A Light in Darkness

Have you ever been in darkness so deep that you could not even imagine what light would look like? Or been so far underwater your lungs burned and still you could not see the surface? Have you ever been in fire so hot that you could not remember a cool drink of water? Or sadness so intense you could not believe in happiness?

Hear my prayer, O Lord, listen to my cry for help; don’t be deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger…

Psalm 39:12

We live in a fallen world. Not just that I am fallen, that I have sinned. We are fallen. All of us. Even nature was cursed at the fall. Because of that, illness exists. Cancer. Ebola. Depression. Mental Illness. The common cold. Uncommon super bacteria.

You are God, my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Psalm 43:2

David understood. He knew oppression and depression. He understood the dark night of the soul. He knew what despair felt like, and to our benefit, he wrote about. We don’t ever need to feel alone. I think that he and Robin Williams would have been good friends. They would have a shared experience.

So, why does the church turn a blind eye to mental illness? We take dinner to those recovering from surgeries and do what we can to support those fighting cancer. We turn our heads and pretend the schizophrenic doesn’t exist. Depression is seen as a spiritual deficiency. Not all of us, of course, but as a church we’re okay with the fighting of addictions but rarely mention mental illness.

The church needs to reach out to those who are broken, regardless of how we are broken. There is no shame in admitting we are wounded and need healing.

It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means, “I desire compassion and not sacrifice,” for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Matt. 9:12-13

The church, the body of the Great Physician, is called to compassion. We are to follow the example of the Good Samaritan and reach down to heal the wounded. Just as it was not the fault of the man who had been robbed that he was wounded, so the dark is not the fault of the one who is lost in it. We need to reach out and help the sick rejoice because there is a Doctor in the house.

We were all shocked by the death of Robin Williams this week. The thought of a man who brought so many so much laughter being unable to find any reason to keep living is incredibly sad. There is hope in Jesus. There is hope in Jesus alone. As the arms of Jesus, we need to reach out. We need to stop condemning the sick, and help them find healing. We need to share hope.

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 2 Cor. 4:6

Sharing in Suffering

Last week I talked about suffering, and how we are chosen to share in the suffering of Jesus, and how God uses our suffering to develop us and make us more like Jesus. I think that there is a flip side to this coin of suffering. Not only do we share in the suffering of Jesus, we share in each other’s suffering as well.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. I Corinthians 12:27

We are one body, connected to each other through the head, which is Christ, and through the uniting of the Holy Spirit. When you suffer, I feel it. When I suffer, I can count on you to help alleviate my suffering.

One worldview was stated on Facebook as, “Everybody is going to hurt you. The trick is to find the ones worth suffering for.” I understand this. We’re human. We hurt each other. But I don’t want to suffer for just anybody. I want to make sure you are worth it. I am so glad Jesus didn’t feel that way.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:7-8

Jesus thought we were worth suffering for, even though we weren’t worthy. We are part of the body, and so we suffer, whether the other is worth it or not. Still we try to avoid suffering, and so we relegate it to a few and tell them they are called. Henri Nouwen says, “Our society suggests that caring and living are quite separate and that caring belongs primarily to professionals who have received special training. Although training IS important . . . caring is the privilege of every person and is at the heart of being human." (Henri Nouwen, Our Greatest Gift) Rather than shuffling each other off to the Pastor or the counselor or the doctor, we are called to do more. We are called to compassion, to feeling deeply and to going through life together. We are instead called to suffer together, to use our own suffering to help others and to participate in each other’s suffering through prayer.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

To participate in the sufferings of another means that we open ourselves up to their pain. When we pray for each other we open ourselves up to the pain that only the Holy Spirit knows fully, and we share in that pain because we share in the same Spirit. When one member suffers, we all suffer.

Sometimes when I say I will pray for you, I do it quickly, trying not to understand what you are going through. I have told you, I don’t like suffering! God is slowing me down, reminding me that sharing in the fellowship of prayer is to allow myself to feel what you feel, to experience the depth of what you are going through. If not for the fact that we are all sharing this together, I’m not sure I could stand it. I would be overwhelmed. Instead I can take your suffering and lay it at before the throne of Jesus, knowing that he understands and will provide the strength we need.

We suffer together knowing that God has made us one. It’s a blessing with a kick. Relationship is worth it. It’s a reflection of the very nature of God. It draws us further up and deeper in. It binds us together. We are one body, and in suffering we begin to live like it.  

Participants in Suffering

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about suffering lately. Not on purpose, mind you. It just seems to come up in my Bible study and in my reading. That’s exactly what has me a little concerned. I’m not a big fan of suffering. Five degrees too hot and I’m whining. Five degrees too cold and I’m pulling out the wool socks. I’ll do most anything to alleviate my suffering.

My suffering is nothing compared to what some people live with. I have one friend on dialysis. She knows suffering. Another friend has cancer. Seven hundred people have died from the Ebola virus. They know suffering. Christians in Syria and Iran and Libya are being put to death for living their faith. They know suffering. Children die from lack of clean water. Girls are stolen from their families for the desire of an education. Children are abused and misused. Young boys are sold into slavery as expendable soldiers.

We all suffer, some more than others. I think its safe to say that nobody likes it. Suffering makes us uncomfortable. It makes us doubt God’s love for us, or our own competency.

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials… James 1:2

God seems to view suffering differently than we do. He doesn’t seem to see suffering as a bad thing, but instead of a tool for our development. He seems to see it as a temporary thing, keeping in mind the future he has in store for us. That future can help us endure anything, just as it helped Jesus.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:2-3

Jesus knows suffering. When he asks us to endure, he knows what he’s asking. When he allows suffering in our lives, he walks beside us, helping us endure. When we think we can’t, he reminds us that he has already overcome, and that he will use it for our good. Our suffering will never be wasted.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

2 Cor. 4:7-10

God allows suffering so that he will be glorified, so that others will witness and be drawn to him, and so that we will mature and become more like him. We have been chosen to share in his suffering in order that we may also share in his glory. It is an honor to suffer, and in suffering for him we share in his death. It is an act of gratitude and worship.

How do you suffer? People are watching. What do they see? Do they hear my whining and complaints? Or do they see someone who is bowed down in submission before her Savior? Will I allow God to work in my life, even if it involves suffering? Will I offer my suffering as a sacrifice of praise?

They Mystery of God

He walked into the temple, the smell of wood smoke and incense wafting around him and flooding him with memory and wonder. There was the smell of blood and sweat and people everywhere. There were people from all over the world speaking in a multitude of languages, calls of the money changers, prayers of the priests and people, the bleating of animals about to be sacrificed. The walls were a riot of the color of white marble and blue on the priests robes and gold and red. He was a priest, a keeper of the mystery of a God who desired a relationship with his people, and yet whose holiness kept him apart.

The idea that God wanted a relationship with us, and that he would do whatever it took to make a way for that relationship, was a huge mystery to even the angels. They didn’t get it. They didn’t understand what was so special about us that God would go to such great lengths to save us. That’s what we call the gospel. The mystery of the ancient tabernacle and then the temple became the work of Jesus, and it is good news indeed!

Because of the work of God on our behalf, Jesus came and spoke the ancient words of mystery to those whose hearts would respond to him. He told them,

To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. Matthew 13:11

The people of Jesus’ day had grown deaf to the ancient words, and their hearts were hard and cold. There was no wonder or mystery for them. Jesus gave his words to his disciples, men and women whose hearts were soft and responsive. Out of them he achieved God’s desire, to have a relationship with them. Out of them he built his church.

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. I Corinthians 4:1

The mystery of salvation, of the wonder of a relationship between God and man, between Creator and his creation, between Savior and sinner, has now been given to us. We are stewards of this mystery, the keepers of grace who hold it out for our generation.

There is danger in losing the wonder and mystery of our salvation. We take it for granted, forgetting the lengths to which God went in order to be with us in relationship. We become flip, forgetting whom it is we worship. We begin to see Jesus as a buddy instead of a Savior, and forget that we need saving. We should never utter light and frivolous words to the Creator of the Universe.

Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for you did create all things, and because of your will they existed, and were created. Revelation 4:11

He was, and is, and is to come, and his word is true and remains. There is great mystery, mystery of salvation and relationship, that is for us. When the mystery is gone we need to get back in touch with the Holy Spirit. We need to dip deeply into the words of God that remind us who he is, that we struggle to understand and yet accept with gratitude.

We are reminded of the mystery in worship. Bowing low before the God who loves us, who fought Satan and won, and who bought our salvation reminds us of how small we are, and of how amazing are the actions of God on our behalf. We are so insignificant to be given so much. God is so big and we are not. We are so resistant to him, never understanding how lost we are without him. We cannot begin to fathom the bigness of our God. We don’t have the words.

For the testimony of God is the spirit of prophesy. And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and he who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head are many diadems; and he has a name written upon him which no one knows except himself. And he is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and his name is called the Word of God. Revelation 19:10b-13

Exercising Discipline

I will confess that I have never seen such patience in a young mother. She was clearly being tried. She was tired. She just wanted to pick up the groceries she needed, pay for them and get them and her little guy home.

The young prince was obviously in charge. He climbed out of the cart. Mom put him back in with a quiet admonition not to climb out. He climbed out again, this time taking down a display on his way. Mom put him back in the cart, made a feeble attempt at picking up the cans on the floor, and pushed the cart forward. He leaned dangerously far out of the cart, grabbed a box of cookies and threw them in the back. Mom put them back. He grabbed them again, this time ripping them open, spilling half on the floor and stuffing a handful into his mouth. Mom just looked at him, told him to sit down, and tried to continue on with her shopping. He sat down and stuffed another handful of cookies into his mouth, which was by now bulging like a squirrel with a cheek full of peanuts. I chose a different aisle to go down, unwilling to watch any longer.

My heart went out to this Mom. She thought she was being loving by being patient and not losing her temper. She was wrong.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields that peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:11

This mom didn’t realize what a disservice she was doing to her son. She had neglected to discipline him, and now he was an out-of-control monster whom no one wanted to be around. Discipline in anger is wrong, but not disciplining is also wrong.

Sometimes parents don’t discipline out of a sense of guilt, feeling like they are with their children for such a short amount of time and don’t want to spend what little time they have being the mean guy. Or maybe they are just tired and figure if they can ignore bad behavior it will soon be bedtime, and they will get some peace. The reality is that nobody gets peace in this scenario.

The word discipline scares us. It conjures up visions of nuns with rulers or that OCD person who keeps every paperclip in meticulous order on his desk and knows instinctively when his stapler has been moved. In reality, discipline is freedom. It is freedom to act, knowing that we’ve trained our responses to be appropriate. It is freedom to think, knowing we’ve trained our minds to clear and logical. It is freedom to feel, knowing we’ve given even our emotions to the Holy Spirit and so will not be ruled by them.

But have nothing to do with worldly fables and old wives tales. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of Godliness. I Timothy 4:7

Without discipline, we are ships without an anchor, blown around by every wind of discord and desire. Just as we discipline our bodies through diet and exercise to be the physical best we can be, we need accept the discipline of God, and to apply discipline to our spiritual selves through prayer, reading of scripture, participation in solitude and service, and through other disciplines that submit our time and energy and passion to God.

Without discipline we are like the young prince in the grocery store. We do what we want when we want to, ignoring the instruction of the Holy Spirit, and then wonder why our lives are a mess. We must discipline ourselves in live in obedience, knowing the Bible so that we know what we are to obey, and training ourselves to listen, so that when the Holy Spirit speaks we can recognize his voice.

If we want to be Godly people, living as his beloved, we must exercise discipline. If we desire the peaceful fruit of righteousness, we need to submit to the discipline of our loving Father.

Loving My Neighbor

Those who studied the law frequently questioned Jesus. Some of them had honest questions while others viewed it as a game, looking for loopholes or ways to get out of their obligations. One of these students asked Jesus about the commandment to love God completely and to love his neighbor as himself. He asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answered this question by telling a story, one that is familiar to most of us. A certain man was traveling home and on the way robbers attacked him, leaving him by the side of the road to die. A priest and a Levite passed by, crossing to the other side of the road. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn’t it? No joke, though. They ignored the wounded man.

Jesus doesn’t tell us why they passed by. There could have been reasons. Had either of them touched a dead body they would have been ineligible to serve in the temple that day. They could have been in a hurry for some reason, or without resources to help the man. The reason doesn’t seem to matter. There was a man in need, and they didn’t act out of any kind of compassion.

A third man came along the road, and he stopped. He treated and bandaged the injured man’s wounds, put him up on his donkey and took him to an inn where he could be cared for. He then paid the innkeeper to take care of him. This man was a Samaritan. The Jewish man who was being cared for might have refused his help had he known. Samaritans were considered defilers of the faith. They were descended from Jews who had interbred with Gentiles, mixing religions as well as genetics, and they didn’t worship in Jerusalem. They had built their own temple. Samaritans and Jews hated each other.

And still, the Samaritan felt compassion for the Jewish man. Would the Jewish man have done the same for the Samaritan? We can’t know for sure, but I doubt it.

Jesus gets to the heart of the matter.

Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands? Luke 10:36

Notice that Jesus didn’t ask who the Samaritan man’s neighbor was. He asked who had acted as a neighbor. The Samaritan was the neighbor. This would imply to the lawyer asking the question that the Samaritan was his neighbor. Not only that, but the Jewish lawyer was to go and follow his example.

We all have people who offend us. They smell bad or they are fat or ugly or their religion offends us. We dislike their politics. We hate the way they raise their kids. We are to be a neighbor to them. No excuses. We are to feel compassion. No valid reasons not to. We are to reach out in love to those we find most repulsive. Jesus tells us to.

Why did the Christian cross the road? To love on the other side… Cross the road of poverty, of race and nationality and sexuality, the road of whatever it is that offends you, to reach your neighbor.

Who is my neighbor? You are.

Interceeding for Each Other

My friend is hurting tonight. I want to do something practical, something significant. Unfortunately I don’t have any of the resources that she needs, and this is a situation where even if I had all the resources in the world it wouldn’t be enough to ease her pain. I tell her that I will pray for her, feeling helpless. Saying I will pray feels like a cop-out. It feels like the thing Christians say when there is nothing we can do but don’t want to look weak.

The fact is that praying for each other is most we can do. Anything beyond that is icing on the cake or gravy on the biscuits. Praying for another person is what we call Intercessory Prayer. Its lifting each other up before the throne of grace and laying the other at the feet of Jesus, trusting that he will be the answer to our prayer. It is a great privilege.

Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16

Why do we ever hesitate to pray for each other? I think there are a variety of reasons. We don’t want to offend the other person, as if they would be insulted to have you imply that they might need help. We all need help. I can tell you that when asked, “May I pray for you?” I have never had someone say, “No.” I’m sure there are some people who will, some who have so hardened their hearts toward God that they refuse to ask for his help, but I think it’s rarer than we might imagine.

Another reason we hesitate is because we overcomplicate prayer. I recently read these guidelines for intercessory prayer:

Always be creative and specific (because God doesn’t know the real need or might get bored).

         Don’t pray in front of the person (because you will remember, or they might get offended and promises are so easy to keep!)

         Make sure your prayers are positive and nice (because God doesn’t know how you really feel, or what, or who, the real problem is)

         Fill your prayer with words (because silence is so uncomfortable and a waste of time)

         Stay on track (because God can’t use your imagination, nor can he direct your prayer or bring people to mind)

         Don’t pray scripture (because God wrote those words and can’t know how I feel)

My comments are in parenthesis. I’m sorry if they are a little snarky. I don’t know who wrote these guidelines, but they are silly at best and at worst discourage us from praying. How we pray isn’t important. Just pray!

And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Romans 8:26

Don’t worry about rules or guidelines, just pray. Share your heart with God. Just as a loving Father desires to share the hurts and joys and concerns and agony of his children, so God desires to have you bring the things that weigh your heart down to him. He wants to share your pain. The God who created everything and has all the resources of his divine nature at his fingertips wants to help in your situation. Call me crazy, but I think that’s Someone I want on my team!

It is said that intercessory prayer is reaching to God with one hand and to my friend with the other, in order to bring them together.

Tonight I am praying for my friend. I am praying for healing, for peace and especially for comfort. She can only find that in the arms of God, so I reach to him with one hand, and to her with the other, and I place her in his lap to receive the love of her Father.

Will you pray with me?