How’s It Going?

1 Kings 19:4 NIV

"I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors."

Do You Ever Get Discouraged?

Last Sunday I was.  I came home and could not shake my frustration with how things were going.  It turned into grumpiness that led to moping about the house and not wanting to be around anyone.  I would like to say my discouragement ended that night but it didn’t.  The entire next day I felt its oppression and even into the third day.  It made me moody and I had a tough time concentrating.  The trouble is, I felt like I had a right to feel sorry for myself and be upset.  That made it almost a moral right; that anyone in my situation would and should be dejected too.  I honestly did not see any reason why I should change my mood even if I thought I could.  No one could talk me out of being discouraged, because my frustrations seemed justified.  I didn’t reach out to anyone for support and didn’t try to cheer up myself.  I was all alone in my discouragement…or at least it seemed like it.  Like crawling into a closet and closing the door behind me, psychologically, I shut everyone else out and convinced myself that no one cared how I felt.

One of the great preachers of all time, the world famous Charles Spurgeon went through long and intense bouts with depression.  He made life miserable for everyone in his family when he went through them.  He isn’t the only Christian leader who suffered from despair.  Charles Stanley, the great pastor out of Atlanta battled discouragement even while leading a great church and wildly popular radio ministry.  When you get discouraged, what leads to it?  Have you wanted to quit, isolate yourself; have you ever become hard to be around because of how dark your mood was?  There is such a matter as clinical depression and doctors speak of chemical imbalances that lead to terrible despair but that is a topic for another time.  Today we are looking at discouragement and its implications.  What should we do about our discouragement and how should we think about it?

We find many in the Bible who became so discouraged that it led to despair.  One of the great figures in the Old Testament, someone who was a shining example of courageous faith is the prophet Elijah.  The brutal honesty of the Scriptures gives us great insight into the psychology of discouragement and its spiritual roots.  Although he was a great man of God, Elijah battled despair and even his faith did not protect him from despondency.  Elijah is best known for the stand he took against paganism on Mt. Carmel.  Elijah courageously challenged the pagan priests of Israel to a spiritual contest.  Whoever’s God sent fire down from heaven and burned up a sacrifice placed on an altar would be declared the true God.  Eight hundred pagan priests stood on one side of the mountain with their altar and slain bull while just Elijah stood on the other side by his own altar dedicated to the Lord.  Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire."  So they took the bull given them and prepared it.  Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.  (1 Kings 18:25-26 NIV)  There never was a response.  The pagan priests called late into the day but no fire came down from heaven for them.  Finally Elijah went to work.  Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel."  With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed.  He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood." (1 Kings 18:31-33 NIV)

It was then that a great miracle took place that verified the majesty of the Great God Almighty before the people of Israel.  At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.  Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."  Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.  When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The Lord-he is God! The Lord-he is God!"  (1 Kings 18:36-39 NIV)  Immediately the people at Elijah’s command slaughtered the prophets of Baal and declared their allegiance to the Lord as the one true God.

Such a great victory should have sustained Elijah and his faith to the end of his life but it didn’t.  The queen of Israel who was a staunch follower of the pagan religions when she found out about the massacre of the prophets of Baal, immediately ordered her soldiers to track down Elijah and kill him.  Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." (1 Kings 19:3-5 NIV)  Even the great Elijah saw no purpose in his life and could not imagine any way things would ever improve.  That is the nature of discouragement.  It may not be rational but it is reasonable.  Elijah witnessed one of the great miracles of all time and saw just how popular the Lord was still among his people but the threat of Jezebel the queen was enough to derail him.

The battle for Elijah’s mind did not end there in the desert.  He was never the same after this and finally God took him away in a fiery chariot.  It cannot be said that Elijah lacked evidence of God’s care and protection.  He was miraculously fed by ravens during a famine and raised from the dead the son of a widow who provided him lodging during a three year famine.  Elijah had more than enough evidence to believe in God and trust Him to take care of him but for some reason his faith in God drained out of him and he gave up on ever finding a reason to live.  Discouragement is not rational.  But it is reasonable.  No one could have blamed Elijah for seeing things as he did.  He had plenty justification for being afraid and thinking his situation was hopeless.  How could he ever out run Jezebel’s soldiers and who would stand up for him when they got to him?  He had no allies, certainly none as powerful as the king and queen.  God was not taking up his cause.  If He was, Jezebel would have accepted defeat and agreed that the Lord was God just as the ones on Mt. Carmel had.  Instead the Lord left him to fend for himself against the terrible and terrifying Jezebel.

Discouragement is the self-absorbed reaction to stress.  Despair is simply discouragement taken one step further.  Elijah fell into despair because he lost track of where he was.  He wasn’t off in the desert by himself.  He was not alone to face the great threat of Jezebel’s henchmen.  He was with God and standing in His might.  Now we must be careful here as we address this matter of discouragement.  The tendency is to feel sorry for those who are discouraged because they face such great trials and they can’t help being knocked down by them.  Of course the trials we face could be monumental and life altering but they may be insignificant too and not change the course of our lives in any measurable way.  It is not the size of the threat that determines how discouraged you become.  It is the loss of perspective.  My sister-in-law once had a conversation with her son that still makes me laugh if it were not so serious to those who were in the conversation.  The son came to his mom and complained about the actions of his sister, wanting something to be done to her obviously.  My sister replied, “Now who are you in charge of?”  She wanted to establish that he was not the parent of his sister, even if she was out of line.  My nephew quickly answered, “Myself!”  This was of course correct.  That was how he was supposed to respond.  But my sister-in-law immediately realized the error in that sort of thinking because he was not in charge of himself, his parents were.   If he was in charge, then he could do whatever he wanted and that could not be the case.  To clarify, she shot back, “No you’re not, I am.”

Discouragement is the emotional reaction to forgetting God is in charge of your life.  Rather than trusting Him to work out everything, you get tired of waiting for God to do what you want done and decide you know better than He does how everything should go.  Your frustration at not getting your way can be too much for you to handle and discouragement and despair often follow. The disciples were discouraged and dismayed when Jesus was arrested but our Lord wasn’t.  It was the way God was going to work out salvation for the world.  When my ego becomes too big to let God have final authority in those matters that impact me, then I become agitated and discouraged by what I don’t understand or like.  You don’t become discouraged because things are going badly, you become discouraged because you think you are smarter than God and know more than He does about what is best for you and others.   Your frustration at no getting your way either becomes anger or discouragement and you start moping and feeling sorry for yourself.

Once you hide your life in God and trust Him to in love take care of you and those you cherish, you will find that your joy and peace will bubble back up to the surface and your discouragement will leave you like a scared lizard.  Say this prayer when you are disappointed by how things are going and there seems to be no way out of your troubles.  “Lord, I don’t have any idea what to do and I don’t feel like I can take much more of this.  I need you to protect me from Satan and from fear and from discouragement.  Give me peace today.  Give me joy and help me let go of my problems and trust you to take care of them.  In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.”  Remember this simple little statement in the Bible.  What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31 NIV)

The Loss of Self-Pity

Genesis 27:38 NIV

Esau said to his father, "Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!" Then Esau wept aloud.

Do You Ever Feel Sorry For Yourself?

I have been limping for about three months now and I must admit that I have begun to wonder if I will ever walk normally again.  I have to hold the rail as I go up steps, I can’t stand very long before I have to sit in a chair, I stopped going door-to door inviting people to our church because of how badly my knee hurt.  Now I don’t want to feel sorry for myself but I have had a difficult time trying to see what good this limping has done for me.  Should I thank God for the pain I am suffering?  Is it wrong to pray for God to heal me?  What should I say when people ask me why I am limping?  Is there a right way for me to respond that lets people know that I am not feeling sorry for myself or can I be brutally honest about how frustrated I am not being able to walk very far?  What is the right way to deal with difficulties?

Perhaps you have faced these same questions and were not sure what you should do.  Should you complain to anyone about your troubles?  Is it Christian for you to be upset by your circumstances?  Do you try to be stoic about your hardships?  Maybe you are good at hiding your difficulties from others.  You pretend as if everything is ok when your world is falling apart.  Should you be commended for this?  When people ask you how your day went, do you automatically say, “Good” even if it wasn’t?  Is it better to be honest about how you feel and let people know when you are struggling with your problems than to keep them to yourself?  What is the best way to deal with your troubles?

Sometimes we can’t help but laugh at some of the actions people in the Bible have taken.  The story of Jonah, the unwilling missionary is one such example.  He famously tried to run from God when given the assignment of going to the pagan city of Nineveh to warn the people there that the Lord was about to judge the city for its wickedness.  Jonah did not want the city warned; he just wanted the people judged and so he fled.  When he ended up in the belly of a great fish, Jonah agreed to go preach in the city and the fish spit him out on shore.  After Jonah spent a day preaching that in forty days the city would be overturned, the people repented and sought the Lord’s forgiveness.  When God relented and did not destroy the people, Jonah in a huff went up onto a hillside overlooking Nineveh and angrily stewed.  Because it was blazing hot, God caused a vine to grow and provide shade for Jonah and this made Jonah happy.  But that night, God killed the vine and Jonah was left without shade the next day.  Angrily he told the Lord that he wanted to die.  Now isn’t this interesting.  He was sitting out in the hot sun by himself because he was mad God let the people of Nineveh live.  Rather than sitting comfortably in one of the nice homes in Nineveh, he stubbornly resisted the hospitality of the peopleand baked under the blazing sun.  He also was mad that God killed the vine that had given him some shade and for these two reasons the reluctant preacher wanted to die.  We know exactly what was going on with Jonah.  He was feeling sorry for himself and angry with God for not treating him better.  We might have even laughed at Jonah if we were with him for the little pity party he was having.  Of course, Jonah was only hurting himself we might argue.  What harm was there in him pouting?

The case of Lot is a bit more serious because of how his self-pity impacted his daughters and the generations that followed.  Lot was the cousin of Abraham who went on to become the father of two great nations.  His life took a turn for the worse when he and his cousin went separate ways.  Lot and Abraham each had great herds of sheep and goats but because of the difficulty finding grass and water for such large flocks, the shepherds of Abraham and Lot could not get along and fought over the limited resources they had to share.  To quell the infighting among the shepherds, Lot and Abraham decided to move away from each other and Abraham gave Lot the option of choosing first where to settle.  Lot decided on the fertile plain near Sodom and so he settled there.  Apparently, Lot gave up his shepherding eventually because he wound up living in the city of Sodom, married and had two daughters.  After perhaps two decades living in Sodom, Lot had become comfortable with his new life.  When God sent His two angels to rescue Lot and his family from the destruction that was about to come, Lot was hesitant to leave and he and his family had to be nearly dragged out of Sodom by the angels.  Although they had been told not to look back at Sodom as the fire and brimstone fell upon it, Lot’s wife did for some reason and she was turned into salt.

After escaping the destruction of the cities of the plain, Lot and his two daughters hid in a cave.  The text says that Lot was afraid of living in the village of Zoar where they originally fled and set up camp in the cave.  What probably the daughters thought would just be a temporary stay became a permanent home.  It seems that at some point Lot must have known that it no longer was a risk for him to leave the cave and yet still he remained, year, after year after year, keeping himself and his daughters isolated from the rest of the world.  His daughters, feeling the heaviness of growing old without children made the perverse decision to get their father drunk so that he could get them pregnant.  The children they bore became the founders of two nations, each wicked and pagan.

What do we make of Lot and his decision to hole up in a cave?  Certainly his cousin Abraham would have welcomed him with open arms and he could have lived like a king with Abraham and his clan.  Lot and his girls would have been safe and could have rebuilt their lives.  The daughters might surely have had real husbands and a normal family life.  Lot apparently never recovered psychologically from the destruction of his home and the loss of his wife.  It wasn’t just Lot’s wife who looked back at ruin of Sodom; Lot too became as stiff as a statue psychologically after leaving it behind.  Did self-pity destroy Lot’s personality?  Was he incapacitated emotionally due to feeling sorry for himself?  It is not a stretch to think that perhaps Lot gave in to despair and dragged his daughters down with him.  Did he not see how sad they were not having husbands or did he just ignore all the signs, all the comments they made alluding to their disappointment.  That is what self-pity does to us.  It makes us so self-absorbed that we can’t see past our own wounds.  Those we love become shadows for us; vapors in our insulated world of hurt.

Our world is tragic, we must face the facts.  Sin has brought death to every corner of life.  Yet that does not mean we have to feel sorry for ourselves.  Paul said that we are to do everything without complaining.  Do everything without complaining or arguing, (Philippians 2: 14) That seems nearly impossible even for the most upbeat of us.  There is so much to complain about in our lives!  The waiter doesn’t pay attention to our order, our back is giving us trouble again, the traffic is bad, we have an aunt with cancer, the kids aren’t doing their chores, work is too demanding.  There is in Hebrews 2:10 something that must be examined with great reverence. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. (NIV)  The Greek word translated “perfect” has as its primary meaning, “completed” or “finished”.  Christ did not need to become more holy than He was.  What temptation did though in making Christ resistant to sin and fit to follow the Father in every way, suffering also did in making Him resistant to self-pity and self-absorption!  He became through His suffering completely trusting in the Father to do what was right with His life.

Self-pity and its weaker cousin, feeling sorry for ourselves are the disciples of atheism.  If God has said that He is making everything in our lives turn out for our good, self-pity is a rejection of that promise and a rejection of God.  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 NIV) Why would I feel sorry for myself if I know that the result of what I face today will end in something far better than what I had before?  It would be incredible for a child to cry about getting a million dollars when he expected a nerf gun.  What sort of fool would feel sorry for himself if he were given a great mansion rather than a small shed to live out his life?  Jesus never complained about any of His suffering because He trusted the Father explicitly!  If I face an illness, God will work it for something good.  If I am poor, God’s riches will be poured into me.  If my family is struggling, our Lord will put it together better than it was.  When we complain and feel sorry for ourselves, we throw Christ off the throne and sit there in His place judging Him and His care for us.  Self-pity is open rebellion against God and to keep feeling sorry for yourself means you don’t think the Lord is good or reasonable despite his promises to take care of you.

Certainly we feel the pain of suffering and sorrow and no one can make light of the horrors so often found in this world.  Terrible things happen and we face them too.  Surely Christ wanted His friends to stay with Him as He suffered the anguish of what was to come while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We also need our friends and our friends need us when the evil of sin and Satan crush us.  That does not mean though that we need to feel sorry for ourselves and wallow in self-pity. Let go of your frustration that others don’t treat you fairly or respect you like they should.  Quit feeling sorry for yourself and turn your thoughts to Christ who is taking care of you.   We have a God who is within us giving us strength and in all that we face, the love of Christ will turn it for our good and we will see soon enough that He has blessed us beyond measure in every way.  All great and joyous men or women of the past have faced sorrows and painful experiences and been mistreated but they refused to feel sorry for themselves.  Their greatness was realized and unveiled the moment they decided God is good, that He loves them and that in the end He can be trusted with their lives despite how others treat them or think of them.  Do you believe God loves you and has your best interests at heart?  If you do, then be glad He has you right where He wants you to be!

Suicide—Intervention

1 Kings 16:18 NIV

When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the royal palace and set the palace on fire around him. So he died,

How Can You Help The Suicidal?

The after the election I was teaching in a middle school class and as the students filed into the room a number of them were complaining about the results and several were saying that they were going to move to other countries.  Perhaps they were planning on going with Barbra Streisand or Miley Cyrus.  A few of them, who had never before had met me but knew I was their substitute teacher for the day, asked me who go my vote.  They were too young to worry about whether or not it was proper to ask me and I thought it was funny to be pressed for an answer.  I just laughed and turned away but as I thought more about the moment, I should have told them that I voted for hope, I voted for optimism, I voted for life.  I did not vote because I was afraid of the worst, I voted because I believed that my vote would help our country and even our world.  I did not vote for dread or for gloom or for fear.  I voted for promise.  Not everyone feels that such things exist or can even come their way.  There are many who have no hope and believe there is no good in life…not today…not tomorrow…and not ever.

There is so much hopelessness in our country, it is astounding.  Last year suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S.  Nearly 43,000 Americans killed themselves last year and what is even more painful to realize, there are twenty-five attempted suicides for every person who actually commits suicide.  Another way to put it: there are 117 suicides every day in the U.S. and nearly 13 suicides for every 100,000 people.  Men are 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide than women and older people are much more likely to kill themselves than are young people.

What do we do about the massive numbers of people who feel hopeless and broken by life?  How should we respond when we realize a friend or neighbor or co-worker feels too miserable to continue living?  At the risk of giving simplistic answers to complicated and terrifying questions, it would be good for us at least to examine the only example we find in the Bible of someone on the verge of suicide who changes his mind at the last second.  Tucked away in the book of Acts is a most enlightening account of how two missionaries responded to the despair of someone who was ready to kill himself.

As Paul and Silas sang and worshipped in their jail cell in the Macedonian city of Philippi, an earthquake shook the jail and miraculously the prison doors flew open and the chains on each of the prisoners fell off them.  The jailor woke up immediately and saw the prison doors wide open and knowing what would come of him if the prisoners had all escaped on his watch pulled out his sword to kill himself.  Such hopelessness is a key component to suicide.  This jailor was much like millions of others who have looked at what they face and decided they could not bear living any longer.  It does not matter how true the assessment is; they may be completely wrong about how bad it is.  What matters is that the person ready to commit suicide thinks all is hopeless.  Paul the Apostle, one of the prisoners in the jail immediately cried out to the jailer, "Don't harm yourself! (Acts 16:28 NIV)  Literally, he shouts to the jailer, “May you not commit evil.”  When dealing with someone suicidal, it takes a clear and unequivocal voice from a person who cares; this is wrong what you are thinking of doing.  There can be no wavering on this.  If you want to stop a suicide, you must forcefully insist that it is evil, that it is wrong to kill yourself.  Do not leave even a crack open to the possibility that suicide is an answer to the problems faced.  Paul shouted because he did not want there to be any doubt in the jailor’s mind that killing himself was evil.  Of course the jailer could have still fallen on the sword but it would not be because he thought Paul approved.  If you want to help someone who is suicidal, you must insist that killing yourself is not an option and always wrong.

In the instant when Paul intervened he said something else that is critical to preventing suicides.  He cried out, “We are all here!" (Acts 16:28 NIV)  There was in this immediate reaction a burst of reassurance that it was not as bad as the jailer thought.  This is always the way to help someone who has lost all hope and wants to end life.  There is in every instance, more to consider, a reason for holding out and not committing suicide.  Yes it may be bad, it may in fact be terrible what is faced but regardless of how bleak it may seem now, there is someone who needs you someone whose life will suffer if you are not there.  It may not be as easy as it was for Paul who simply had to remind the jailer that none of the prisoners had fled the prison.  Sometimes you might have to pull from a deep pocket to find some reason for hope but you can count on the Holy Spirit to help you.  Perhaps it is the family that is still there who loves you or the possibility of recovery or the encouragement that others can gain from the courage you show.  There is always a reason to live because in every situation one’s life matters and great good will come of it if given a chance.

Immediately the jailer responded to the hope Paul offered and he asked what he needed to do to be saved.  The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.  He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:29-30 NIV)  Without hesitating, the two prisoners told him, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household." (Acts 16:31 NIV)  Too many Christians think of the Gospel as a message or a new approach to life.  It is far more than that.  It is the power of God to change a life completely.  To believe in the Lord Jesus is the entry way in which the Lord comes into the personality and rebuilds it.  The sin that has wrecked so much within begins to be taken from it so that memories and damaged emotions and broken dreams can be worked out by God and replaced with hope and promise and a fresh start.  The root cause of every suicide is Sin, whether it is brought on by the sin we have committed or the sin that has been committed against us or the physical damage caused by sin.  It is always the Sin that must first be addressed when the immediate threat of suicide is pushed back.  By joining with Jesus Christ in faith, there is no limit to how much healing God can do in the broken and aching personality.

When Paul told the jailer that he and his family would be saved if they believed in the Lord Jesus, it was not a quick fix panacea but rather what each person in his home needed to be made right.  The blood of Jesus Christ is a healing balm that goes deep into the heart of those who receive it and it works into every place of hurt and sorrow and fear and despair and makes life come fully alive at each point.  Paul did not call for the jailer to become Christian; he called for him to be saved.  What every person considering suicide needs is not a new religion but a new life that brings salvation.  The Cross of Christ puts peace and hope and even love into the human heart.   To put it another way, it makes the humanity of the person right.  We know this is the case with the jailer because of what happened next.  He never would have reacted as he did if the Cross of Christ had not worked its way in him and made him new in observable and hidden ways.

When our Lord takes hold of the one who is broken and hopeless, a miraculous transformation occurs that manifests itself in a dramatic way.  We see it demonstrated by the jailer.  Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.  At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.  The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God — he and his whole family. (Acts 16:32-34 NIV)  Suicide is the cocooning of the soul so that it becomes withdrawn and self-absorbed and with nothing to lean upon but its own sorrow and brokenness its only way out is death.  All it can find within is sin and the damage caused by sin and in despair it finds nothing but self-annihilation as a solution to its pain.  When healing begins to take place, the soul looks outward and finds a whole world to love and embrace.  The jailer in this case saw Paul and Silas and the wounds they had and so he washed them and bandaged them and even that wasn’t enough to fill his longing to love and bring comfort and so he brought them to his house and made dinner for them.  Eventually, if the despair of a suicidal heart is to be taken away, the movement must shift to an outward extension brought on by love.  The jailer was drawn to the pain his new friends had and did what he could to take away their pain.  This was not a small deed he performed; it was almost supernatural in scope.  No jailer who wants to survive a Roman inquiry and court would take prisoners home and feed them.  Yet his love now could not be bound by the risk he felt expressing it because he no longer was absorbed with his own problems but now free to love the world God had given him

There are two verses worth memorizing and claiming as promises for all those who are broken by despair.  The first is Matthew 11: 28. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (NIV)  Never forget that Christ really does bring rest and comfort to those who come to Him.  The second is Psalm 33: 20.  We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. (NIV)  We do not come to those who are hopeless and wanting to destroy themselves with empty hands and feeble alternatives.  We come with a Savior who is strong and able to save.  We come with hope that is not just trite verbiage but real hope that makes life good and filled with joy.  We come with God, our help and shield...the help and shield of every single hurting person we know. 

Disoriented to be Reoriented

There is a moment when God breaks through into our cluttered minds and it generally is at those times of tremendous tumult.  We have realized just have far blown our sin is and it is crashing upon our heads.  Repentance is one of the great themes of the Bible and something Jesus talked about repeatedly.  We may feel badly about what we have done or more often embarrassed by our public disgraces but that is not the same thing as repentance.  When the Holy Spirit reveals our badness in a matter; it is never to make us throw up our hands in despair, it is always to bring us to radical change.  There are countless numbers of hand wringers in the world; those who wish they had acted differently and it doesn't take the least bit of God for that.  But to prefer holiness over the life of the world requires the supernatural work of the atonement of Christ.  When our Savior gathers Himself in us through His Cross, He begins to live at the edges of our lives.  We forgive, show mercy, are kind, reject all forms of sexual immorality, love sacrificially, walk humbly.  This is impossible if Christ is not blending His life with ours so that we act upon the impulses of God rather than our previous lusts and sin marred concerns.  One look at the Sermon on the Mount and we despair of ever really living the truly Christian lifestyle but with Christ in us, we can do it.  We can accept the insults of those who turn on us and not reply in kind.  We can look away when our eye is intrigued by a forbidden attraction.  We can hold our tongue when we want so badly to defend ourselves.  We can befriend the enemies of God and give sacrificially to those who don't deserve our worst, let alone our best.  Nothing is quite so discombobulating as the realization that God really does live in you and He wants to work His way out of you in your common behaviors.  It is then as you give Him free access that you discover that you actually are supernaturally remade by Christ into a new Creation, one built for holiness in everyday thoughts and activities.

You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.   Leviticus 20:26 NIV

Dynamic Change

There are many of us who are weary; we have tremendous burdens that wear down our souls and we are tired of all the difficulties we face.  Not everyone is like this.  Some are cheery and pleased beyond measure with their lives.  All the "breaks" seem to fall their way and nothing much troubles them.  There is though, a great number of us who are going through the motions at work, just trying to get by at home, trudging through mud at school and we need more than just a pat on the back; we need the supernatural hand of God upon us.  Thomas the disciple lived in such a gloom that even the good news of his fellow disciples that Jesus was alive could not shake him out of it.  Only Jesus Christ Himself could lift the despair of his heart.  Our age is one of disbelief; that there are no devils tormenting souls, no satanic power working amongst us.  It is just the circumstances, broken relationships and troubled pasts that we have in the middle of our darkness.  Amateur and professional counselors alike do their best to try to "get at the root of our issues" and after years of probing and manipulating and prescribing, the "terror of the night" is still there.   The misery and torment so many of us suffer is real and it cannot all be explained by our experiences; the wise must take into account the very real presence of unseen evil forces in our world.  Perhaps you have tried your best to get at what is wrong with someone you love dearly and you have gotten nowhere.   You are at the end of your rope with this person and you don't know what more could be done.  God may never show you what is causing the "jangling of nerves" and anguish but maybe if you would give the Holy Spirit space, Jesus Christ could be brought in contact with the broken soul and do what was done for Mary Magdalene.  Are you willing to intercede with desperate determination for the weary souls you know and by God's grace, bring Jesus Christ to them through your praying?  Remember that Jesus told His disciples that some people could only be helped through prayer!  Prayer was not in Jesus' mind the feeble alternative of weak and unsophisticated minds; it was the great blast of dynamite that alone could break loose certain people from their despair and turmoil when the "wise and skilled" come up against those cases too big for them to handle.

After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"  He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer."     Mark 9:28-29 NIV

Inner Working

There are times when we are irritated and irritable and nothing satisfies us.  We are unhappy with ourselves and unhappy with everyone  about us.  We want to disappear into a hot tub or slip off into a movie theater but we have responsibilities and we must gut out our frustrations.  Pain and disappointment are like psychological bobs; they bring up to the surface those parts of us we have tried our best to keep hidden.  And yet our anger is really there, our despair is still there, our deep sadness and weeping losses are still there.  Sin has stung us all both within and without and it changes the dynamic of our inner world living with its pain and sorrow.  When through trials and suffering our inner world works its way out of us and splatters the ones God brings our way, we confuse our reaction to hardship with the troubles we have.  The Lord as He hung upon the Cross with His shattered flesh screaming in pain did not stifle His inner world as His outer world hit up against it.  The one thief railed against Jesus and the Lord stayed silent and did not rail back because His inner world was at peace.  The other thief, who we forget also brought a flurry of hatred against Jesus came to his senses and sought our Lord's mercy.  Rather than letting His inner world be corrupted by the sin of the outer world, Jesus loved the second thief and gave Him the kindness that filled His heart to the brim.  It was that inner world that spilled out of Jesus...love untainted by hatred or despair, unhindered by all the humiliation and criticism brought to bear against Him, His inner world of peace and joy unmarred by the rejection and scorn leveled at Him .  That very nature; that continuous confidence in the Father and unwillingness to be corrupted by the pain He suffered is the nature the Lord will give us if we give Him room to do it.  We must trust Him with our inner world; allow the Lord to rework it that it might be born again.  The hatred we feel is real hatred; the bitterness over our losses is real bitterness.  Yet that is no longer our lasting world.  We have a new home, a home built in Christ and it is the most peaceful of sanctuaries.  The sign that we have settled into our new inner world is that what spills out of us when we are rattled by disappointment, trauma or ridicule is the same settled confidence Christ had that nothing came to Him except what the Father in His good and faithful love allowed and approved.  What insult can shake us when we have the nature of Christ within us?  What hardship is there that Christ did not face Himself and peacefully let pass?  What frightening possibility is there that is too much for the loving Father?  We have the mind of Christ and If we think through Him, what will come out of us during the furious storm will  heal the nations the Holy Spirit places along the way of our journey.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Psalm 51:10 NIV

Something More

It is presumption to make it out that we can convince anyone of the reasonableness of Christianity .  We can point out that Christianity is reasonable to the believer but that is as far as we can go.  The facts are the facts.  The universe is before us to explore and examine and any atheist or pagan is just as free to look at it closely as the most holy of Christians.  Our task is not to talk people into following Christ.  Jesus never went out of His way to convince anyone of anything.  He showed the disciples his hands and side, gave the congregation on the hillside food to eat but he didn't talk a single unbeliever into going after Him.  Herod and Pilate were classic examples of the bait Satan puts out there.  Neither of the splendid trophies of "churchianity" were offered a solitary nibble of rational evidence.  Christ left both crawling in the dust of their unbelief because each remained in rebellion against the clear facts of his sinfulness.  We must do two things if we want to be evangelists.  We must present the Gospel clearly and simply and we must let Christ rule over us as we walk about.  We are not to "do something" to get the world to believe; we are to be witnesses.  Yet our overriding call as a witness is not to be witnesses of the rationale behind our faith, we are to be witnesses of the faith itself.  You sow the seed of the Gospel at a point where humanity is alerted and it may very well lie there dormant for an unbearable length of time.  At once however, in a blink, that seed may come alive and sprout but we cannot initiate the work of it.  God Himself does it.  He brings a crisis, a despair, a spotlight upon the ugliness of sins and when He does, like lightning, the Gospel will awaken where it was buried and that one soul will choose to give the Cross a go in him and come alive or walk away from it and wither.  What makes baptism such an amazing event is that we witness the power of the Cross worked out in the physicality of faith.  Nothing should so vivify our joy as the sight of one soul socked up in sin released from her bonds and free to be completely given over to Christ.  Let the Lord live through you and when He gives you the word, say the Gospel clearly and without reticence.  God did not fill you up with the fullness of Christ so that you might be a useless bump on a log.  He has given you the opportunity to be a fisher of men.  Get after it!

"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."   Matthew  4:19-20 NIV

Head to Toe Him

One of the great movements of God is the flattening of the ego.  We think we know exactly what God wants to do with us, we prepare ourselves for His great interventions and then everything falls apart.  We go through the crushing despair  that wrecks our preconceived ideas of how God should be; of how He must be.  We also lose our sense of who we are; we are not basically good and well arranged, we are instead rebellious children who want our way above all else.  As God flattens us, He also picks us up off the ground and grants us favor in His Kingdom.  We learn to trust Him unconditionally.  We obey Him with finality.  We stick to Him when others about us turn traitorous.  God will not let you off the hook if you have given Him your life.  He will complete what He started which is to make you His completely both in how you are and how you look.  The family resemblance will be unmistakable when the Lord finishes with you.  The patience of His grace, the courage of His will, the integrity of His personality will be what is found in you too.  Until you look and sound and taste just like the wine and bread of Christ, you will feel the firm working of His hands upon your soul.  You are not in God's hand being polished; you are being remade and that does not come easily or quickly.  Taste and see that the Lord is good.  Is that not where you too are approaching?  It is not an imitation of Christ that you are gaining so much as the reality of it; Christ in you, the hope of glory.  The day will come when it will be impossible to separate the Christ from the you just as it is impossible for the one who knew your mother to be able to separate you from your mother as you approach her age.  The resemblance will not be at just one level of personality but through and through Christ will be seen in you.  That is where you are being taken and eventually you will get there.  The Cross of Jesus Christ, the redemption He established through it is the certification that you are being perfected even now as you walk through the fires and crushing of day by day life.  Give up on your hope of having a comfortable and clear life.  It will not happen as long as you are still a step away from the endpoint of being fully Christ's from head to toe.

God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.   Colossians 1:27 NIV

What Troubles

There is nothing wrong with being discouraged...if you don't mind denigrating God for the moment.  It is deceitful to say you trust the Lord and despair over your circumstance.  Faith is the hallmark of walking with Christ and to lack faith indicates a falling away.  The disciples got bent over their lack of bread and Christ did not condescend to their self-pitying.  He chided them for their lack of faith whenever they fell to whining.  Nothing unsettles the Christian's life in God more than the unwillingness to see the Lord in each and every circumstance whether we label it good or bad.  If all things work for good for those who love Him, then nothing works for bad.  It is a simple Venn diagram; even a mere child can see it.  If you must complain and feel sorry for yourself, then it is either that you have not tasted the goodness of the Lord or you have completely blinded yourself to your actual situation.  Even the stoning of Stephen worked for his good...just ask him now!  Can you imagine Stephen as he stood before the Sanhedrin shaking his fist at God as the first rocks began to fly?  You cannot because Stephen believed in God.  Do you face anything comparable to Stephen's circumstance?  Take your troubles before Job and whine to him about your trials.  Bring your hardship to Jeremiah and fuss over the difficulty of your task.  There is not a solitary trial you face that should make you cringe in worry and despair.  To be more than a conqueror is just foolishness for the pagan worrywart but it is the actual circumstance for the lowliest of Christians.  Grab your troubles and cast your fear to the wind.  Don't give in to the lustful dread of your end play.  It will work out for your good...not the good of some fantasy you have rolling around in your head of how things should be but it will come to a good conclusion in the Master's great mercy and care for how things are.  Reality never bites...it is the riches of Christ in store for you at every turn you take.

Laban and Bethuel answered, "This is from the Lord; we can say nothing to you one way or the other.  Genesis 24:50 NIV

Timed Responses

No part of any day is as big as the present moment.  Unlike the Lord who can live within each moment equally, we can only live perfectly within the present time, the past is a shadow, the future a misty guess.  Faith is never worked out of either the past or the future but just now.  How do fear and bitterness and discouragement and consternations arise...they filter out of the mind going back or moving ahead.  It is within this time only that you can see clearly the loving care of Christ poured out  upon all you hold dear because it is now that you assess through the eyes of faith and see the hand of God working here and there.  Both the past and the future are easily smeared by the wasting of Satan; God will keep your present pristine as you look to Him  and work through Him. You have the thousand regrets of the past and the ten thousand dreams and nightmares of the future but the present is the one spot where you can see everything as it is and give up everything haunting and grasping and hold only to the love of Christ working through you.  Ask, seek and knock are of neither the past nor the future but contained just within the present and it is in the present that you will have joy and peace.  Look to the Lord with the gaze of a sailor scanning the horizon for any sign of land.  You have waited a long time for some things, dread the coming of others.  Dreary memories dismay you, past achievements bind you.  It is in this place and time that the Lord will make you totally free to have joy and contentment.  Go hopefully and serenely to the Lord now and give this and that to Him as it comes before you.  Ask.  Seek. Knock.  That is the stuff you are to be about now.  Ask.  Seek.   Knock.  The Christian is perfectly within Gods will the moment He knocks for God to open,  seeks the Lord to be there,  asks His Savior to save him.   Give way to fear, despair, anger or frustration and you have left the moment and hidden yourself in either the past or the future.    When you realize you are stuck in that closet, get out as soon as you can and in a flash, the Lord will make your day clear and light.

Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, "We have seen remarkable things today."   Luke 5:26 NIV

Gratitude

I have started each day writing down a line of blessings. It has just been a three day discipline but already it feels like stretching out a bad back or flossing infected gums. I am not very good at it and it shows. My first day I could only write down two blessings; the second day I really improved and came up with three. One was pretty pitiful. I wrote that I was thankful that my car was repaired. Of course the repairs cost me one hundred dollars more than I expected and in the end, the mechanic listed two major problems my car has that because of its age and mileage are too expensive to fix. So, my repair gratitude was grudgingly added to make me sound thankful…or pretend I was thankful.

It cannot be simply a natural tendency to pessimism that makes gratitude such a strain. I just do not have the inherent talent to be thankful when I have a headache, the living room is full of clothes and toys and half the congregation is gone on Sunday. My gratitude list is far too short for someone living with Jesus and much too shallow for all I have been given. When I was in graduate school, my supervisor was providing an in-service on parent training. She talked about how difficult it is sometimes to compliment your children. She told of one parent, determined to say something good about her child blurting out, “I really like how your nose sits right in the middle of your face.” My prayers often have that same feel. “Thank you Lord for the air I breathe.” “Thank you Lord for the flu only lasting three days.” Thank you Lord that my car broke just forty-five minutes from the nearest mechanic.”

It is a stretch to be thankful but it is a stretch to cook dinner sometimes, a stretch to get up before dawn and a stretch to smile when your back aches but we do all these things anyway. The other day I was asked by one of the teens in our youth group whose idea it was to organize a hike up mission peak. Because I wasn’t sure if he was glad he went or angry he had to go, I hesitated before I answered. He did get to stand at the end on top of the world looking down on a billion city lights, look up at trillions of stars and breathe the fresh air of a cool breeze floating over the peak. I think I like life better when I think a bit more about the twinkling city lights than the sweat dripping off my brow. That alone may make gratitude worth the effort. I read recently of a beautiful young professional golfer who committed suicide. I do not know why she took her life but perhaps she missed the sparkling stars one too many times as she climbed the peak she was given. The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days there “will be terrible times…” He also said in the same letter, “I thank God…” The two can co-exist in one heart at the same time. Gratitude may be the most viable and definitive mode of expression limiting the progression of bitterness, pride and despair all in one fell swoop. Just one thankful comment can turn around a gloomy day…a cheap remedy that no elixir can match.