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Review: Wholeness… The ‘blessed’ life is not one that has learned how to use its faith to avoid adversity, but one that has proven able to consistently and successfully meet the challenges of life. ► Wisdom is connecting the dots! What’s obvious is that life provides a dot that says “start” and a dot that says “finish”. It’s how you connect the rest of the events which will ultimately determine the shape of your life! It’s the art of living well! Proverbs 1:7 “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. God is the point of reference. Conversely, Ps.53:1 says, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no god”. The fool is the one who thinks they are the center of their own world ► Resentment often follows disappointment. “How will we respond to God when it becomes clear that he is not going to intervene in the way that we had expected?” Matthew 11: John the Baptist: Jesus has not acted in a manner which was in keeping with John’s expectations. “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me” (Matt.11). Greek: “to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey.” ► Most often, our greatest demonstration of faith is just to remain faithful. There will be times when no amount of faith will change your circumstances. * I don’t want the “working out of my faith” (which is a “working through”), in any way, to negatively affect your journey with Jesus. But, neither do I feel compelled to try and stand here and attempt to explain or defend all the determinations of a mysterious, limitless God. * My hesitation to speak authoritatively comes from my discomfort with suffering and the failure of my faith to produce a good explanation. When I’m with you, please don’t misinterpret my silence as indifference; it’s merely a defense-mechanism I use to prevent stupidity! (some stupid, insensitive, casual remark) * So, often my answer will be, I JUST DON’T KNOW. * At the risk of being misunderstood, let me say that there is nothing wrong with wanting suffering/pain to end, and certainly no one expects to enjoy it. * I’m encouraged to discover that biblical characters such as David, Job, Paul and even Jesus himself responded to suffering much the same way that we do: - flinched - attempted to find an explanation - felt abandoned - attempted to avoid it - they cried out to God for help. * What we experience, along with all of creation, is this gnawing sense that things are just not right. We have this innate conviction that things are just not as they should be. * That’s why you hate injustice and are so frustrated with all the evil (disorder) which is so prevalent, and why you are so totally perplexed by such things as unprovoked suffering and senseless tragedy: YOU WERE NOT MADE FOR IT! * It’s this wondering “why” that sets us apart from all of creation. We think, we reason, we want answers to plaguing questions. And, it’s why your cocker spaniel doesn’t have IBS! * I guess I would say, “There’s nothing wrong with doing something”… just don’t do “anything” (there are things that God must do that we cannot do for ourselves; there are also things that God will not do for us!) I think James’ concern in this case is that we expend so much personal time and energy trying to “escape” the difficult life-circumstance that * Some personal observations about people who “suffer well”: ● they are a type of “fraternity” (although no one wants to go through the “initiation” necessary to enter!). Experience has brought them together in such a way that almost excludes our participation (we can’t enter the conversations, we can’t really relate). ● there is a depth to them that only suffering can bring. They have learned the value and the limitations of words (speech); they don’t talk much! They realize that sometimes words just “cheapen” the experience. We long to be around them to “mine” answers… to know “how they do it”; we’re almost frustrated by their calm demeanor. ● they have repeatedly asked that their particular circumstance be removed, but have expected their lives to be marked by a certain “grace” (infusion of God) which allows them to endure the often confusing “interim”. * Many times our faith in God is an IF/THEN proposition (if God does ____, then I will). Sometimes our faith must declare EVEN IF (i.e. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: Daniel 3:17 “If we are thrown into the furnace, the God we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us. But even if he doesn’t…”) ● that in order to move forward, there seemed to have been necessary a certain “surrender”; not just a succumbing to the pain, but an abandoning of themselves to God. - they have allowed themselves to “grieve”. Grieving: * They have been willing to allow themselves to admit and feel the depths of their sense of loss (relationship, dream, innocence, health, etc.) Their honesty has kept them more connected with God and reality. * They have realized that there’s a “time” for it. Deut. 34:8 “The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days until the time of weeping and mourning was over”. Eccl. 3:4 “There is a time to weep…” * Grief is not something that happens automatically (unlike sadness); you have to allow yourself to experience it; to enter it. * Grief seems to be the necessary step to experience whatever is NEXT. The ‘conclusion’ (of sorts) that frees your soul to experience hope. * Realize that in grief is the only place that we can truly experience comfort!
* I do know that Christ-followers show the signs of decay like anyone else (i.e. we battle sickness, our bones get brittle, our eyes go dim, our hair falls out, etc.). We live in a broken world with glimpses of the way things will be but are not yet; we are not exempt. Romans 8:18-27 (read) * The really interesting thing about having God’s Spirit take residence in your heart is how to deal with all the uneasiness of the promptings you feel ricocheting around in your heart (the dissatisfaction you feel about your own “stuff” you are preparing). (2) words I have been hearing (sensing) all week: GROANING and GRACE. “groaning”- pain too deep for words; so perplexing and so upending that you don’t even know what to say. “grace”- our only hope. * Maybe for me, as I watch you wrestle with suffering, the better question is not “Where is God?”, but “Where am I?” I just want to somehow demonstrate today, that even if you can find no meaning in your suffering, it means something to us… you mean something to us! * As uncomfortable as suffering is, I don’t want to avoid you.
I’m asking you to let us weep with
you today! |
