Paul’s story

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. Phil. 4:11-12

I like Paul. His story is lost on believers now because it’s so well-known, but seriously: he was at the top of his game, so zealous for his religion that he sought Christians out to have them killed. As a teacher of the law he would have had everything he needed. The man was passionate no matter what he did, but I’m sure he was also quite content in his lifestyle. And then Jesus is like, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4), and from then on he gives up everything for the gospel.

We’re talking ship wrecks, imprisonment, beatings, no money, constant travel, constant rejection, and finally death. But no matter where Paul was or who he was facing, he was always proclaiming the gospel. As Jason Curry put it at last weekend’s D-Now, Paul didn’t make Jesus “a part of his life.” Paul was a part of Jesus’ life.

And because of that life, Paul was content. He had learned contentment. In the Feb. 16 entry in Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening, he writes,

Now, contentment is one of of the flowers of heaven, and if we would have it, it must be cultivated. It will not grow in us by nature. It is the new nature alone that can produce it, and even then we must be especially careful and watchful that we maintain and cultivate the grace that God has sown in us. 

I think American Christians suck at contentment — and don’t worry, I’m speaking for myself here too. We don’t understand contentment because we don’t have to be content. You want it? Go get it. You dream it? You can do it. Isn’t that our motto? Isn’t there an app for that?

So when the Lord gives us the ol’ stiff-arm and we’re stuck in the dust for what feels like forever, our first thought tends to be “why?” when it reality, it should be something a lot more like “thank you.” Thank you, Lord, for showing me my needs, which only you can provide for. Thank you for reminding me that smart phones can’t solve my problems and facebook doesn’t equal friendship. Like the Israelites, I am stiff-necked; I refuse to bow. So you show me how to bow, and I am all the better for it.

In the Lord’s mercy, he has given me the opportunity to do youth ministry again. I have been accepted to three of my four schools (in classic Oxford fashion, I won’t hear from them for another month), and by faith I believe that he will give me the opportunity to study. And if not, I think he’ll send me into some kind of leadership in the church eventually.

But even if none of that happens, I know that the Lord hasn’t abandoned me. He consistently puts other believers in my life, believers who love me and encourage me to keep going. And he lets me encourage others through my struggles as well. So even if I’m stuck in insurance for another year, the Lord’s mercy reigns — he is teaching me to be content. Praise God!

There’s a Reason

There’s a reason this psalm made it into the psalter. Even God knows that sometimes things are not ok.

O LORD, the God who saves me,
day and night I cry out before you.

May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of trouble
and my life draws near the grave.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like a man without strength.

I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
Selah

You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;

my eyes are dim with grief.
I call to you, O LORD, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.

Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do those who are dead rise up and praise you?
Selah

Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction?

Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

But I cry to you for help, O LORD;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.

Why, O LORD, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?

From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death;
I have suffered your terrors and am in despair.

Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.

All day long they surround me like a flood;
they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken my companions and loved ones from me;
the darkness is my closest friend.

Thorns

Yeah, pain sucks.

I’m sure I’ve discussed the particular topic of pain and suffering before, but in this pre-Revelation 21 existence it pops up repeatedly, so I feel like it’s alright for me to repeat myself a little. As I’ve told many of my friends, it takes a couple times for truth to seep through my hard-headedness and I figure that’s probably the case for some of you too.

In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul says the following:

“To keep me from being conceited because of these supassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

I haven’t studied Paul’s thorn very much. I’m pretty sure it’s a metaphorical thorn, some kind of sin or temptation or something like that, but when I was little I thought it was a real thorn. I imagined Paul limping along with a huge rose thorn stuck in his ribs, impairing his breathing and forcing him to bend a little, one hand always clutching his nasty wound.

I didn’t understand any of what Paul was saying, so I didn’t understand why God wouldn’t take the thorn away. What does “My grace is sufficient for you” even mean? Some kind of strange, unseen feeling was supposed to take away this very real, very painful thorn? What are you talking about, God?

I like the way I used to envision Paul’s thorn, because I think it’s an excellent picture of what our suffering looks like. Often we show up in our Christian circles wearing huge black trenchcoats and happy-face masks to disguise our bloody wounds and the pain that seeps into our faces. We try so hard to stand up straight when in reality our backs are stooped from the pain of the pointy thorn stuck right between our ribs. We try to laugh but our lungs are just too pierced by that thorn. We’d much rather curl up in bed and not get out anymore.

I understand better now what God’s response to Paul meant. Paul begins his explanation with, “To keep me from being conceited…” And if that’s a good enough reason for Paul, it sounds like a pretty solid reason to me. Pain forces God’s children to forget about themselves and run to him. It makes us realize that we’re not in control, but we follow a God who is.

At a Covenant basketball game last year, our boys had been dominating up until the fourth quarter. As they got tired and perhaps a little cocky, the opposing team began catching up in points. The timer ticked down and the other team kept scoring. Nonetheless we Scots were standing in the stands, cheering for our boys and at times harassing the other team.

With three seconds on the clock, the Scots had the ball and were throwing it back into play right under the opposing team’s basket. The boy with the ball threw it across the court in an attempt to get it as far away from their basket at possible. But, misjudging the distance, he tossed the ball too high. It bounced off the bottom of the other team’s backboard and landed right in the middle of three defenders, who immediately scooped it up. They ran towards their basket and shot as we tried desperately to block them. They missed, but with less than a second left they shot again and made it. They won by one point.

The packed stands stood silent, mouths hanging open, completely shocked. We had been winning for literally four quarters and they snatched it away from us. No one moved for probably thirty seconds.

When pain comes and lops you upside the head like that, you really don’t know what to do. You stand there and wonder what happens next. You wonder if you can keep going, or if you should just give up now. When death shows up unexpectedly, how do you keep putting one foot in front of the other? When your heart aches and it won’t go away, how do you put it out of your mind and write a research paper? When you can’t fix anything, what in the world do you do?

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” There’s only one thing to do: run to Jesus. “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Pain forces us to realize that it’s really not all about me, it’s about my Christ. When the thorn digs so deeply into my flesh, I have nothing to boast about but the Lord. I get out of bed because of Christ; I keep moving, despite my inability to fix anything, because “when I am weak,” through Christ’s great power, “then I am strong.” If suffering points a sinner to Jesus, then bring on the suffering. If, as C.S. Lewis said, “Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world,” then pain we must accept. And if such accute hurt will draw me closer to the only God who can save me from it, then I will limp to my Savior and let Him hold me. It hurts so much, but the reward is greater than we can imagine.

Hope

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  … So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7: 14-15, 19-25

Over the past few weeks I’ve had an up-close encounter with what we theologians here at Covenant call the antithesis which runs through all people. As even Paul said, every Christian is in a constant struggle between the good we’re called to and the evil we were born into. There’s no escaping this evil, at least on this side of Revelation 21. And to be perfectly honest, it completely sucks.

For instance, I love to talk to people. I love to hear their stories and share my life and hug them and feel those relational warm fuzzies. I do not, however, like to make presentations. In fact, I happen to be avoiding writing a presentation at this very moment, partly because the thought of giving a presentation in front of a class full of those juniors I always look up to is enough to give me a minor heart attack. I also like to translate Mark from Greek to English, which is what I’m doing in Greek this semester. I even like to discuss the author’s theological implications in class. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, however, I dread when 2pm comes around and I have to go to said class. I practically avoid it at all costs.

After every exam I’ve ever taken at Covenant I think to myself, “Next time it’ll be different. I’ll start studying a week beforehand, or at least three days, and I’ll feel prepared when I go into the room.” Nope. I’m always studying the night before or the morning of.

Why do I do this? I mean, I know not wanting to go to class is pretty shallow in the scope of potential problems, but my little “c” calling is to be a student right now, and I’m not doing a great job of it. I want to be a good student, but somehow facebook, C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, and “America’s Next Top Model” are always more appealing.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

This quote directly follows the one I opened my post with. Paul doesn’t really give an answer to why we must struggle with this nasty antithesis — a question I’ve been asking almost constantly. But he does tell us how to deal with it: Jesus. He is the only way to be free.

I don’t know what that looks like. I think sometimes I have a hard time even believing it. But we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disapoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:3-5

My biggest struggle right now is not really whether or not I’m going to class, but it’s a good enough example for what I want to say. “Hope does not disappoint us.” There is a reason to hope. Not because I can make it if I try harder, or because the sun’s going to rise tomorrow morning, or because I know I have good friends to lean on. There is a reason to hope because God loves us. As sinners he loves us, and through his Son’s righteousness he loves us. When I screw up he loves me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Let the heavens rejoice

At church this morning, the pastor talked about Gen. 1:1-2:3. When I saw in the bulletin that this was the Scripture reading, Prideful Pharisee Liz immediately said, “Really, the creation account? What am I going to get out of this?”

As we all know, God has a wonderful sense of humor.

The pastor began by discussing Moses’ purpose in writing the creation account: not necessarily as a scientific, historically accurate picture of exactly how God made the universe, but as a depiction to the Israelites of the God they serve. For the Israelites, when times were tough and rain wasn’t coming to feed their crops, it was very tempting to follow the ways of the cultures around them and pray to the rain god in the hopes that he would bless them with rain. But Moses is suggesting, why pray to the rain when you can pray to the God who made the rain? Why pray to the sun when the Creator of the sun has revealed Himself to you?

For us rich, upper-middle class Americans, the only thing that worries us about the rain is what to wear to keep it off of us. We have a stable government, a good healthcare system, and homes that shelter us in both heat and cold. Our temptation is less about running to other gods and more about simply pretending God doesn’t exist, or doesn’t matter. Are you sick? You see a doctor. Are you sad? You go to counseling. Are you in darkness? You turn on a light.

James 5:13-14  “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.”

How quickly we rely on the created instead of the Creator. How often we forget him and turn to fallen man to heal us. Of course, I’m not suggesting doctors, counselors, and electricity are a bad thing. But if we rely only on these man-made solutions and forget the God who created us, we turn our backs on the Beloved. So, remember His power today. Remember how He created.

Psalm 96:

Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.

Sing to the LORD, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.

Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.

For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.

Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and glory are in his sanctuary.

Ascribe to the LORD, O families of nations,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering and come into his courts.

Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth.

Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.”
The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the sea resound, and all that is in it;

let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;

they will sing before the LORD, for he comes,
he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his truth.

Secure in Slavery

During the course of the lesson my youth pastor taught last night, we looked at the following passage:

Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

We all know that verse. As soon as Jason said, “Turn to Jeremiah 29. This is a very popular verse,” one of the students rattled off, “For I know the plans I have for you…” And often when we think about this verse, we think, “Excellent! God’s going to take good care of me — he’ll ‘prosper’ and ‘not harm’ me, just like the verse says!” Then, when bad things happen to us, we look at God and say, “What is this all about? You promised!”

But last night, for the first time ever, I read the preceding verse, Jeremiah 29:10 – This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.”

Yep, that’s right. The Israelites were in exile, forcibly removed from their promised home by their archenemies, the Babylonians. The Israelites were smack-dab in the middle of the saddest and most difficult time in pre-Christ history. And while sitting in slavery, God says, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.” What does this mean? What is God saying? It can’t get any worse than this!

God doesn’t promise a perfect life for his believers. He doesn’t promise the things the world desires — wealth, a good house, a perfect family, constant happiness, or even complete freedom. What He promises is that He will provide the Israelites with everything they really need. What did the Israelites need that God wanted to provide for them? Himself.
2 Kings 17:14 – But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the LORD their God. Nehemiah 9:29 – You warned them to return to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. … Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen. Jeremiah 7:26, 17:23, 19:15 – they were stiff-necked … they were stiff-necked … they were stiff-necked.

Do we see a pattern here? Israel constantly refused to submit to God or listen to His prophets. Israel would turn to God and fall, turn and fall, turn and fall. And God warned them over and over that if they would listen to Him, He wouldn’t hurt them. Jeremiah 41:10 – “If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I am grieved over the disaster I have inflicted on you.”

But as we know, the Israelites refused to listen. Again and again, they would not submit. So God punished them as He promised, but not necessarily to hurt them. What better way to learn that we need God than having all control torn from us? While in exile, the Israelites had no way to free themselves or change their circumstances. There were only two options: run to God and trust HIs promise to protect them, or ignore Him forever and accept their fate of death.

We find the same ultimatum when we face difficult circumstances. We cannot change the death of a friend of family member. We cannot reverse the stupid decision we made that hurts our loved ones. We cannot make other people see truth and stop destroying their lives. But we can trust God. We can rest on His promise: “I know the plans I have for you … plans to give you hope and a future.” God knows what He’s doing. He knows why He has allowed death and destruction to enter our lives, and He knows that by doing this, He can break our self-righteous legs and force us to rely on Him. It is not the sadistic act of a god who wants to see us hurt. It is the relentlessly loving, passionate act of a God who loves us to death — even to His own death.

Wealth, happiness, temporal security — they’re nice, but they’re nothing compared to knowing God. Philippeans 3:7, 8 – But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.

Just like the Israelites, we can be secure in the slavery, that lack of control, that comes from hard circumstances. In easy times we rely on ourselves; in hard times we run to our Savior. And there is nothing better than that.

Seeing the World from the Throne Room

I’ve been experiencing some despair lately.

In the past few weeks there were such catastrophes in the world. The people of Burma have been struggling against the junta for years now for freedoms that Americans rarely reflect on – freedom of speech, for example – and now something as disastrous as a cyclone has ravaged the land, destroying even a hope of survival in some parts. To top it all off, the junta’s near-refusal of foreign aid is pushing the death toll higher and higher each day. Lack of aid could kill as many as the cyclone, experts are saying.

In China, a massive earthquake wreaked utter devastation and there are new pictures daily of parents mourning their children’s deaths. It’s chaos and destruction that seems to have come from nowhere. In Austria, a woman was recently discovered in a secret basement where she’d been held captive for 24 years – 24 years, longer than most of us have been alive – by her own father, who also fathered seven children with her. Three of these children had never seen the light of day before they were found.

In the past few years we’ve all noticed school shooting on the rise. Of course, we remember Virginia Tech; since then there have been seven school shootings on campuses in the United States, according to Wikipedia. The so-called “War on Terror” is still raging, and whether you support it or not, the number of casualties keeps going up. The US economy is facing recession; gas and food prices are climbing higher and higher. The Church is facing the same issues as the world: divorce, single-parenthood, casual sex, addiction, pornography, brokenness…

I am constantly being challenged with questions about my own lifestyle: Am I doing anything to help the poor, the “least of these”? Am I willing to give up my livelihood for the cross of Christ? Am I being a light to the world, or am I just solidifying the external assumption that Christians are hypocritical, self-aggrandizing, worldly know-it-alls? My own sin is hard enough, but coupled with a daily dose of world news, it can be downright discouraging. I’m so small and the problems are so huge. What are my thoughts, my passions, my actions even going to do in this world? What can the Church do?

So, I was deeply encouraged recently when I was reminded of a few important passages:

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
[…]
Come and see the works of the LORD,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
(Psalm 46:1-3, 8-11)

And another:
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God stands forever.
[…]
He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?
[…]
Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
(Isaiah 40:8, 11-12, 15)

God is both incredibly powerful and incredibly loving. He will not let the world forget him, and he has the means to shake us into submission. But oh, his mercy! That he would use these catastrophes to call sinners into his marvelous light to redeem them!

And God not only controls what’s happening in this world – he’s sovereign over our lives, too. He knows the precise moment at which he’ll call each of us to himself. He has perfectly planned the fullness of our lives, and when it’s time to go, we couldn’t possibly stay an instant longer here.

He knows our lives and our deaths. He knows the good things and the bad, the ups and downs, the surpluses and the recessions. He knows, also, that suffering, despair, and death are not the worst things that could happen to us. As Paul said, “To die is gain,” because he knew it’s where we go after death that matters.

We have hope in the midst of both small and great pain because God is on the throne. He knows what he’s doing and his mercy is ever flowing. We have a Savior. We have the promise of life now and greater life after death. Our treasures are in heaven, and when Christ strides in on his white horse and calls us his beloved, the pain of today will mean nothing.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” (Rev. 21:1-5)

“Therefore … let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1-3)