Author Archives: Brandon Adams

Trusting God with Your Worst-Case Scenario — Christy Fitzwater

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This post contains a Dallas Willard quote that has wrecked my life this year in the best possible way – a lesson straight out of Daniel. All I can do today is set this post before you.

They started talking about how crowded our school was back in May, and my brilliant mind told a story of how I would have to go back to my tiny classroom–no wait–maybe I wouldn’t even have a classroom and would have to travel to borrowed rooms, since I was a part-time teacher. 165 more words

via Trusting God with Your Worst-Case Scenario — Christy Fitzwater

3 Scriptural Promises that Speak the Language of Anxiety and Depression

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Ray Of Light Forest Trees Sunlight Sun SunbeamAnxiety and depression are almost synonymous with our day, and they only seem to be growing with the lateness of the hour.

The memes may fly about how we’re the generation of the neurotic, but like many good jokes, it’s truer than we’d care to admit. The anxious and depressed long for a full, light, and steady heart. They’d give an arm for just a day of that. Instead, a great bell seems to hang from it, turning the mountaintops into plains, the plains into valleys, and the valleys…well, you can imagine. And like many bells, it takes only a small tap to start everything vibrating, shaking the heart with worried thoughts. You know what I mean – that chronic, racing overthinking, the endless suspicion, the corner of your soul that perpetually waits for the other shoe to drop.

The answer was intended to be passed from one generation to another. Instead, the reality of God’s faithfulness is becoming lost knowledge, like cursive, or how to speak Latin. Technology adds to the exodus. It’s a double-edged sword. I look around my youth group, or my classroom a few years ago, and mourn at the ease with which teenagers have all the chaos and discord of the world – and endless comparisons – beamed straight into their pocket. I’ve seen it truly paralyze some of them. It’s a burden they shouldn’t have to bear, yet one they can’t shed without falling behind in the world.

Everyone has a theory for anxiety and depression’s cause. Everyone, from theologians to self-help gurus to pharmaceutical companies to diet fads to Michelob Ultra to certain fallen angels of ill repute, claims to have locked down the solution. Drown it. Find stability in another’s arms. Stay distracted. Or busy.

The truth is, the cacophony of dueling answers is almost as discouraging as the problem. Accusation and confusion piggyback on what should be a lifejacket for the soul. And many of them don’t work, or backfire and make it worse. They’re proving they don’t speak the language. Ultimately, only God is the healer. Yet even we, his servants, struggle to get our story straight amongst ourselves.

I personally believe that the God who had a different war strategy for each stage of the Promised Land campaign, the Son who never healed someone the same way twice, prefers the personal touch. There might be many different ways God chooses to heal us. They might be extraordinary or mundane. And they might not operate on our timetable, for reasons that are far above my pay grade.

While we wait, however, God does not leave us empty. Though he cannot be anxious or depressed, God proves in his Word that he can still speak that language. It is amazing to peruse even familiar Scripture and find promises targeted straight towards our afflictions, like an ancient Rosetta stone buried in the earth. He fully intends to sustain us this side of the mirror dimly.

Here are three promises that have spoken to me.

 

1. “I do not condemn you for this.”

Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

Many Christians are under the impression that depression is a sin, a failure to adequately read (or believe) Scripture. They rebuke the anxious and depressed accordingly. A great many genuine, heartfelt followers of Christ therefore have guilt added to their burdens.

I don’t count myself in this camp. Anxiety and depression can stem from a place of spiritual ignorance (how depressing our future indeed without God!). But they can also be chemical, seasonal, hormonal, the product of spiritual warfare, or simply the soul’s response to tragedy. I know people whose depression clears up with caffeine. Others shed it by changing lifestyles or thought patterns.

More importantly, condemnation of the mentally beleaguered forgets the work of the Cross. If no sin or offense is beyond God’s forgiveness for the repentant, then neither are anxiety and depression – whether they’re sins or not. This reality ought to reign in our judgments, soften the contemptuous tone we sometimes level towards the depressed. They are instead candidates for grace – as are we all.

 

2. “I’m happy to reassure you as often as you need.”

Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! (Lamentations 3:22-23)

One hallmark of anxiety and depression is seeking frequent reassurance of love – even from those who are closest and most loyal. Ever felt like you’re always vaguely “in trouble” somehow? Ever seen a friend act distant and assumed the problem is you, that you upset them with some little offhand word or action a month ago and they’re just too polite to tell you? Anxiety brings this stuff in spades.

I have friends with anxiety, and it’s amazing to watch their spouses. They know their mates’ needs, and they’ll “check in” with them on a regular basis. During a long church function, they sometimes won’t let an hour pass without swinging by to see how they’re doing. Though knowing they can’t be God to their spouses, they offer what they can. They don’t groan, roll their eyes, or tell their spouses to buck up. They took “in sickness and in health” seriously.

We see this understanding in Lamentations 3:22-23, though perhaps we never read it that way before. God is never outdone in compassion. He is not stingy, doling out a little love here and there, expecting it to tide us over for weeks and then chiding us when we long for more or forget a verse. Nothing in Scripture suggests that. He welcomes a daily dependence on him, promotes it – and then fulfills it, overflowing like the sunshine, oxygen, and moisture that never run out. If he gets frustrated, it’s because we don’t depend on him, that we try the independence thing and wind up dry and desolate.

No, God loves to check in with us. His words of love are written down in black and white, a limitless fountain at the turn of a page. He tells us to be filled with his Spirit, a regular activity like eating or drinking. He is not embarrassed or annoyed that we seek him again and again. He is delighted – and responsive.

 

3. “You will get a new mind one day.”

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)

Imagine the moment we see God and receive our glorified bodies – and minds.

Imagine the incessant weight of sadness lifted, falling from our souls like useless scales, never to burden us again. Imagine constant lightness of heart, for no reason other than God always wanted it for us. No more clouded intellect, or unshakeable cold-blanket pessimism, or constant replaying of every word or conversation looking for where you screwed up. Every corner of our soul now conquered and owned and healed fully by God. Everything clear.

Until then, it’s a war. No doubt about it.

But the war will end. For the Christian, God has planned an entirely new body and mind, and nothing can avert his plans. It will be yours. “But the one who endures to the end will be delivered.” (Matt. 24:13)

It may not be easy, but at least it’s simple. Endure to the end. Hold fast to his Word, for it does speak our language.

 

I’m glad you tuned in today. If you found this post to be of value, please feel free to share it on social media. Thanks a bunch!

Snow and Suffering Can Melt Fast

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It’s happening again – after a short but pleasant summer (with no fires!), the cool wetness of fall is suggested again in this week’s weather. May God move quickly for us.

Brandon Adams's avatarBrandon J. Adams

evergreen-1802157_1280The last two winters have been brutal.

More specifically, this last one was mild and forgetful of its job right up until February and then got brutal to catch up (reminds me of the Seahawks offense). Constant negative temperatures, almost daily blizzards. Considering my fifteen-mile daily commute, this was immensely tiresome. I’d say something melodramatic like “I nearly died three times a week in this weather”, except frankly we Montanans are so used to roadside near-death experiences that they’re routine now.

But I was amazed by this: weather can change awful fast.

Theoretically, fall and spring are transitional seasons. That’s not really how it works here. It’s summer, summer, summer, then BOOM maybe a week or two of something in between before the snow comes. It’s winter, winter, winter, then BOOM it’s pretty warm and the flowers start blooming.

All of a sudden, this week, the brutal cold just evaporated…

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When God Moves Us Fraidy-Cats

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23746683041_6dd4b048d1_zThis weekend, I helped someone move, and there was a cat involved.

Some cats handle moving better than others, staring wide-eyed with fascination out the window as a world beyond their understanding flits by.

This was not such a cat. She has to be the most timid beast I’ve ever met. For weeks, she has been crouched behind whatever will give her cover while her owner clanked dishes into boxes and thumped belongings around – the usual chaos of moving. At one point, once almost everything was packed up, she hid behind a book on the floor. A book. The front cover was upturned, and she hid her face behind it, rump protruding from behind.

And once she was safely in the car and there was nowhere left to hide, she simply turned her face to the corner and kept it there for the entire ten-hour ride.

I was tempted to make fun of her.

But then I saw myself in her.

The cat had no way to comprehend what was happening. It was beyond her. Cars, houses, moves, jobs, thunder, sunshine…she lacked the faculties to understand a tenth of it. All she knew was that she was being moved into an unfamiliar environment, without knowing how long, sound and fury all around her.

Yet the humans in charge knew it signified nothing. We knew it was an unremarkable move between states. We knew it would all be over soon, that she’d be okay, and that she would eventually grow into her new surroundings.

We are this cat.

When God moves us, it scares the willies out of us, honestly. We haven’t the capacity to see or understand a tenth of what’s going on. The spiritual clanks and crashes behind what we see and hear, the purposes of God in it all – it’s on the same level to us as elevators and internal combustion are to the average cat.

And so we turn our faces to the corner, and a little part of our hearts (maybe not so little) resenting God. We want our old place, our comfortable toys and occasional plate of tuna water.

But God sees a greater reality. Wonderful things are happening, or at least necessary. He knows our destination, knows his purpose, knows all the plans he’s carefully laid out. He is not callously throwing us to a new owner, or casting us onto the street.

He has packed everything we need and sent it ahead of us; he has arranged for its unpacking when we arrive.

When we drive through thunderstorms on the route, they will not destroy us; when the sun rises and sets on our journeys, he remains our light.

And most of all, he himself will be there.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am. (John 14:3)

And though we hide from him in fear and frustration, he keeps pursuing us, like I did with this cat. He seeks us in our hiding places, turning over unpacked bags and blankets until he finds our trembling form, and reassures us.

Will we wander out again? Will we peek out from the maze of dollies and askew furniture, walk back up to our Owner, and take a drink from his water again?

 

I’m glad you tuned in today. If you found this post to be of value, please feel free to share it on social media. Thanks a bunch.

Why You Shouldn’t Accept the Life You Have

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“Stop envying others and accept the life you have” is not the worst advice in the world. In the context of money and possessions, it’s quite a vital piece.

But there is also a sense in which it’s terrible guidance.

Hear me out. I submit that discontentment has two separate components: a groaning and a proposed solution (the part where we usually go wrong). My proof is this: is it possible to desire no unholy solutions, to be completely given over to God for our daily life, and still find oneself groaning on this earth?

Scripture seems to think so. It speaks of a longing, one depicted not as a product of sin but simply of standing on this side of the mirror dimly. “…we groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:1-2).

These verses speak not as if we’re home, but as if we’re still very much journeying. We understand from a Scriptural framework that there is a part of our forming that will not be complete in this life, even if we are surrendered to God. That’s just not where we are in the story yet.

What is the source of your groaning this morning? Is it that you don’t have enough things? Or is it that our constant toil, the fragility of our bodies, the screams of nature and human nature are all shouting a soul sense that we’re living in a tent? If it’s the latter, you are discontent in the most wonderful way. Of course you aren’t happy. You’re not home yet.

Truth be told, I’m more worried about those who don’t groan. They think this life is all there is, and they’re given over to making it work for themselves. It is the spirit of the age: “we can make life work now”. Perhaps it’s been the spirit of every age.

In that sense, God never tells us to accept the life we have. That would be awful. He tells us to yearn for the next one, to “set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth” (Colossians 3:2), to “store up treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). He implores us to treat our possessions with an earthly disdain as if we will someday grow beyond them, in one fell swoop, with a trumpet sound and an atmospheric leap.

Some of our longings are actually cries for that life. We long for the ending of tears. We long for reward. We long for the restoration of our loved ones. Those of us who long for marriage are really, at the soul level, seeking the relationship of the Trinity, which will be completed there. And those promises will be realized.

Christianity has nothing to say to those who have accepted this life. Instead, it teaches a holy dissatisfaction with it, a groaning for the next. There will be no role for money and possessions there; thus, we shed those desires now. But many other longings are wonderful, for they reveal our awareness of a coming paradise and all that God has wrought for us there. Perhaps longing is not always a bad thing after all?

 

I’m glad you tuned in today. If you found this post to be of value, please feel free to share it on social media. Thanks a bunch!

No Single Christian Left Behind

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I have the privilege of doing youth work with a couple of guys I graduated high school with. They’re married with kids.

Several students I’ve mentored in that youth ministry have gotten hitched. One’s even had a couple daughters.

I saw an old (now married) girlfriend in the store the other day. She looked…I’m bad at this…six or seven months pregnant? I was certainly happy for her.

joggers

But it’s certainly enough to make a bachelor feel left behind.

In years gone by, I would often reassure myself with Don’t worry, they’re a lot older than you. You’ve got time. Then one day I woke up and was their age. So much for that arrow in the quiver. In fact, the pastor at one of our offshoot churches has a salt-and-pepper beard, a seminary degree, and a small tribe running around his wife’s ankles – and my jaw dropped when I found out he’s two years younger than me.

Ever felt left behind?

You’re not.

Though we could turn to comforts such as there are still plenty of people who marry late and you’ve accomplished plenty that they haven’t, the best response to times of loneliness is knowing that the Father’s love knows no boundaries – including what you haven’t done.

Nobody at my church has ever openly made me feel outmoded for being single – my spiritual family is too Scripturally literate for that. They know that although the Old Testament certainly seemed to hand all the stature and security to families, Jesus changed things. He stresses singles’ place in his family. Both through his words (Matthew 19) and those inspired (1 Corinthians 7), Jesus pointed out that singles actually have an easier time navigating the evangelistic demands of his kingdom. Sometimes married people fall behind the singles!

But more importantly, Scripture breaks down barriers to his love. Rich or poor, slave or free, sick or healthy, Jew or Gentile, popular or otherwise, educated or a fisherman casting about on Galilee’s shores, Christ embraces people on every part of every spectrum as candidates for his grace.

Singles are no exception. Every single Christian is a pool into which Christ’s waterfall of love tumbles perennially. He did not come to earth, suffer the cross, empty the tomb, and ascend to heaven so that his love would be thwarted by the lack of a ring.

It hurts that there are churches who do not share this view. Singles across the world are too often ignored, sidelined, or flat-out rebuked for not marrying, as if they’re only “playing at life” until they do (and without ever being asked if singleness was what they wanted).

The emotional burden is real, and God will hear our honesty in the meantime. It’s not fun to have less and less in common with your friends, having to work harder and harder to keep up your friendships. That’s not what Hebrews meant by “running the race”.

But no single Christian has been left behind with God. You are secure in his love. Your present potential and value to God are undimmable; it need only be prayed for, sought, and cultivated. And God’s eternal future for you is sealed; Jesus will one day give each of us a new name (Rev. 2:17), whether we ever changed it here on earth or not.

Therefore, I can celebrate where I am today. For on the spectrum that matters most – God’s love – I am on equal standing with all who are his.

 

I’m glad you tuned in today. If you found this post to be of value, please feel free to share it on social media. Thanks a bunch!

You Will Have to Fight for Your Contentment

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With this week bringing a flood of “back to school” images of others’ small children across social media, I thought my single friends might appreciate a callback to this post from 2017.

Brandon Adams's avatarBrandon J. Adams

Let’s talk about envy a little more.

smokeIt doesn’t play nice. You’re grinding along and suddenly someone appears on the phone or television with a bigger house, relishing a career they were born for, holding someone’s hand or pushing a stroller. Boom. Envy sweeps over you like a tidal wave. Whoosh. The tabloids and self-help mags shout from the supermarket rack about everything that you’re not. Pow. You hear a story in church about how someone else has finally reached the end of a debilitating trial. Crunch.

You sigh even as you celebrate, wondering why God hasn’t delivered you. The life you have seems to darken and pale.

If envy isn’t a deluge, it’s a leak that gradually covers the floor and wreaks havoc with your soul’s drywall. Let your guard down and your day is shot. It’s a menace within the chest, forceful and unsympathetic.

How do we typically answer?

We sigh, turn to cutesy memes, count our…

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Delight Amidst Mordor: the Hard Part of Psalm 37:4

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Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you your heart’s desires. (Psalm 37:4)

Hoo, boy. Few Bible verses carry as much potential to turn us into mercenaries.

“Love God and he’ll give you things” – yeah, that’s just begging to go down the wrong alleys. How do we handle such a verse? How do we treasure God and his opinions on things in light of such an offer? It’s Scripture. It can’t be wrong. So there must be a solution to this conundrum.

Don’t obey God to get things, obey God to get God. – Tim Keller

For me, it is the sheer intensity of “delight”.

1378807888_1c49b58b1b_z“Delight” doesn’t just mean a vague affection, certainly not a conditional one. It means delight. An intense love that crowds out other considerations. I don’t just like my mom – I delight in her, such that I’d make her a priority over a great many things. Same with my friends. (That’s why they’re friends.)

Delight can’t be faked. God sees right through it, and we’d never trust our own motives without it. When we delight in God, the first half of Psalm 37:4 outshines the second half, which sidles up to us out of nowhere while we’re absorbed with God.

I know – tall order.

How do we delight in God so freely when we have so many beefs with all he has allowed? It’s the question instantly begged upon the word “delight”.Some of our lives resemble Mordor – ashes and geysers everywhere you look.

That was the fork at which I stood.

All I can say is, I chose delight. It wasn’t some saintly nobility – I just knew the way back was cut off.

Simon Peter answered, “Lord, who will we go to? You have the words of eternal life.” John 6:68)

And I found that things really do operate the way God describes.

The Christian who desires more money must release it, trusting so fully in God’s creative provision that charity becomes the greater joy.

The Christian who desires upward mobility must instead wash feet.

The Christian who desires more friendship must offer it, gushing like a spring upon those around him (as Christ did) rather than incessantly drawing inwards.

The Christian who desires a spouse must be filled with Christ now, so that they will not grasp like an empty one.

The Christian who desires justice must not seek it by his own hand, but depend on God’s watchfulness and convicting power. (You might be interested to know that justice is actually the strict context of Psalm 37).

At each point, our desire is tested to determine its worth. Some would survive the fire, others would not (Psalm 37:4’s applicability to Lamborghini’s is doubtful), but all must be sublimated to Christ.

And no matter what the cherished object, we must delight in his timing.

God has a funny way of keeping dreams alive. It’s one of the great paradoxes. He brings our dreams around. But they happen in his way, according to his calculations and machinations, and often with a more eternal reach (like the artist whose future work might raise souls instead of curtains).

It is difficult to delight amidst the Mordor of this world. But if we choose it anyway, we will be rescued, pulled out of the cataclysm and awakened in a new home.

The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;
    he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and delivers them;
    he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
    because they take refuge in him. (Psalm 37:39-40)

Is God Opposed to Your Dreams?

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Brandon Adams's avatarBrandon J. Adams

soldierAs I was wrapping up Air Force basic training (never have seven weeks passed so swiftly and so slowly), one of the final bureaucratic details was the chance to tell the Air Force our preference of first posting, for them to promptly ignore.

We were given a “dream sheet” on which to list eight desired destinations. We could select a base, state, region, or country.

Some of us got an insider tip: wait until tech school to file your sheet. For whatever reason, sheets filed there tended to be actually seen by someone, whereas those filed at basic vanished into the same black hole that has probably consumed all my socks.

So I waited until tech school, filed my sheet, and waited with bated breath for my posting. The sergeant announced them weekly from the podium outside the dorms, usually triggering jeers of fake sympathy for anyone getting “Why Not

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When You Can’t See Behind the Door

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Letting go feels like a surrender of strength, but it actually requires strength.

Brandon Adams's avatarBrandon J. Adams

doorMy Bible this weekend has been opened to Psalms 127-132 page, and 131 caught my eye, standing out by being shorter than its surrounders:

Lord, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not get involved with things
too great or too difficult for me.

Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself
like a little weaned child with its mother;
I am like a little child.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord
both now and forever. (Psalm 131:1-3 HCSB)

It seems as if the Psalmist is refusing to let his eyes get above his pay grade. As if there are matters beyond his rightful contemplation, things he just can’t grasp – and as if there is a holiness in refusing to try.

There is.

Only those who trust God, who trust his machinations behind the “curtain” of reality as it were, who trust him to keep…

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