suffering

Adding to, Not Taking Away

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I confess that I don’t really know too much about the singer Nightbirde, whose real name was Jane Kristen Marczewski. I know that she was a singer-songwriter. I also know that she was a contestant on America’s Got Talent. I remember she had been diagnosed with cancer and her husband left her right before she went on the show. I know how sad I was when I found out she had passed away.

But she left us with some beautiful music and some inspiring quotes that showed her resilient faith in God that not even cancer could kill. These following words were her testimony to the end:

“When it comes to pain, God isn’t often in the business of taking it away. Instead, he adds to it. He is more of a giver than a taker. He doesn’t take away my darkness, he adds light. He doesn’t spare me of thirst, he brings water. He doesn’t cure my loneliness, he comes near. So why do we believe that when we are in pain, it must mean God is far?” (Jane Kristen Marczewski aka Nightbirde).

I forget that. I think that God can only speak through blessing or that God is near only when the sun is shining. I forget that pain is often God’s way of getting my attention. I forget that you can’t wrestle with someone who’s far away, so those times must mean God is near (with much thanks to Jon Acuff for that one).

God is using what I would like to avoid to grow me up. Rather than taking me out of struggles and storms, God goes through them with me and I learn to trust God’s nearness even when I can’t feel it. I trust God’s hand even when I can’t see it. I trust God’s heart even when I don’t understand it.

Worshipping Through Weeping

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Weeping may last through the night,
    but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5, NLT).

Today as a deacon, I attended the celebration of life service for one of our members who tragically lost his life at age 42. He had been married only 16 months when his life was unexpectedly cut short.

The funeral was beautiful and God-honoring. My favorite part of the entire service was when the worship leader sang the first song, the widow of the deceased stood up alone and raised her hands in worship, grieving and praising at the same time.

That’s an image I will carry with me as long as I live, I think. She had her world utterly wrecked like a rug pulled out from underneath her and still was able to declare like Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21, ESV).

There is so much evil in the world and so much that makes no sense. If this life is all there is, then there is no hope, no future, and no reason to keep going. But if we have the promise of God for something better coming (and we do), then we know that this is what the Apostle Paul calls a light and momentary affliction compared to the joy that’s coming.

Not that grief is nothing. Not that the pain isn’t real. But the coming joy will overwhelm us and seem so much greater than any sorrow that went before, like a woman holding her newborn baby after the agony of giving birth only is thinking of new life and not pain.

My brain has no compartment for comprehending the level of suffering this woman is currently undergoing and how radically different her life will be from now on. There will always be a void where her husband should be and a dull ache that never completely goes away, but there will always be a Father’s love that grows deeper and sweeter with the passing of time.

“Yea, though walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” The psalm does not pretend that evil and death do not exist. Terrible things happen, and they happen to good people as well as to bad people. Even the paths of righteousness lead through the valley of the shadow. Death lies ahead for all of us, saints and sinners alike, and for all the ones we love. The psalmist doesn’t try to explain evil. He doesn’t try to minimize evil. He simply says he will not fear evil. For all the power that evil has, it doesn’t have the power to make him afraid” Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry).

More Like Jesus

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

More purity give me;
More strength to over-come;
More freedom from earth-stains;
More longings for home;
More fit for the kingdom;
More used would I be;
More blessed and holy;
More, Saviour, like Thee” (Phillip P. Bliss).

Sometimes, I think the reason that I’m not more like Jesus is that I’m not willing to do whatever it takes to look more like Jesus. Sure, I pray that God would conform me into the image of His Son, but when that process starts, it looks a lot like stuff I don’t like.

When my job position got eliminated, maybe that was God’s answer to my prayer to look more like Jesus. When I was having trouble with my old Jeep and wondering why it kept breaking down and leaking, maybe God was molding me.

If it were up to me, I’d never have to deal with anything stressful or uncomfortable. I’d go from strength to strength, from comfort to comfort. And at the end of the day, I’d look a lot less like Jesus and a lot more like the old me.

Thankfully, God didn’t ask for my permission before He began chiseling away at the sharp edges and the abrasive angles and the rough patches in me. I’m grateful God loves me as I am but won’t let me stay that way.

The old analogy is perfect. It’s like I’m the arrow that God is aiming at the target and He keeps pulling and stretching sometimes beyond what I can endure, but still He goes on pulling and stretching. He waits until I am perfectly centered on the target that only He can see, then He lets loose.

You never really think about archery from the perspective of the arrow. At least I normally don’t. But God does. Every single trial, every single set-back, every single disappointment is God preparing you for a future that only He can see and a destiny that only He knows.

And one day it will all have been worth it. You will look back and see that everything worked out beautifully and had you known what God knew all along, you would have chosen exactly the same all over again.

Maundy Thursday & Beyond

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“The symbols under which Heaven is presented to us are (a) a dinner party, (b) a wedding, (c) a city, and (d) a concert. It would be grotesque to suppose that the guests or citizens or members of the choir didn’t know one another. And how can love of one another be commanded in this life if it is to be cut short at death?

Think of yourself just as a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half- waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming” (C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III).

Maundy Thursday is a good reminder of being in the not yet. On that day, all the hard and painful things still lay ahead. Jesus was getting closer to the cross. It was only a matter of waiting.

Sometimes, that waiting can seem like forever. In a sense, we’d almost prefer knowing the worst rather than not knowing at all. And for us, those old fleshly fears can creep up on us during the wait, adding to the anxiety.

But all this present suffering is temporary, just as the suffering of Jesus between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Jesus was able to endure all that because of the joy that was set before Him that came on the other side of Golgotha. So we also know that just beyond our pain is a greater joy. Just on the other side of suffering is eternal peace.

We wait just as Jesus waited, knowing that beyond the cross and death was an empty tomb and the resurrection. We wait with hope — not a wishful thinking kind of hope, but a rock-solid certainty kind. The victory has already been won.

Two Weeks Before Easter

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent, a week before Palm Sunday, and two weeks before Easter. I found this prayer that reminds me of what Lent and Easter are all about:

“You whose eternal love for our weak and struggling race was most perfectly shown forth in the blessed life and death of Jesus Christ our Lord, enable me now so to meditate upon my Lord’s passion that, having fellowship with Him in His sorrow, I may also learn the secret of His strength and peace.

  • I remember Gethsemane
  • I remember how Judas betrayed Him
  • I remember how Peter denied Him
  • I remember how they all forsook Him and fled
  • I remember the scourging
  • I remember the crown of thorns
  • I remember how they spat upon Him
  • I remember how they smote Him on the head with a reed
  • I remember His pierced hands and feet
  • I remember His agony on the Cross
  • I remember His thirst
  • I remember how He cried, My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.

Grant, O most gracious God, that I who now kneel before You may be embraced in the great company of those to whom life and salvation have come through the Cross of Christ. Let the redeeming power that has flowed from His sufferings through so many generations flow now into my soul. Here let me find forgiveness of sin. Here let me learn to share with Christ the burden of the suffering of the world. Amen” (John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer, Sixteeth Day Evening, updated and revised by Susanna Wright).

I think remembering what Jesus went through on the road to Gethsemane is important. I don’t mean so much dwelling on the gory details, but remembering that He suffered more than anyone has ever or will ever suffer.

The why is important. It’s not that He was the victim of oppression and injustice. Actually, it’s way more than that. It’s that He willingly laid down His life for us, taking all that punishment that we deserved, paying the penalty for sins we committed. He became the ultimate passover lamb, sacrificed for the sins of the world.

When I by my sin tried to take the place of God, God Christ for my salvation took my place. The resurrection from the dead proves that He was no mere victim but a victor over sin, death, the grave, and hell. That’s my Jesus!

The Peace of Christ

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“‘I give you MY peace’ John 14:27. Jesus, thank you for a peace that doesn’t just prepare us to die well, but also to live free. The peace of no condemnation and your full delight. The peace of knowing you’re working in all things for our good” (Scotty Smith).

I’m thankful that the peace of Christ isn’t based on my ideas of what peace should look and feel like.

My idea of peace is no conflict, no discomforts, no pain, no trials. If I had my way, I’d go from ease to ease, from comfort to comfort, and never grow up. Jesus’ way isn’t about making me suffer simply for the sake of suffering, but in my trials and tribulations I can 1) become more like Jesus, and 2) identify with Jesus in His own sufferings (which were way worse than mine will ever be).

Peace isn’t the absence of storms, but being sheltered in the midst of those storms. As the old song says, sometimes Jesus calms the storm, but often He comforts His child in the storm.

Peace is ultimately an inner solitude that nothing from the outside can shake, a confidence of faith that no outside crisis can kill, and a trust that says, “Even if He kills me, I will still keep trusting” (adapted from Job 13:15).

Grant us peace tonight that passes all our human understanding and guards our hearts and leads us to adoration of You, O Lord.

Known by the Scars

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I had one of those wow moments when I was flipping channels recently. I came across a discussion group involving Ann Voskamp, Sheila Walsh, and a few others. One of them said that so many of us base our identity on the wounds that others have inflicted on us rather than on the wounds that Jesus bore for us. That was a WOW moment that left me Without Words.

I think it’s telling that in one miracle, Jesus asks a paralytic if he wants to be well. You would think it would be a Captain Obvious question with the inevitable answer of YES, but then so many of us have built so much of our identities around our pain and our hurt that we wouldn’t have anything left if our affliction were suddenly taken away.

A better way is to be identified with the Suffering Servant who was wounded for our transgressions, who bore scars on His hands, feet and side from taking the punishment that we deserved on Himself. This is the Jesus who still bears those scars even in Heaven.

All of us will be called at some point to suffer for the cause of Christ. Some will suffer physically. Some even to the point of death. One of the greatest honors I can think of is to bear wounds and scars from following Jesus faithfully through opposition, trials, suffering, and pain. Maybe too some of us will bear scars in heaven.

I do know for sure that Jesus was willing to lay down His life for each and every one of us. Your and my identity rests in the fact that God so loved us that He gave His only Son, Jesus, so that we should not be lost but have real, abundant, and eternal life in and with God. We are no longer strangers and aliens, outcasts with no hope or future but children of God, the Bride of Christ, and beloved.

Trials and Tragedy into Gold

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I heard that the Middle Tennessee area got hit with some tornadoes today, some of which did significant damage. Six people lost their lives. It seems like such a random and senseless tragedy smack in the middle of the Advent season.

But then I remember that we live in a beautiful but broken world where nothing is as it should be and chaos seems to be the order of the day. But I’ve read the last chapter of the Bible and I know that the story doesn’t end in ashes. Hope wins. God wins. The best happy ending of all is coming.

I remember that God stepped into our world at its darkest and became a baby so that we who live in that darkness might have hope. That light of the world still shines, though all kinds of powers and people have done their best to put it out. All the darkness in all the world still can’t overcome even the smallest light.

The greatest gift of the Advent season is one that no wars or storms or pandemics or political unrest or anything else in the world can ever take away. We celebrate this season the coming of Emmanuel who can take the worst and turn it to good. Hope is born again.

Tested Faith

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“No faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs through adversity. Tested faith brings experience. You would never have believed your own weakness had you not needed to pass through trials. And you would never have known God’s strength had His strength not been needed to carry you through” (Charles Spurgeon).

Leave it up to the old dead guys to speak some serious truth in a way that few now speak it. I’m not saying that everything old was great and everything new is crap, but there is a lot of wisdom out there that has been tested through the years and proven worthy, much in the same way that the purity remains after the gold has been refined by fire.

This quote spoke to me profoundly, even though I’m not currently in the midst of a crisis. Maybe you are. Maybe this will speak to you on a whole different level than it did to me.

Tested faith doesn’t come through prosperity and wealth, despite what some preachers might say. It only comes through hardship and poverty (sometimes material but more often being poor in spirit).

I keep thinking about how the apostles actually rejoiced because they were counted worthy to suffer for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel. Such language doesn’t fit the culture we live in that worships success and comfort. Sadly, you find little of it coming from pulpits on Sunday mornings.

But that’s the kind of faith that lasts and leads to Christlikeness. That’s still the kind of faith that changes the world.

 

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

10930090_937496052929236_1380222833476064516_n

I have friends that are dealing with health issues. I have friends who are walking through that dark valley of the shadow of death in grieving over a loved one. So many are struggling through finances, stress, anxiety, and depression.

Sometimes, life can seem overwhelming. It’s hard to look five years down the road when it’s all you can do to breathe in and breathe out and make it through the next five minutes.

The good news is that you can say with confidence, no matter what, “Whatever my problems and no matter how big and insurmountable they seem, my God is bigger. My God is able.”

Struggles are temporary. Even the worst of days only last 24 hours. God is eternal. His promises are true through all seasons and through every passing emotion.

Sitting in the doctor’s office facing the worst possible scenario is scary, but God’s perfect love still casts out all fear. The God who brought you this far in your journey will be faithful to get you through even the darkest and most terrifying circumstances.

Even in those moments, there is nothing that God can’t redeem and turn into something good and glorious. Not even death, for to live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s a win-win.

The Apostle Paul walked through every kind of trial and suffering both from within and without, yet was able to pen some of the most hopeful words ever written not because of a great big faith in God but because of faith in a great big God:

“I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us” (Romans 8:38-39, The Message).