What’s the Point?

The past eight months have been a painful trial for me.  I have struggled through my first extended physical illness.  Despite the many healthy changes I’ve made to my diet in recent years, I had to completely overhaul my eating.   Food has been a source of comfort and joy to me over the years; particularly sugar.  The biggest challenge in changing my diet has been the stripping away of every comfort food I have enjoyed.  I really had no idea how much food meant to me until it was taken away.

In the midst of this personal health crisis, it feels as if all hell has broken loose in other areas of life also.  The medical challenges our family incurred over the past several years have led to extreme financial stress.  We’ve had family issues, sick dogs, dying computers (the children attend a school that requires working computers), broken old cars, isolation from others, minor depression, lack of vision, and to top it off, a month long case of severe poison ivy.   I have never experienced a season where the book of Job so resonated with me. 

Yet the most challenging aspect of this season has been my perception of God’s distance from me.  I know he has not moved because Christ lives in me.  But the normal, intimate relationship I have always shared with him has seemed increasingly quiet and almost dormant.   I have searched my life for sin that would rupture our relationship and that which I discovered I have repented of and changed.  But in general, there isn’t any major flaw in our relationship; except he seems distant.   A few times, when the pain was particularly bad, I have been tempted to throw up my hands and cry out, “What’s the point?” “Why is this happening?”

1 Peter 4:2 says, “Think of your suffering as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way,” (The Message). My own suffering appears to be accomplishing this.  If it doesn’t cause you to “curse God and die” as Job’s wife foolishly counseled, suffering is proficient at stripping you of “expecting to get your own way.” Peter tells us that as we faithfully endure this self-stripping, we become truly available to God’s purposes in our lives. “Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want,” (1Peter 4:3 Msg).

Continuing to discover that I am not in control (all life teaches us this!) gives me the opportunity to choose the freedom of resting in Him.  I can rest knowing that Christ already suffered through this and I am receiving the privilege of joining him in that.  Despite how I feel, I choose to trust his goodness and care for me. I choose to trust that He has a plan that He is busy working out in my life and the lives of those I love.  I know based on God’s Word that this time of trial is working good things for me.  I don’t write these things lightly… it hasn’t come easily. But I know it to be true.

Be encouraged today.  No matter what you are going through, God has you in his sight.  His love for you was demonstrated and forever declared in space and time through the suffering of his Son on the cross. As Peter writes, “When life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner,” (1 Peter 4:13).

Your Spiritual Job Description

“Bless– that’s your job, to bless,” (1Peter 3:9 Msg).

What if all Christians knew that blessing is what God wants us to do on this earth? The world would a completely different place– and I don’t mean in some naive way that evil would cease to exist and that everyone would just get along.  What I mean is that if we lived lives that bless in the biblical sense; if we saw blessing as our spiritual job description, then an incredible amount of good would occur in this world and God would be known and rightly exalted by even more people.

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what the word bless actually means, and particularly here in the Southern part of the United States where I live.  People routinely bandy the word about in everyday conversation but it rarely seems positive.  You’ll often hear people say: “bless her/his heart” right before they begin to gossip about the person.  As in, “Bless her heart, she’s back on the booze again.”  “Bless his heart, he can’t hold down a job.”  It’s kind of a round about way of tearing someone down while at the same time sounding like you actually care about them.

The apostle Peter tells us that blessing is what God has given us to do as our calling. “Bless,” he says, ” for to this you were called,” (I Peter 3:9 ESV). You were called by God to bless and to be a blessing. But what does that mean?  First of all, to bless in scripture means to declare or extend through pronouncement or action, God’s favor and goodness upon others. In the case of speaking words of blessing, the significance comes not merely with the words themselves but also in the effect those words bring as the Holy Spirit fills them with power to bring them to pass. When it comes to actions, blessing means to enrich physically, materially or spiritually.  Blessing always brings forth life and goodness and that which is in accord with God’s character and his ways.

The words we speak to others hold great power.  Our words can bless and build others or they can tear down and destroy.  We often think that once something is out of our mouth, its evaporated into air.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Our words land places and affect people’s hearts and lives.  Our actions do the same.  Even the seemingly insignificant small things you do in order to bless and bring life to others count.  We don’t know and see all that God sees; we don’t even know and see all that people around us see.

Ultimately, blessing is God’s idea.  He is the one who gives us his favor and enrichment. It would be entirely  appropriate to say that all we have from God is part of his blessing to us.  He has given us this incredible, diverse, and beautiful world in which we live. He gives us life and fruitfulness. He blesses us by turning us away from evil and by forgiving our sins. He freely offers to all who come to Him his grace,  pardon and promise of eternal life. From start to finish, His words and his actions bring about life, healing, and growth.  He asks those of us who belong to Him to do the same for others. We are called to intentionally turn away from all that is evil and instead bring goodness — that is God-ness: God’s ways, God’s character, and God’s life  to all whom we encounter. When we do this, we ourselves receive God’s blessing.

“Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good, Here’s what you do: Say nothing evil or hurtful; Snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you’re worth. God looks on all this with approval, listening and responding well to what he’s asked; But he turns his back on those who do evil things,” (1Peter 3:10-12).

 

 

Get Real With God

I was studying in Spain the summer before my junior year in college when my grandmother died.  After returning to the States, I made it a point to go to her graveside.  I was terribly sad to lose her; she had lived 90 years well.  She had a deep, abiding reverent faith in God.  She was very proper and formal.  She and my grandfather had served in ministry together for nearly 70 years.  I can remember her telling me as a child that I needed to dress up for church to show my respect for God in his house.  So, when I decided to see her grave, out of respect for her viewpoint, I put on a dress.  I thought she would approve.  I drove over to the cemetery and parked the car.  Her grave site was a long walk across the graveyard.  I made my way through the fence and past dozens of graves to her gravestone when I realized I had a huge wad of bubble gum in my mouth.  In my angst of visiting, I was smacking it loudly to myself.  Mortified that perhaps she could hear me, I turned and ran out of the cemetery and looked for the nearest trash can to throw it out.  As I returned, I realized how foolish I was.  First of all, Grandmother was not watching me.  What I wore to visit her grave was of no consequence.  She was in a much better place where style and etiquette simply don’t matter.  Second, she couldn’t hear me popping my gum, either.  I didn’t need to waste it throwing it out before the flavor was gone.  Finally, while my Grandmother was right about nearly everything, I don’t agree that God cares for reverent piety and an outward show of respect through clothing.  I do think, though, that  Grandmother would agree that He looks upon the heart.  Where we differ is that she would challenge that your outward piety demonstrated an inward reverence.  But I disagree.

And I’m in good company.  Job is having quite a dialogue with his buddies.  Repeatedly, they call him on the carpet for addressing God so irreverently and speaking to God as if he were mortal.  Eliphaz scolds him,

“Would a wise person answer with empty notions or fill their belly with the hot east wind? Would they argue with useless words, with speeches that have no value? But you even undermine piety and hinder devotion to God,” (Job 15:2-4).

Religion dictates that certain rules and forms be followed.  But Job is not interested in religion.  He knows religion is useless to him.  What he is desperate for is answers from God himself.  The only way to get answers is to ask questions.  When you’re whole life has turned inside out, you are going to have some emotional questions to ask God.  What further torments Job is that he can’t hear God.  Eliphaz adds insult to injury when he say, “Are God’s promises not enough for you, spoken so gently and tenderly?” (Job 15:11).  At this point in Job’s story, God hasn’t entered the conversation yet so I have to assume Eliphaz thinks his own words are directly from God.  Hardly gentle or tender.  Job rebukes him as such in chapter 16,

“I’ve had all I can take of your talk. What a bunch of miserable comforters! Is there no end to your windbag speeches? What’s your problem that you go on and on like this? If you were in my shoes, I could talk just like you. I could put together a terrific harangue and really let you have it. But I’d never do that. I’d console and comfort, make things better, not worse!    (Job 16:1-5)

I love Job’s engagement here.  He differentiates himself and maintains his position.  Job speaks clearly and directly to God venting his frustration and bewilderment over his suffering.  He is serious about understanding God.  He wants truth and he wants answers.  His heart is blameless.  Nowhere does he curse God or trivialize God.  If fact, he does just the opposite.  He addresses God head on.  I see Job’s intensity and volatility representing a deep passion for true relationship with his Creator.  Nowhere do I see impropriety or an inappropriate familiarity.  He is simply getting it all out to get to the bottom of his despair.  He cannot get to the bottom of it by piping out platitudes and religious cliches.  He knows the pain is not going away until God himself removes it.  He knows his situation is not going to change unless God himself changes it.  So he takes everything he’s got and goes all out to question and understand God.

We’re only halfway through Job’s story but I’ve already peeked at the end.  And Job ends well.  God is okay with Job venting his frustration because Job’s heart is pure.  Job isn’t looking to trash God or belittle him, he’s looking for a way out of a pretty extraordinary situation.  And God can handle his anger.  He can handle yours, too.  We get into trouble when we minimize our troubles and snack away on pious, pithy Christian expressions.  Put all that away and simply pour out your heart to God.  He can handle your anger and he can handle your questions.  Nothing you’ve got is anything He hasn’t seen before.  If you can’t hear him just yet, then strengthen yourself by waiting.  Trust that at his very core, God is good.  Good things are coming.  They always do.  I’ve peeked at the end.

Have You Been Forgotten?

Sometimes in the midst of struggle, you might wonder if God has forgotten you.  The fact of the matter is that he hasn’t; despite how it may feel right now.  God cannot and will not forget you. When it comes to his people, no matter where you are or how you feel, no matter what chasm of loneliness, sin, hardship, or despair you find yourself in; in God’s eyes, “Not one (person) is missing, not one forgotten,” (1 Peter 1:2 Msg).

I have been tempted at times to believe that God has abandoned me.  But it’s just not true. Life is simply hard, especially when you look around and see everyone else apparently thriving and yet you feel as though life is withering.  Do you know what this is like? When your dreams have been crushed? When relationships turn out to be less than what you’d desired they would be?  When finances sink and you can’t figure out how to pay all the mounting bills?  Or when your health is gone and everything hurts?  Or when depression mounts and all is veiled so that your heart’s vision is lost?  There seems to be no end in sight. It’s in the crush of life that God often appears so far away. It’s the proverbial “curveballs” that leave your head spinning and your heart wondering, “Surely there’s more than this?”

The apostle Peter reminds us that, “God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all — life healed and whole,” (1Peter 1:5 Msg). There will be an end to the trial and the pain. And God assures us that there is a redemptive purpose in what you are going through. Your life is not a cosmic joke spun by a sadistic God. No, the struggle has purpose. We put up with aggravations in this life that strengthen our faith and cause us to live what we believe.

I was thinking about one of my grandmothers this morning. She had a difficult life. Her first born son died when he was just a toddler.  Her only other son, my father, was profoundly affected by his combat tour in Viet Nam.  He came back with PTSD and drug and alcohol problems that led to his leaving my mother and me.  My grandmother essentially lost my dad through  the war and me through the divorce and subsequent move across the country.  Imagine all the male sons of your family lost to you in one form or another.  And yet in the later years of her life, my grandmother had a joy about her that was tangible.  It wasn’t a situational based happiness, but a deep-seated confidence in Jesus Christ and a hope in his unfailing care for her.  She knew that things would eventually work out whether in this life or in the next.  Incidentally, she got her  sons back before she died — she got me back when I came to faith in Christ. She got my father back when I led him to the Lord just before his death.  She could have never predicted this outcome though she prayed for it fervently for years. God doesn’t let go of his own. He never forgets and he uses the trials and struggles in this life in ways that we cannot imagine in order to work his eternal purposes into  our lives.

“Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will  have on display as evidence of his victory….Because you kept on believing, you’ll get what you’re looking forward to: total salvation,” (1 Peter 1:7, 9 Msg).

What are you waiting for?

Wait, wait, wait.  All three of our readings today encourage us to wait.  We are waiting with Job as he wrestles with God and his checked out friends.  Isaiah speaks to the Israelites a message of comfort; the seige from the outside aggressors is coming to an end soon.  Wait and trust it is coming. James challenges the church to wait patiently for Christ’s return.

Waiting is so hard.  Few of us know how to wait well.  What is waiting, anyway?  When I hear that word, my mind races to a hospital waiting room.  I feel a slight tinge of angst.  The word wait connotes sitting helplessly while life runs out of control.  In reality, waiting is not passive at all.  Miriam Webster defines the verb to  wait as “to stay in place in expectation, to look forward expectantly, to be ready and available.”  Waiting is often a crucial way that we become stronger in our faith.  James gives terrific advice on how to wait.  He likens our waiting to the farmer expecting his crop to mature.  In the midst of hardship, we can know good things are coming; we just can’t see them yet.  The fields have been tilled and prepared, the seeds have been planted, the ground watered and nurtured.  The plants will come.  Provision will make its way forth.

In the meantime, seek out the counsel of wise mentors.  Find those who have traveled the path you are on with faithfulness.  Job wrestled with God but he stayed the course with Him and God brought about a strong finish for him in the end.  While you are waiting, clean up your act.  Choose your words carefully and speak simply.

While you’re waiting, connect with the body of believers and pray with them.  Invite them to bear your burdens with you.  If things are going well, then offer praise to God for that.  Praise him corporately.  Psalm 22 tells us that God inhabits the praises of his people.  If you want to see more of God, just start singing and praising him. Praise is a powerful way to pray.

If things are going poorly, have the church pray with you.  Develop your prayer life.  Many of us believe prayer is simply asking God for something.  It is so much more than that.  Prayer is an ongoing dialogue where we speak and then we listen.  It is a soaking in of His presence; it is the nourishment for our Spirit.  It is the place of abiding deeply with Christ.  It is how we remain grafted in to the vine so that we grow.    Prayer is living intentionally with our spirit focused on Him.  We listen for Him to speak all around us through nature, through the Church, through other believers, through Scripture.  Pray through writing; write to him and listen for what He gives you to write down.  We listen for him to speak directly to us as well.  We remove any obstacles to hearing Him throughout the day. Praying God’s will is a powerful thing.  Waiting on God is hardly a passive way of living.

In our waiting, James also tells us to  ask forgiveness for our sins.  We allow the Holy Spirit to quicken our hearts to recognize when we’ve turned away from him in any way.  We stop what we’re doing and return to him.  We confess our sins to each other.  Confession is a powerful tool in our waiting.  It clears the roadway that we travel with Christ.  We have assurance that if we confess he will forgive us. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  We don’t get this assurance from just anyone…we get this from Christ whose blood provided our payment.  Not everyone will forgive you when you make a mistake, but God always will when you confess to him.  James tells us in 5:16: “Make this your common practice:  Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.”  Isn’t this what every person is looking for whether they know it or not…to be whole and healed?  Healing and wholeness often come in the waiting.

 

The Case for Mercy

Job has lost everything. His family, finances, and health are all gone. And his friends sure aren’t helping matters. Though they have come to sit with him in his pain and sorrow (a good thing!), their assessment of God and of Job’s suffering are unhelpful.  No one wants to hear platitudes and pet theology in the midst of their pain. Job’s buddy Bildad makes a speech that rankles Job.  In essence, he says that Job’s recently deceased children have gotten what they deserved because, “It’s plain that your children sinned against God — otherwise why would God have punished them?” (Job 8:4 Msg). He goes on, “There’s no way that God will reject a good person and there is no way he’ll help a bad one,” (Job 8:20 NIV). The implication is that Job is getting his comeuppance from God too.  This doesn’t resonate with Job; and it shouldn’t.  He hasn’t done anything wrong.  Not every trial we go through is simply the consequences of our actions.   Bildad’s advice is based on false information. His prescription for Job is to start behaving right again to appease God and then everything will be okay.  Bad advice.

And that’s how Job responds. The questions that most of ask in the midst of pain are similar to the ones Job is pondering: “What have I done wrong?” “Where have I messed up?” “What have I done to deserve this?” “Why is God doing this to me?” “How can I fix this?” When Job realizes he can’t answer any of his own questions, he decides that God must simply be against him. So he begins his complaint and starts to argue his case for justice before God.  He stops short when he realizes that there is no way he can win a debate with the Lord.  “God’s wisdom is so deep, God’s power so immense, who could take him on and come out in one piece?” (Job 9:4 Msg). After all, God is infinite, eternal, all-knowing, and all-powerful.  Who can stop him should he set a course of action in place?  Who can out maneuver or out think him?

Finally Job comes to the conclusion that with God you’ve got to go for mercy over justice. “So how could I ever argue with him, construct a defense that would influence God? Even though I’m innocent I could never prove it; I can only throw myself on the Judge’s mercy.”  I saw the wisdom of this a few years ago when I received a speeding ticket.  I was driving 35 in an unmarked 25 mile an hour zone.  I thought I could argue that I had no way to know the speed limit was 25.  I went to traffic court and watched person after person argue about their moving violations. Some declared the ineptitude of police and of radar detectors. Others cried and manipulated. Still others angrily declared the injustice of traffic laws.  As I prayed about the situation before me, I realized that none of them were asking for mercy and as such the Judge never gave them any. The Lord told me to ask for mercy.  When it was my turn to approach the judge, that’s what I did.  I stated my case and asked for mercy.  And that’s exactly what I received.

Job’s back is against a wall.  He wishes he had never been born rather than to live day after day in extraordinary grief and pain.  He can’t stand his plight.  He defends himself to God and throws himself on God’s mercy, “”How I wish we had an arbitrator to step in and let me get on with life — to break God’s death grip on me, to free me from this terror so I could breathe again, (Job 9:34 Msg). He is asking for a go-between. He is looking for representation. He seeks an advocate.  He points to all of our great need before the justice of God.  We need someone on our side who can speak on our behalf.  And that’s what we have in Jesus: An Advocate who is continually on our side.  When we sin, his blood pays the penalty. When we experience injustice, he declares our innocence and intercedes for us in our need. In our pain, he sits with us and reassures us that he has felt our pain, too.  He walks with us through the dark seasons of life.  No matter what you are suffering or struggling through right now; don’t think you deserve God’s justice.  None of us could stand under God’s justice.  Instead, plead for his mercy.

Navigating Life’s Hard Path

There are no easy paths through life.  There are no quick solutions, no easy answers.  Each of us walks a road that challenges us.  Having lost his children, his wealth and now his health, Job wrestles with the path laid out before him.  Once a man of great influence and prosperity, he now has nothing to show for his years of hard work and integrity.  His life makes no sense anymore.  Don’t the good win?  If we make good decisions and pay our taxes and honor those around us, don’t we come out okay in the end?  The challenge for Job isn’t the end, its in the meantime.  Isn’t that the challenge for each of us?  How do we negotiate the hard things in the middle of life that don’t make sense to us.

We all process life in different ways.  Some of us swallow it bit by bit and figure it all out privately in our minds.  Others of us process it externally through writing or talking.  Job is hurting profoundly and cries out,

“And so I’m not keeping one bit of this quiet, I’m laying it all out on the table; my complaining to high heaven is bitter, but honest.” (Job 7:11 the Message)

He is undone and he has nothing left to lose.  He tells God how it is.  He is in constant physical pain that even sleep does not relieve.  He continues in his cry to God, “You come and so scare me with nightmares and frighten me with ghosts that I’d rather strangle in the bedclothes than face this kind of life any longer.  I hate this life!  Who needs any more of this? Let me alone!….” (7:14-16)

Job is a man battling tremendous physical pain, depression, and anxiety all at the same time. He cannot even sleep to escape.  Yet in his angst, he chooses to engage with God.  He speaks to him, he rips open his heart and bares his thoughts.  He is undone.  His friends offer bad theology and formulaic faith.  Bildad tells him,

“ When your children sinned against him,  he gave them over to the penalty of their sin. But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state.”

Is God so small that we can reduce him to a simple formula?   Such as, “If I do X, God is bound to do Y.”

At some point, we have to decide that God really is good.  We may not be able to see goodness around us or goodness in our situation, but if our bedrock belief in God’s goodness is not sealed in place we will be shaken to the core.  God is good.  It is his very nature, his very character.  There is a war against God and it manifests in evil all around us.  We cannot understand or fathom the size of God or the mystery of why things happen in life the way that they do.  When we reduce God to our own size to match our own intellect and our own genius, we strip him of being God.  He knows things we don’t know.  He sees the future and we do not.  He knows beyond our minds and hearts and we can trust that his goodness in character will prevail among the difficulties we face.

Job wisely recognizes the futility of human thinking.  He maintains God’s enormous being and he squares up and faces God head on.  He tells him,

^17-21 “What are mortals anyway, that you bother with them, that you even give them the time of day? That you check up on them every morning, looking in on them to see how they’re doing?
Let up on me, will you? Can’t you even let me spit in peace? Even suppose I’d sinned—how would that hurt you?”

God is so much bigger than our struggles, our worries, our heartache, our disappointments.  Yet he chooses to walk with us.  He chose to leave heaven and come and walk among us.  He chose to become human in the person of Jesus Christ and to give us a tangible expression of his love and understanding.  Hebrews 2 reminds us that Jesus suffered through every temptation so that he could rescue us.  He endured rejection, shame, humiliation, abandonment and a horrific death on our behalf.  He knows what you are going through.  He has been through it himself.  Job didn’t know Jesus but he knew God.  He knew God’s very character.  He knew his size and his power and he laments his own futile understanding of his plight.  He chooses to go to God and plead his case with God.  Job chooses to cry out in his misery and to wrestle through his despair.  Isn’t this what God calls each of us to do?

We cannot begin to understand why some things happen or why life takes us on detours we weren’t expecting.  We can argue and wrestle but at the end of the day; we are still where we are.  We can try bad theology and formulaic faith but it will not change our situation.  Often, our situation will not change.  We can only endure it in the midst of seeking the mercy and kindness of God.   If you are struggling today, I urge you to cling to his goodness.  Cling to the cross of Jesus Christ – the very demonstration of God’s heart to you.

Outrageous Nonsense

For believers and non believers alike, James 2 hits us where it hurts.  James was the brother of Jesus and an influential leader in the early church.  He knew and understood his brother’s heart well.  He knew the battle that all of us face in walking out our faith.  He also knew that our battle in walking out our faith is one of the key stumbling blocks to people coming into the faith.  We say we believe in Jesus and that we’ve received his salvation but we sit still twiddling our thumbs in our Spirit life.  We receive the greatest gift there is of love and mercy but leave it barely opened on the table when it’s time to share it with others.  We acknowledge we have this new life of faith and call ourselves believers yet we return to life as if nothing has changed.  Do we really believe or not?

We cannot expect others around us to believe we’ve actually received this life giving gift of love and mercy if we cannot show evidence of it.  Its like telling your friends you just won the lottery but you continue to live in the ghetto and walk everywhere.  Who would believe you?  Wouldn’t you buy a home and a car and invite friends over to share your new fortune?  How can we tell people that we are owners of the greatest love that has ever been yet fail to love them with it?  As James asks,  “Isn’t it obvious that God-talk with out God-acts is outrageous nonsense?’ (James 2:17 the Message)

At the same time, showing evidence of the love without believing the One who loves us is equally absurd.  It is a waste of eternity.  Eternity starts this very minute.  We believe in our hearts and the love we’ve received overwhelms us to flow into the lives of others through our actions.  Our actions must be consistent.  James reminds us that treating society’s best differently from society’s outcasts is dangerous.  God’s love is for one and all.  Equal treatment.  If we love him, we love all equally.  Here is where it hurts.  Do I really believe Jesus died for every single person in order to reconcile us to God our Father and to enjoy the freedom and abundance of His love for us?  Or did he die for the ones with whom I’m comfortable and able to connect.  This is hard.  It is a pruning of sorts.  I must allow God to prune back all that blocks me from loving every person he allows on my path.  Some are easy, many simply are not.

Our culture and society tell us that who we interact with matters and we must connect with the right people.  This is true; we do need to connect with the right people. The “right people” in the world’s eyes aren’t necessarily the same as those God calls “right”.  To God, the right people are those who are hungry and needy and desperate for his kindness to reach them.  “God chose the world’s down-and-out as the kingdom’s first citizens, with full right and privileges,” (James 2:6). These are often the difficult people in our lives; the ones who cut us off, who smell bad, who do not fit in.  If we’re a part of God’s kingdom and his culture, then we love everyone He loves regardless of how they look, smell or succeed in life.

The world doesn’t know Jesus Christ in large part because we don’t love others with the love we say we have from him.  We speak one thing and go and do something entirely different.  We stay in our small safe circles of friends, we walk on our narrow safe path through life, we avoid those who might challenge our routine.  We tell people we’re saved but we’re unwilling to extend salvation to those who most desperately need it.

Let’s live lives with integrity.  “Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.” (James 2:18).  Who is in your life that is desperate to know God’s love?  Who  do you need share His heart with? Sometimes the neediest can be the most offensive.  Loving them could be a gesture as small as a smile or as large as inviting them over to eat.  Who is God putting in your path that needs his peace and hope.  If you believe, then you are filled with his Spirit and He wants to pour out his love out through you.  How is he calling you to love others today?

 

Take His Hand

Some of the most challenging questions we receive in ministry are the questions related to suffering.  In our rugged, individualized Western mindset, we expect answers that make sense to us and that lead us to a straight forward plan that alleviates all pain.  When answers fail us, we grasp for any sense of understanding we can find out of situations that make no sense.  Sometimes we go to religious leaders expecting them to give us the quick God-fix. We demand that God gives us a rose colored, pocket-sized lens with which to view all life.   But God is bigger than that.

Job gives voice to suffering like no other in Scripture.  He starts with everything. He is at the top of his game in every way.  He has wealth, family, prosperity, respect, influence, high moral integrity and good health.  In the time it takes to sneeze, his wealth and his family vanish.  He stands upright and acknowledges that all things come from God and all things will return to God at God’s discretion (Job 1:21). There is another sneeze and his own health vanishes.  His wife condemns God; yet Job refuses to curse Him.

Instead, Job gives voice to suffering.  Not only his own, but for each of us.  Job enters into the mystery of suffering and chooses to do so before God.  He wonders why he was even born.  He questions the favor of death.  At least everyone holds equal ground in death.  Why does God bother keeping the miserable alive?  It’s a great question.  “What’s the point of life when it doesn’t make sense, when God blocks all the roads to meaning?” (Job 3:23 Message)

The further we go with life, the more likely we will face suffering of some kind.  Following God does not exempt us from pain.  In fact, Job reveals that God allowed the horrific suffering he faced.  How does a good God allow suffering?  That is the million dollar question.  I have asked it countless times.  How can we make it end?  How do we fix it? Job’s friend Eliphaz believes suffering has an easy solution.  Correct the mistakes you’ve made and God will ease up.  But is that really the nature of God?  Simply go back and correct our mistakes?  That misses the point.

The challenge of suffering is to receive its invitation to face God and to walk through it hand in hand with Him.   Certainly we make mistakes and pay the consequences.  But more often than not, our suffering has nothing to do with mistakes we’ve made.  It has to do with the greater plan God has for our lives in shaping and transforming us to His likeness.  If you choose to view suffering as something you can control, you will get lost in a tug of war of blame, name calling, fix it yourself strategies and the addiction to ease your pain.  These only serve to keep you distracted from the greater issue at hand:  God is inviting you into relationship with him to journey through this.

God’ invitation is in stark contrast to how we’ve been trained.  The car dies?  Take it to the dealer.  The computer crashes?  Take it to the expert.  Your child fails a math test?  Find a math tutor.  We like to get the things in our lives fixed quickly and as painlessly as possible.  We do all we can to maintain control over the situation.  The biggest challenge with suffering is that it’s really beyond our control.  Only God understands it.  Job has figured this out and he goes straight to God with his problem of pain.  God is the expert on the mystery of suffering.   Only He can chart the course, navigate the heart and lead us through it to the other side.  If you are suffering right now, know that you are not alone.  You may feel angry, hurt or bitter with God but he can handle that. James 1:2 tells us,  ^“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way,” (Msg).

God stands ready to join you and to walk you to the other side. Walking with him helps alleviate the pressure and the hurt.  Take heart, there is hope.  He is the God of hope.  He conquered death and made a glorious eternity accessible to you and me.  Take his hand and allow him to lead you through.  Keep your eyes fixed on an eternity where we will suffer no more.

 

Wanna Please God?

There is only one way to please God and that is by: FAITH.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “For without faith it is impossible to please God.”  Let’s flip that statement around and look at it from a positive angle.  For with faith, it is possible to please God. God is pleased with those who have faith. God is only pleased by faith. He delights in it and those who exercise it.

God is not impressed with our self-referential achievements. He doesn’t respond to our religious posturing. He is not swayed by our relentless striving. He loves it when we  trust him.  That’s what faith is.  A loving trust in the living God that moves beyond the realm of ideas and into the essence of life.  Faith has to be lived to be real. It’s an everyday trust that shows itself throughout every aspect of life.  Faith is seen most clearly when it causes us to go against the grain of the way the rest of the world does things.  And that’s usually when our faith costs us.

When I worked for a software company many years ago, I was placed in charge of a project that had fallen way behind schedule.  I worked relentlessly to salvage the assignment.  That meant that I was working 7 days a week and 12 to 15 hours a day.  I was neglecting my young wife and baby.  The Lord began to convict me that I wasn’t honoring him and I wasn’t loving my family. So I began to put some boundaries in place.  My boss, whose bonus was tied into the project completion date, was not pleased with me.  In fact it ultimately cost me a significant promotion.  But, in honoring God and my family, my core relationships stayed healthy.  Oh, and God made it possible for us to complete the project on time to everyone’s surprise.

It’s interesting that throughout Hebrews 11, the ancients were commended for their faith. “For by faith the people of old received their commendation,” (Hebrews 11:2). God rewarded faith.  God responded to their trust in him. God recognized their actions as praiseworthy. He loved the cooperative trajectory of their lives.

And what did their faith consist of?  It wasn’t a perfect set of doctrines… It doesn’t say Abel was commended for understanding grace.  Or that Enoch was rewarded for defining the Trinity. Or that Noah received God’s approval for his spectacular theology.  I’m not against doctrine — I just want to see doctrine applied to life.   Essentially what the ancients were rewarded for was their relationship to the living God. They listened to him and believed what He told them.  They trusted what he said and they dared to believe that God would fulfill his promises to them.  Even when what He told them looked impossible and especially when they couldn’t figure it all out ahead of time.  Believing Him, they acted accordingly.

And isn’t that what faith is, really?  An active, tangible engagement with an invisible but real God.  In fact, Hebrews 11 is one of the most active and exciting chapters of the bible.  It’s all about trust with feet on it.  That’s my definition of faith.  Trust with feet on it.  Belief that acts in response to God.  Each of the heroes written about has responded to God with trust and enjoyed an incredible adventure with him.  Enough to write home about!

So how do you live by faith?  You begin by believing God exists and that he rewards those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6). You study and listen to his word and allow it to shape your life.  You spend time with him in prayer listening to him and seeking his will for your life… and then doing what he says. Ask him to lead you through each decision you make during the day.  When you move from finishing one task, ask him about the next.  Watch him show up and lead you.  Trust that he will even when you can’t see him.  That’s what will please him and that’s what he will reward.