Tag Archives: God

The Cost of Being Close to God

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As I traipse through my late 30s and early 40s, God draws me ever closer.

It’s wondrous. No other word for it. It’s life. Peace, hope, being known. And not in an icky, pastel religious sense, but with a powerful anticipation, as if there’s another world hiding right over the horizon, or perhaps just behind the fabric of the one we’re in, filled with joy and amazing things. (Because there is.)

It’s amazing to be able to pray into a kind of deep, reliable emotional stability and hope that transcends the current situation. Finding the path into a calm that doesn’t make any sense. Hearing from him daily. Such words of life. It’s the Qavah (קָוָה), a waiting with hopeful anticipation and expectation.

But it’s hard to do, because it involves a number of conditions. And for many years, I starved myself of the very source of life because I did not understand the conditions – and didn’t want to meet them once I did.

I want to talk about four of them.

1. Accept that he really is better than anything

We don’t believe this for a second. We really don’t.

I told myself that I did. I spent years hastily reassuring myself and God that I love him most, though it was largely because I suspected that otherwise I wouldn’t get what I asked for.

Just watch. Observe your reactions next time something goes wrong, next time you’re deprived of something you’ve been asking for, next time a tragedy strikes. This is the place our truest beliefs are most readily revealed. Sit with your feelings, with your compensations. You’ll see where your bread is buttered.

And this is the human condition. We just want things to go well. Something nonverbal in us sees God as the assistant to our life, not our life, and we get anywhere from annoyed to angry with him when he doesn’t seem to cooperate.

This calls for a rearranging of worldview. God does care about what’s happening. He does. But we’re not home yet. We’re just not. And until then, there will be a groaning (Romans 8:19). There’s enormous hope in that, a glint of a coming daybreak.

But right now, he does offer himself. Richly. Powerfully. Wondrously. He groans with us.

All of Scripture testifies to this. He is not leaving us as orphans. There is presence, comfort, and love, and it really does make up for so, so much. He says this over and over again, promises us that his friendship and vindication and intimacy really is able to fill us.

The fact that we simply don’t care – forgive the exquisite skewering this afternoon, but that reveals all about us. We see God’s presence as a consolation prize. A weak mea culpa.

And the irony I learned is this: until we accept there is more, a weak consolation prize is exactly what he will be to us. For we see what we want to see, what we expect to see. That’s not on him. It’s on us.

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. (Luke 9:24)”

2. Let God off the hook.

Forgive the expression. God isn’t on anyone’s “hook”. Every hook in existence, he created. But some of us are trying to hang him there.

I cannot possibly hope to speak to the accumulated sufferings of everyone reading this. I weep with you today.

But I can only testify that trying to forcefeed God guilt for my life’s disappointments only starved me.

I somehow fell into the trap – and I don’t even know when I did this – of thinking that if I just hurt enough, if I just felt it all keenly enough, if I just told myself it was far worse than it is, if I just formed bitter agreements and vented enough, that he would finally move on my behalf and correct the “injustices”. You will not be surprised when I say it didn’t work. (It may have started with my overlooking the fact that me drawing breath was a massive forgiveness of injustice.)

But I was depriving myself of God’s “succor and consolation”, as the old saints have called it. I had no interest. It didn’t sound like something that would satisfy. David would go on and on about how “your love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3) and…I didn’t get it.

You see, we all know instinctively, though you might not have spotted it yet, that God’s comfort isn’t found without closeness, and closeness to God means giving up your resentment towards him. It doesn’t work otherwise. There’s something between.

And therefore, for me, accepting God’s love meant letting God off the hook. It meant he “got away with it”.

“Got away with” allowing my parents’ divorce.

“Got away with” the downsides of my personality and design (we all have them).

“Got away with” the isolation.

“Got away with” the career losses.

After many years of reflection, I finally isolated the part of me that was many years younger than I, crouched in a corner, fists balled up, tearfully demanding that God apologize and just fix what had gone wrong. And I realized, from a Scriptural framework, that while God dearly loved that child, he would not be healed and comforted until he came out of the corner and embraced God – past be hanged.

So I did.

It was an agony. Until I realized that it was my pride that was perishing, not me. I was doing the opposite. I was living again. Someone else had already hung for these things.

And God made the child whole.

3. Give up our plans.

I did not have my current situation on any bingo card. Some of it is wonderful. Some of it is a deep, deep disappointment.

But my thoughts of the future, I have learned, can just as readily trip up my walk with God as my thoughts of the past.

I’m almost constantly forced to check in on my soul and see if I’m still requiring things of him. Setting conditions on our walk. If he does not come through, where will I be emotionally? Will I still be at rest? Still be hopeful? Still be willing to experience his love and comfort in the midst of an endless barrage of disappointment?

I tell myself I can. I’ll know when the storms come.

But I do have the hope that the Spirit is working within me. He has taken personal responsibility on fixing this in me.

And so I must continually give up my plans, hold onto them loosely, stop requiring God to come through on them, stop thinking I know better. I now see them less as lifelines than as tripwires. As long as I think I know better, I am vulnerable. But as long as I know he cares for me and has good plans for me, I am taking refuge.

About time.

4. Include everything about God

Some good news in this: I still get to include in this everything I know about God from the Scriptures.

That includes hope! It includes the excitement of knowing that God’s love still includes a deep care about the details of my life and my desires for the future! It includes the reality of God still intervening in our circumstances, still providing in hard times, still answering prayer and turning situations around!

I don’t get to control when or how. But I also don’t have to delete it. Both are Scriptural errors.

I used to think I had to do the latter. In my incessant overthinking and my fear and woundedness, I would listen teachings on surrender and suffering, but all I would hear is “God will never fix a circumstance, never answer a prayer, and you’re wrong if you hope he will.” In fairness, I think some people who teach these things really do have this agreement in their hearts, after many years of disappointment themselves.

But the Scriptures teach that these things can also be self-protection, not faith. Sanctified doubt.

I still get to bring my yearnings before God and be graciously, even eagerly, heard. I still get to vent, as the Psalmists did, about tribulation. I still get to regard a God who must sometimes still say no out of discipline and refinement, superior wisdom and vision, or simply another plan, but who will also say yes at every possible opportunity out of his desire to show himself a good, powerful, thoughtful, and faithful father.

This is not a formula. It was a way to break down a blog post. Don’t overanalyze.

But I know that these things broke chains. The real treasure was his life, his Qavah, all along. God started pouring into me. And for years now, the wait for the next season, the longing deferred, the coming daybreak of the Kingdom, has been so much more peaceful, more hopeful, more powerful.

I can truly say at this point that I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I wouldn’t accept or trust a gift or blessing or new season without it.

He alone is life.

When You’re Not Sure You Want What You Want Anymore

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I long maintained this blog with a goal of, amongst other things, encouraging and standing with single Christians.

Occasionally, someone has emailed in to let me know they’ve gotten something out of what’s posted here. For that I am grateful.

The ironic thing is that my own views on singleness have evolved over the years.

It was inevitable, really, as God – through his tool of Life Observed – granted me more wisdom. Or shoved it roughly down my earhole, more accurately. The longer we live as singles, the harder it is to preserve the illusions we once had about what marriage is, what God wants it to be, what it will do for us, and whether that last part is something we should even be thinking about.

At least, one would hope that our illusions fade with time. If they haven’t, we’ve probably been resisting the process.

Do I still want to be married and have a family of my own? Yes, I do. Very much.

But I don’t want it the same way I used to. I don’t want it in the same way I want the return of Christ, or a $10,000 bonus check from my employer for no reason, or an endless shrimp buffet – an unconditional good. I now look forward to marriage in the same way I looked forward to my Air Force ship-out date.

I enlisted in a delayed entry fashion, with a departure four months out, so that I could finish my black belt. A mere two weeks after I signed on the dotted line, 9/11 took place. All of a sudden, after a decade of relative world peace, the geopolitical situation was very much uncertain. I was joining the military in a time of great change.

Did I still want to enlist? Yes. But not in the same way as I wanted the shrimp buffet. I wanted it for the higher purpose. Something within me drove me on, left unquestionable the idea that this was the right thing. Even though a part of me flinched and braced and second-guessed, I would not have walked away from the idea, even if someone gave me the choice (they didn’t).

I now respond internally to the idea of marriage much more in line with this. It’s going to be hard. No, really. HARD. We singles shake off that word far too easily in our loneliness. There will be times when it’s thankless, dull, weighty, stressful, and intimidating, and powerless to solve the very things I’m feeling today, and that’s if I get my pick right. It’s all inevitable from being someone flawed and selfish, marrying someone flawed and selfish. Yet I bear the responsibility to continue to do it God’s way every day, heedless of the DEFCON level that particular moment. It’s not something I can do on my own.

And if that’s not how you see it, you might be resisting the process. You haven’t shipped out yet.

Perhaps you’re like me, still wanting marriage someday, but the warnings and coachings of your elders are starting to sink in at last. And it’s made a part of you…hesitant? Now you’re feeling like two people, one eagerly desiring, the other intimidated by the whole idea. Do you really want what you’ve always wanted? Is this God taking your desire away?

A single friend told me, after another session by a patient older (and married) counselor spent explaining how hard marriage was, that she blurted out, “Then why does anyone bother?” The counselor simply smiled. “Now that you’ve asked that question, you’re probably more ready than you ever have been.”

Embrace the tension.

Use it to prepare. Get into the Word. Improve yourself. Ask every day, “Am I someone I’d want to marry?” and make changes accordingly. Marriage is going to be more blood and sweat and tears than you know, and it’s my job to make sure that I’m not causing my spouse to be the one shedding.

It’s worth it. The counselors say that, too. Every one of them.

But it is both love and war you’re signing up for.

Let us train accordingly.

Sometimes the Old Answers Still Work

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I was having a work-related struggle recently and I found it was stirring up something deeper, something eternity-related.

I went to a friend for advice. Then another friend. Then another friend. And all three basically said gracious but differently-worded versions of the same thing. It was frustrating. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear – it was what I suspected I might hear, but didn’t want to.

It wasn’t until the third person shared his thoughts that I realized I was hearing exactly what God wanted me to hear. It took me quite a bit of reflection to figure out why I didn’t appreciate hearing it.

I like new stuff.

Though we may not always realize it, we often go to friends hoping to get a perspective we haven’t heard before. Some new angle, some story, some strategy, maybe even a Scripture we had forgotten, what have you. The novel is tempting. This is a benefit of good counsel – we can be supplied with an outside perspective. But when the wisdom we are offered is true but hard, it reveals our hearts. Was there something we were hoping to hear?

There are gardens in our lives that we do not want watered with water we know. We think of it as old water, and surely new water is fresh and better, right? It frustrates us to go back to the things we already know. We’ve been there, done that. Our hard spiritual work doesn’t seem to be paying off. We’re still in the same places we were ten years ago. Old hat.

But then I remember Scripture has no expiration date. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6). And it gives me the space to ask myself an honest question:

Since when does God owe me something better than the old answers?

Who am I to decide that, should they be necessary, the old answers aren’t enough?

Perhaps I simply need to keep on doing the hard task.

Perhaps I simply need to turn the other cheek.

Perhaps I simply need to own my wrong turn.

Perhaps I simply need to acknowledge the negative emotion, give it to the Lord, and again hit the trail.

Perhaps I simply need to groan again at the world’s darkness and long for The Day.

Sometimes I might be able to do something about my situation, improve my position, seek my rights. There might be times when I don’t have to just leave a blow unanswered, leave an idle dream unrealized, leave a mirror dark.

But when I must…no matter how many times I have already shown grace, chosen resilience, accepted self-sacrifice…I must do it again. Yes, again. As if the commands of the Holy Spirit have an expiration date, conveniently labeled as the moment the container decides it’s had enough.

New pride introduces itself as we grow older. The Entitlement of the Pilgrim, perhaps, whispering, “Surely we’ve done this enough times? Surely we can find ways around the Sunday School stuff this time? Surely, after everything we’ve been through, the old answers are just kinda, y’know, for the remedial?”

Nope. Not if I walk a trail owned by God. And they all are.

I renounce the Entitlement of the Pilgrim. The trailhead, the destination, and everything between are the Lord’s, and everything in them. Lord, help me be humble.

Sometimes the old answers still work.

Thanking God for My Trials?

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You know it’s a great day when I’m cribbing from Mr. T for spiritual content:

Yes, I think I can say this as well.

2022 was a humbling year. I was brought low in a couple ways. Moreso than my health struggles, it was a year of redirection. The Lord showed me that the plans He has for my next few years will probably not mirror my own. I do think there are seeds He’s planted; they’ll just be sprouting in a different place. The realization was hard.

It was also a year revealing of my character. Thanks to friends courageous enough to speak, I gained probably more insight into my flesh and my darkness than I have before. And, happily, the knowledge is leading to change.

But I find it yanks at my pride to say that. After all…that aforementioned flesh doesn’t really care about change.

“He makes us walk when we want to run, sit still when we want to walk, for He has things to do in our souls that we are not interested in.” – Elisabeth Elliott

We can hear about all the things suffering is doing for us – molding us into the character of Christ, teaching us to receive comfort so we may pass it on, chastening us as children, or simply loosening our death grip on this world so we may reach for the next one – but if our flesh isn’t on board with His purposes, it’s of little use.

It’s a choice to receive these things. Billions suffer daily. They obviously aren’t all learning the right lessons from it.

It really seems rather audacious of God to not only allow us to struggle, but to insist we rejoice (though He also delivers and rescues us at other times, and will not withhold his justice and vengeance on those who have wronged). If a human said that, we’d call him insensitive, sadistic. Rejoice? I don’t want to rejoice. This sucks.

Of course, a human is not God, so the rules are different. But still, we don’t want to thank. We’d much rather chafe and grow resentful; we’d much rather resort to prayer believing that nothing bad ever comes by God’s hand and that enough beseeching can get us out of it; we’d much rather turn to our own devices and scheme and spin and outwork the bad circumstances.

It’s at this point that I have to ask – do I believe God’s appraisal of things, or not?

Do I believe that what He calls a treasure, really is treasure?

Do I believe that my sanctification really should be a priority?

Do I believe that suffering really is the one conduit to at least some of these good things?

Do I believe that is can and should be received with…openness and gratitude? As an old Promise Keepers song had it,

Let it be said of us
That the Lord was our passion
That with gladness we bore
Every cross we were given

I want to grieve. I want to seethe. I want a reprieve from the mandate to believe. It’d be much nicer to just go on with a simple, easy life and not have to accept any crosses.

But we don’t get that. It’s not part of the Jesus package.

So instead of grudging, “I have no choice anyway” acceptance, I will choose to bear with gladness what I am given, whether it be gravel or meat and potatoes.

Surely God does not begrudge us prayers of deliverance. Pray them.

And surely He does not allow suffering unfeelingly. As Dane Ortlund wrote in Gentle and Lowly, “He does not do so from His heart.”

But He does do them. And if the ultimate destination is being closer to Him, then I will accept His claim that such results really are the greatest treasure of all, and readjust my worldview accordingly.

And when I do, ah, how His love is felt. For when I fully grab the hem of His garment – the Word, unfiltered and full – then the barriers between us fall away. No more halfway comfort, our relationship distorted by my selective belief and my reluctant posture.

He gives and takes away. He is close and attentive through it all. God truly does care about my heart, yearning to see me peaceful and joyful through even the worst, yearning for my heart to be protected, yearning to see me ironclad against despair.

So I will be grateful for that which has made me closer to Him.

“My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.” – Phillippians 3:10-11

What’s Your Ask-to-Thank Ratio?

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I’ve gotten two terrific answers to prayer in recent months. One within my family, one within my church that has been shared by many (which I’ve cryptically alluded to).

The number of individual entreaties I made of God in these two matters are well into the hundreds for both. When the answer came back from the throne, I committed myself to thanking him. I didn’t want it to be another “thanks God, see you next crisis” on my already considerable list.

But it occurred to me…how much thanks is enough?

What if God got one thanks afterward for each request beforehand?

For a fleeting moment, I thought that was a great idea. Until I remembered that this is probably exactly what God’s been getting at in the Bible this entire time.

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6)

Nobody is without grounds for thanksgiving. Every one of us can look backwards to something we once spent hours on our knees for, something which once gripped our hearts with a fierce desperation, something which we’d give anything to see God grant us.

Maybe that’s one reason we’re constantly commissioned to give thanks: we’re being urged towards a respectably low ask-to-thank ratio. Doesn’t every pleading, every session, every “amen” deserve its own thank-you? It seems to fit the rich, vigorous, austere tone that the true faith always holds.

I won’t let that desperation evaporate into complacency, as the enemy would desire. Tonight, I will go to bed and give thanks for these two things and others, not because I must to earn his grace (though that grace will also get its thanks), but because I wish it. Because God deserves it.

It’s the least I can do. Because there was once nothing I could do, and God did it instead.

 

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!

Leave Your Egypt Behind

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It can be quite fun to view our Christian faith as a long, extended defeat of external enemies, and one of the most familiar stories is the exodus. God’s people are enslaved by Egypt for four centuries, and the day finally comes when they pay the price. While instructing the Israelites to protect themselves from the angel’s wrath by spreading lamb’s blood on their doorposts – a ritual installed as Passover – the Lord’s hand moves against Egypt in ten plagues and then the destruction of their army in the Red Sea. The lesson: “The Lord will fight for you; you must be quiet” (Exodus 14:14).

But that is not Scripture’s final lesson on the exodus.

Centuries later, there is a new Passover lamb. Where once blood on the doorposts served to guard huddled Israelite families from God’s judging hand, it is ultimately revealed as a foreshadowing for a much greater protection. As with so many things in Scripture, something in the Old Testament is taken up and given fulfillment in Jesus: “Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch. You are indeed unleavened, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

Glory to God. Our personal taking up of Christ has spared us God’s judgment once and for all.

But it begs the question: If Jesus is the new Passover, then who is the new Egypt?

The answer is not so pleasant. Some flavors of church love to emphasize the destruction of our enemies, giving it a prominent place in their teaching, and people love to hear it. It’s not that it’s un-Biblical.

But like any matter of discernment, the problem is often what’s not there. We like to talk about our enemies’ defeat, but we miss the one enemy that matters most. We’d rather not hear about that, for the revelation is disruptive, tense, exposing.

For the exodus story ultimately had a sad ending. What happened to Israel once they were freed? Did they file straight to Canaan without hesitation and conquer it in God’s name and power? Did they honor God’s deliverance with faith and trust? They didn’t. They doubted, grumbled, set up golden calves. They ate quail as a concession from God, then quailed from his mission. They never saw the promised land.

For although triumph of our enemies is part of the faith, what does Scripture always guide us back to if not our own hearts?

If Jesus is the new Passover, then who is the new Egypt?

We are.

You and I.

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life! (Romans 5:10)

It’s easy to focus on external enemies. It spares us from having to look inwards and admit the gossip we’ve been partaking in, or the white lies we’ve told our clock punch, or how long we’ve neglected to crack a Bible.

But sin isn’t an external enemy. It’s internal. The New Testament ultimately guides our vision back to our own hearts, and reveals us – all of us – as God’s enemy. Such stark words! And God’s greatest mission is not to deliver us from external enemies, but from the sinfulness of our own hearts. That’s why the best teachers remind us that the greatest enemy is not without, but within.

And God tells us to leave that Egypt.

Leave self.

Leave sin.

Leave the idols and doubts and grumbling.

And walk to the promised land of faith, selflessness, and peace.

Next time you read the exodus story during the upcoming Easter season, remember that its ultimate fulfillment was in Christ and his deliverance of us from our sin. Choose to leave your Egypt. Leave your sin behind. Use your life to honor Christ and all he’s done for you.

 

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The Thing I Most Ask to Be Delivered From

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A book I’ve been reading posed a whopper of a question: “If God were to remove one of your greatest sources of pain, what would you ask him to take?”

Now, this was not followed by another ill-fated health-and-wealth excursion, no tired treatise of living your best life now through positive thinking and self-actualization. The author was actually framing it as a teaser for heaven, one of whose rewards will be to wipe away every source of pain.

But when I read the question, I found myself applying it to my life here, on earth.

What would I ask God to take?

My mind riffled through any one of countless prayer requests, obstacles, and disappointments, both for myself and those closest to me. If I could pick only one, what would it be?

I know a handful of things I probably would have settled on, in years gone past.

Now, I wouldn’t pick any of them.

Instead, one goal now overrides the rest.

I would ask God to remove my inability to know his love.

Scripture and its teachers keep on telling us that we can find true purpose, joy, and safety only in God, but do we listen? Not particularly. We’re the stubborn teenager who just has to find things out for herself.

We look for satisfaction in being selected for projects and leadership. It lasts for an instant. Then we’re wondering why we didn’t get selected again, or whether we did well the first time. It crumbles to ash in our mouths.

We look for satisfaction in relationships. It lasts for an instant. Then we’re overanalyzing, navigating hurdles, finding ourselves in need of constant reassurance. It turns to sand in our hands.

We look for satisfaction in food, drink, or distraction. It lasts for an instant. Then we wake up to the consequences, sending much of it literally into the toilet.

I’ve tried these things, in varying degrees. I’m glad to say I’ve never committed any grievous sins in them. But there was one: thinking that they’d be better than God.

We don’t always wake up explicitly thinking “these things must be better than God”. It’s not that we high-ball the Other Things; we just low-ball God. It’s hard to cultivate a relationship with the unseen, so we gravitate towards the seen. And oftentimes, we find what we think is a “safe zone” within our Other Things (enjoying lots of food but not alcohol, seeking a godly marriage rather than just any marriage, looking to bring your talents to ministry rather than the corporate meat cleaver). It’s still not God. Not necessarily.

When God says he’s the source of life, he’s not being insecure. He’s not giving a big cosmic “you’ll get nothing else and like it”. He’s not being the psychotic parent who goes out and sabotages a daughter’s relationships so she’ll stay home. He’s rescuing us from disaster. As long as we build anything without his love as the foundation, it will collapse in on itself, taking us with it.

For that reason, and for his own glory, I really do want to know his love more than anything now. Seriously. He’s convinced me.

So I ask him to remove the barriers. He has erected none of them; they’re all of my own construction. But he can show us what they are, help us tear them down. All that’s left is beating the illusion, destroying the images of worldly goodness that crop up all around us, even good gifts that God has given us, or wishes to. They look so good. So we must endeavor to fill our minds with God instead. Meditation, Scripture, the spiritual disciplines…only then will he look good to us.

 

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!

 

Healing Doesn’t Have to Be Self-Focused

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A speaker I once heard said, “I believe the healing that God wants for this generation is emotional.”

It was not difficult to spot the wound driving his words. Three generations of compounded familial and sexual sin have left our society in critical condition. With each passing month, more and more people come of age who will never figure out who they are, or how to operate in this world, and whose brokenness will inevitably wound others – an ever-expanding cascade of infection. It certainly looks like our world could use a sickbed.

But some corners of Christendom depict healing, or any attention to self, as unholy. It’s a spiritual-sounding thing to do on the surface, since Christ preaches loss of self. They dismiss what they see as a self-focus problem and conclude the battle isn’t worth fighting. Don’t look for affirmation. Don’t look for healing. None of this makes God the center.

I struggled with this for a long time, for I have known wounding. What does Jesus mean by “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me?”

We know he meant surrender. Holiness. Following his Word. Mustering all the faculties that comprise “you” and retasking them to worship.

But did he mean that certain faculties – pain and emptiness – don’t exist, that they’re mere figments or projections, or inappropriate subjects of attention?

Again, it certainly sounds spiritual.

But not if Scripture says otherwise.

Here’s my case. It’s interesting to observe that if a human was heard uttering the phrase “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”, he might get shot down by this very application of selflessness. We could make a day of rest sound self-focused in any circumstance. If he argued that it was needed, that we’re no good to God worn out, we could simply reply that it’s not about him. “The harvest is nigh. Work on the seventh day. It’s about God!” And immediately he’d feel shamed out of any response.

If a human was spotted seeking words of affirmation from God, we could easily label it an egocentric pursuit. “God’s not here to make you feel good about yourself,” we’d thunder from the pulpit. And immediately he’d feel shamed out of any response.

I have actually seen people attacked for merely looking forward to heaven’s termination of all tears and suffering. They were told that they should “instead” be anticipating the full revelation of God. “Focus on his glory!” they were told, as if they can’t do both. And immediately…you get the picture.

Yet all of these treasures proceed directly from the mouth of Christ (Mark 2:27, John 1:47,  Daniel 10:11) or within earshot of his throne (Rev. 21:3-4). That’s authoritative Scripture, which God saw fit to inspire.

So at what point is God having words put in his mouth here?

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)

Guys, I’m not Earth’s smartest person. But if Scripture shows God offering aspirin, I’m probably not going to go around campaigning the evil of aspirin. If it reveals God prescribing physical therapy, I’m unlikely to go on television and dismiss physical therapy as a category. And if it depicts God recommending heart surgery, you won’t catch me trying to talk folks out of it. I’d instead suggest just doing what he says. (And if your denominational flavor emphasizes the dread of God’s wrath as part and parcel of his greatness and glory, I’d politely suggest that arguing with God’s prescriptions might be hazardous to your health. This is not scruffy-faced Dr. Bob down at the corner clinic we’re talking about.)

It’s possible to define self-focus so rigidly and extremely that one loses any reference point. Teachers of Scripture teach self-denial in one podcast, then (rightly) trusting God for our daily bread the next. Why not instead pretend we have no stomach? Isn’t it holier to label hunger as a failure to revel in God? Some have claimed that historically, and not just for themselves. Do you see where I’m going with this? Let this idea drift in the wrong direction for long enough and it starts to reek of Eastern mysticism – the “emptying” of ourselves. No, God is not against food. Scripture’s definitions of self-denial are a little more flexible than that. A few personal callings aside, you can eat. (Just honor God with what you eat.)

And yet.

And yet.

We know God calls us to die to ourselves. That’s got to be in here somehow.

So how do we escape this maddening paradox?

Well, nobody would argue if I say “embrace Scripture”. But let’s do it fully. Surrender to it. No bathwater theology, no throwing out things because idiots dirty it. Allow the Word to lead us, to reveal God doing whatever he fully well feels like, flexing and classifying things over our own instinctive and experiential definitions, without regard to how we (or our defining teachers and traditions) have seen things distorted by idiots. That kind of objectivity is tough. Yet I’d argue that it’s necessary to fully glorify God. If we were to deny every abuseable idea, we’d have to start with grace itself.

Go back to Psalm 147. It belongs to a stanza that opens with a praise call. It’s sandwiched between displays of his power, justice, and creativity. God is worshiped for all these different facets. It’s placed in the context of repatriating the exiles – a highly emotionally traumatic event. And it’s repeated in Isaiah 61:1 and Jeremiah 30:17, even as God acknowledges that he himself inflicts some of our wounds.

God does care about us. And that reveals his perfect nature. It leads to his glory.

I’m still firmly Baptist in my persuasions, so let me hasten to add that emotional healing goes hand-in-hand with holiness in our lives, not without. Our woundedness is no more an excuse to sin than grace is. We can obey while broken; we can praise from the hospital bed.

Also, healing comes solely and exclusively through Scripture’s provisions, not our own or the world’s. I also agree that the ultimate purpose of mankind’s healing is God’s fame and exaltation – not us walking out of the ER and not praising anybody.

And, honestly, I do think there are many days when it’s holy to just set ourselves aside for a while and do things for others’ gain, whether we benefit or not. As we heal, we do it more, and better. That’s where this is going.

But the point is, Scripture denies neither injury nor debilitation. It is sin to steal antibiotics; it is not sin to be sick in the first place. The holiness in healing lies not in denying the problem, but in accepting God’s solutions. God’s Word reveals that he cares very much about our hearts, that he acknowledges its tangible impact in the here and now, and that he has solutions. He’s not asking you to pretend there’s no wound, or to just shut out the pain. He’s offering to heal.

And then rush out and tell others about what Jesus did for you.

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The Answer to a Painful Christmas is…Christmas

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If you’re one of those people for whom it takes everything you’ve got to not hate this season’s guts, I understand.

When I was seventeen, life and Satan hit right where it most often hurts this time of year: family. After that year, we would never again celebrate the holidays as a family. The head count is always one short now.

Some don’t even get the first seventeen years. Others got fifty, yet are now going through their first Christmas without, and finding it just as shattering. It’s difficult to keep our seasonal joy from being diminished by those losses.

Have you ever noticed how vulnerable Christmas is? As inevitable as its arrival is every year, it doesn’t actually offer everyone refuge. For some, it’s the reverse – a reminder of what they don’t have. As long as Christmas is about perishable things, it will be perishable itself.

It’s a good thing that the true Christmas has something to say about those very losses, then.

Imagine if the manger pointed to nothing but another Jewish prophet standing around on hillsides and boats, telling stories and handing out advice. Awfully anticlimatic, don’t you think? Not much worth celebrating there.

But the manger points to much more. It points to the cross that will triumph over the very things that shatter us today. It was the birth of the Conqueror of death and loss, who will return on a white horse to make all things new.

If we make a soft-focus Hallmark family mentality the central purpose of Christmas, we leave it vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. Though God is powerful and good, he has not promised to always protect even that precious jewel in this life.

But if we make hope the central purpose of Christmas – the hope of redemption – then the season becomes as unshakeable as every other promise of Christ.

Christmas isn’t a family reunion, as wonderful as that is. It’s the promise of greater reunions down the road, the reversal of all the theft and death and destruction the enemy has wreaked upon us. It looms large over the damages looming over us. The properly interpreted Christmas heralds victory over its own oppressors.

This is why Christmas is bigger than our opinion of it. It’s why we can truly celebrate: its promise never lay in the present, but in the future. It may be difficult to find joy now. But perhaps the cure to finding that joy, is delving ever deeper in.

 

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The Value of Knowing Your Value

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I ran across the following meme the other day (who says the Internet is useless?):

value

It is an incredible quote, for it brings many of our lives into sharp relief. It went straight onto the Facebook page for my blog, for it was propulsive and illuminating, at least for me. All of a sudden, through this idea, many of the regrettable actions we take (or see taken around us) gain an interpretation they never had before.

Most of what we interpret as immaturity are unhealthy attempts to prove our value.

The office worker who stirs up drama is trying to prove his value by bringing others down.

The family member who deflects or passes the buck when called out on a mistake does not realize that she can be valuable and wrong at the same time.

The one who turns every conversation towards themselves is too busy securing their own value to see that of others.

I’ve just described all of us somewhere. Like a dog chasing its tail, we are all trying to capture something that could not escape us if we tried. We cannot attain what is already ours.

Being made in the image of God carries incredible value. We are shredded and dirtied by sin, lost in a haunted house called the human heart, yet pursued by the Cross’ offer of redemption. God went to great lengths to open a way to salvation, all because he calls us valuable.

His ways not only clear us of sin’s sentence, but free us to live wisely in the practical realm every day by revealing our value. When one understands his value in God, they are protected from having to prove it. They are no longer driven by those compulsions. They no longer seek their identity in sports, hobbies, political causes, or cruel and legalistic religion. They can admit errors, break addictions, set boundaries, forgive, help, lead, and love. Since they’ve had their core questions about themselves answered, they can start focusing on others’ questions instead.

This is impossible with the world. They’re not even trying to hide their self-hatred anymore. More openly each day, they celebrate our supposed insignificance in the cosmos, place higher value on animal species than themselves, and embrace pornography. Suicide and self-centeredness are epidemic. Satan loves to claim you have no value, then propose an endless series of hoops to prove otherwise.

God cures all that. And only he can.

Come to Christ and let him break your chains. Whether you are new to him or part of the old guard, there is always something to be mended. He welcomes all comers with open arms, and writes new stories where there were only scribbles before.

 

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!