43.  The chorus of the song always comes back to:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. 

David recognizes that his emotional state is temporary so he disciplines his thoughts to return to the good times before God rather than staying in a place of agony.  Even when his thoughts return to his pain, he drags them back to memories of worship.  He meditates on the possibilities of worship in the future, turning that thought over in his mind again and again. 

During my own long seasons of depression, I remained in the Psalms for years.  There are 150 Psalms, which means you can read 5 a day every month or you can take 5 months to go through the book.  The 31st of each month I'd do a few stanzas from Ps 119--just because it is long.  The praise would lift my heart.  The cries of distress would echo my own aches.  Through it all, I would be continually reminded that God is good and recentering my thoughts on Him would yield fruit if I waited. 

It will yield fruit for you too...

Guard your heart

Over the years I've struggled with wide ranging emotions--exuberant, passionate highs and devastating, aching lows--and very little inbetween. 

I've researched conditions like bipolar and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) to try to understand why my heart is so volitile.  I'm not bipolar, but I share some of their traits.  I do struggle with SAD and at times it has been debilitating.  To some degree, I just understand that in February I have a delightful burst of energy in which I am enthusiastic, organized and creative.  Around August, I begin to slow and become critical so it's a good time for me to edit the work done in the fury of February.  By December I have to be cautious about my moods so I gently revel in the holiday festivities as a strategy to combat the peaking darkness in my mind.  I also take medication and nurture my body gently--some of the depression is a genetic issue that just won't go away without the support of some very gifted physicians.  In military terms, these are the air war strategies.

The ground war strategies include good old fashioned thought and attitude management.  II Corinthians 10:5 encompasses the heart of this strategy: 

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

That means I have a choice.  I can choose:

                 to be full of faith or full of doubt
                 to remain at rest or become frantic with fear
                 to notice God's peace or be overwhelmed by chaos
                 to be focused on the Father or focused on self

This is what it means to guard your heart.  It means guarding it from the attacks of the enemy, the criticism of well-meaning friends and your own insecurities. 

Still, there are times that my best efforts are insufficient to the task.  My heart often feels like the sandbox heart in the picture above, or worse it feels like the sand has been fused into solid, glistening glass--hard and brittle, with all the imperfections frozen forever into the matrix.  In those moments, I lean on this promise from Ezekiel 36:26:

 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

When I can't change my own heart, He promises that He can and does.  He tenderly loves me showering me with the compassion I don't even have for myself.

God is kind, but he's not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.  Romans 2:4

He loves me enough not to leave me in the abyss I have placed myself, but I still have to get my backside up, take His hand and walk out with Him.  It's hard work sometimes, but it works and I am grateful.

Thank You, Father!

Crisis and failure...

 
I have a dear friend who went through a serious crisis again this week.  She's experienced significant pain throughout her life, both physical and emotional, and it often erupts in gut-wrenching crisis without warning.  Early in our relationship I committed that I would hang in with her, knowing that it wouldn't be easy.  But, as a part of that commitment, I promised her that I would continually redirect her to Jesus as the source for her hope.  I know I have nothing to offer her that will fix her life.  It took her 49 years to get to this place.  Only God can get her out of it. 

This week, I failed her.  The crisis came in hot and fast.  It was life and death.  It was weeping and gnashing of teeth.  I managed the circumstances.  I worked the details.  There were a lot of details that needed addressing.  I thought I encouraged her family to support her, but found out later they only saw it as being pushy.  Worst of all, the closest I could do to draw her back to Christ was to ask her again if God is good (as she knows He is), and encourage her to choose loyalty to Him over trying to please her unpleasble dying father. 

Even more, in failing her, I failed myself.  Every time I've been able to bring her back to Jesus, it has also allowed me to release her back to His care for my own sake.  I have repented and released her again, but it makes my heart ache knowing that I only committed to do one thing and didn't do it well.  I spent time helping her that I needed to spend on my own home and family. 

I will learn better.  I will do better.  I will love my Lord and friend better. 

^"12 Not that I have already obtained all this or have already reached my goal, but I press on in order to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider to have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching out to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."--Phil 3:12-14

Fully alive, made in God's image

"The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God."--Saint Irenaeus

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Gen. 1:26

"How deep the Father's Love for us/How vast beyond all measure/that He should give his only Son/to make a wretch His treasure."--Stewart Townend
"I just showed up/for my own life/and I'm standing here taking it in/and it sure looks bright."--Sara Groves

This practice of feeling before God is wonderful and painful, but it beats the alternative.  Life is painful.  It's easy to want to avoid that pain, but the alternative is death: a hollowed out existence like the sound of a calliope ever circling and going nowhere.  It is clear that God didn't see Adam as the final version of who He made man to become or He would not desire that we become conformed to the image of Christ.  Jesus was known as a "man of sorrows, aquainted with grief," yet it was He, "who for the JOY set before Him, endured the cross."  The two emotions are inextricably linked.  It took tremendous pain to get to that joy.  It always will for us as well.  We could not become like Him without that pain.

Feel it. There is joy beyond.