February 6, 2010 at 5:36 am (Christian Experience)
It’s not uncommon for Christians who are under severe trials to find themselves experiencing doubts and concerns about their relationship to God. They cry out to him for help but it may seem like he is far away. They may be bewildered by God’s dealings with them. This spiritual depression that they experience may further alarm them and others around them. It is thought perhaps that as Christians they should have peace and joy at all times and hence the absence of such peace is alarming. However things are not always as they seem. A Christian may lack a sense of peace and assurance of God’s love, yet the fact that they continue to look to him and cry out to him in their pain is a good sign that it is well with their soul. In Luke 18 the elect are described as those who ‘cry to him day and night.’ Isaiah 50 speaks of people who ‘fear the Lord’ yet ‘walk in darkness and have no light.’ Furthermore we ought to remember that Jesus himself was ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’ (Isaiah 53). In the garden of Gethsemane he was not calm and peaceful but deeply troubled. As we are conformed to his likeness we ought not to be surprised if we find ourselves ourselves also deeply troubled. What matters most at such times is not how we feel but where we look.
Joni Erickson Tada has been a quadriplegic ever since she was a teenager. Speaking at a conference not long ago she said, ‘don’t think that after all these years I’ve worked out how to handle quadriplegia. I still can’t handle quadriplegia. I wake up every morning, so tired and I cry out to God saying, “God, I can’t do quadriplegia. Help me.” She said, ‘I wake up knowing my girlfriend is about to come through the door and help me out of bed and I just can’t summon up the strength to greet her with a smile, so I cry out to God and only then do I find that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ You see it is not that our trials become easier as we grow in godliness, it is that we learn to cry out more to God and depend more upon his strength. This is what it means to suffer well.
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December 24, 2009 at 3:41 am (Christian Experience)
‘I get knocked down but I get up again, you’re never going to keep me down.’ So goes the well known line of Chumbawamba’s most popular hit. For many people however it would be a truer description of their lives to say, ‘I get up but get knocked down again, you’re never going to keep me up.’
In my own life I’ve found that the extent to which this latter description applies to me is very much connected to where I place my hopes. While I’ve been unwell these past two years, I’ve often made the mistake of putting my hope in getting better. I would have a couple good days and think I was possibly on the mend. This would be followed by further deterioration, which inevitably meant that my spirit went up and down like a yo-yo. As long as my hope is placed in a return to health I find that I am very apt to become anxious or depressed.
On the other hand when I focus on Christ and the certainty of his resurrection and the fact that I am united to him by faith I can tolerate all kinds of circumstances far more comfortably. The only way to really be a person who gets knocked down but gets up again is to make sure that I put my hope in a place where it can never fail. If my hope is in my health it must fail, because I am mortal. If it is in money, that must fail because I can’t take it with me when I die. If it’s in the things I do or accomplish then that must fail because eventually I won’t be able to do those things anymore. There is only one hope that will not ultimately fail and that is hope in the resurrected living Christ. He is the only living hope. All other hopes are dying – they get up but get knocked down again and again and again and eventually fail to rise.
Now I don’t want to give the impression that when I place my hope in Christ I never experience pain or deep discouragements. If anything scripture teaches that Christians get knocked down more than most. They are united to Christ and therefore they suffer with him, but… they will also rise with him! They get knocked down but by God’s grace, they get up again and again and again and eventually they will rise to eternal life.
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December 9, 2009 at 11:11 pm (Christian Experience, Scripture)
I pray almost every day that God would heal me. I long to able to work again and serve others rather than burdening them. I wish I could serve God with renewed physical and mental capacities and yet I know that this may not be what God plans for me. I find this hard and I imagine that I have many bed-ridden brothers and sisters in Christ the world over who also struggle with the prospect of being physically weak and dependent on others for the rest of their lives. With this in mind I want to share a promise in Scripture which has ministered to me and I pray may also be a consolation to others. Until recently I never noticed this precious promise from Micah 4:6 & 7.
“In that day,” declares the LORD,
“I will assemble the lame
And gather the outcasts,
Even those whom I have afflicted.
7″I will make the lame a remnant
And the outcasts a strong nation,
And the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion
From now on and forever.
When we understand that it is God who has afflicted us, we may be tempted to think that God is against us. While it may be true that we are suffering because of sin and because we need to be disciplined, this is a sign not of God’s rejection of us but of his love toward us. Although we may be lame for the rest of our lives and we may groan in pain each day, if we are his, he does not plan to leave us here forever. Christ will come back one day and he will gather many who have been bed-ridden for years; he will give the richest fellowship to many who for years could not get to church; he will gather a multitude of people that the world at large barely noticed and from them he will make a great nation. Now that is grace. God takes those whom he has afflicted, he takes those who may feel like they constitute nothing more than the dregs of society to reign with him forever. Dear suffering brother or sister, keep looking to Jesus. He will in a little while return, gather you up and bind up all your wounds, he will give you a new and glorious resurrected body that will never fail like the old one.
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November 9, 2009 at 6:18 am (Scripture)
The superscription to this psalm states that it was written when David fled from Saul and hid in the cave. He cries out to God to preserve him until destruction passes by. His enemies have him trapped. They ‘have dug a pit’ for him and then it says in verse 6 that they themselves have fallen into the midst of it. Saul goes into the cave in 1 Samuel 24 to relieve himself and David cuts off the corner of his robe. When David makes his presence known to Saul, Saul realises that in the end it was his life and not David’s that was in danger. He fell into the trap which he had set. Therefore God not only preserved David but he gave him victory over his enemy. This is always true of God’s people when they run to him for protection and salvation. Not only do they find salvation and preservation but victory over all their enemies. ‘We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.’
What is particularly striking is the means by which the conquest is achieved. We conquer not by standing our ground and fighting but by running to Christ for refuge. Those who seek preservation in God find victory over death and hell while those who seek to battle evil in their own strength cannot stand.
As we run from sin to Christ we defeat it. As we run from the Devil to Christ we defeat him. As we run from evil men to Christ we defeat them. If they hurt us we fellowship with Christ in his sufferings and if they kill us we will rise again to live forever with the one whom death could not hold and whose death was the ultimate victory over all evil. Cowards and weaklings do not normally win great battles, but in the battle for eternal life it is only cowards and weaklings who win; it is only those who run in all their fear and weakness and hopelessness to find refuge in Jesus.
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September 30, 2009 at 2:54 am (Christian Poetry)
Be still, be calm, don’t be afraid,
The mighty Christ is here;
He once was dead but now he lives
And conquers ev’ry fear.
Though Satan roars and prowls about,
His days are nearly done;
He held us down in fear of death
But Christ has overcome.
Come now rejoice, don’t be afraid
For death has lost its sting,
The grave has lost it’s victory
And Christ alone is King.
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September 30, 2009 at 2:47 am (Christian Poetry)
Consider it true joy
Whenever trials come,
Through suff’ring God shall etch in us
The likeness of his Son.
He wounds that he may heal,
Brings pain to bring relief;
Destroys our pride to strenghthen faith,
To quell our unbelief.
The testing of our faith
Will teach us to endure;
And through endurance God shall make
A life complete and pure.
So let us not lose heart,
These pains so brief and light
Are working an eternal weight
Of glory and delight.
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September 23, 2009 at 4:52 am (Scripture)
In the past I have made the mistake of thinking of God’s law almost soley as an instrument intended to convict of sin and therefore drive us to Christ. The law does do this but it also tells us many things about the character of God. It shows us not only his justice but also his grace and mercy. One of my favourite examples of this is the requirement in Deuteronomy 24 that forbids the retrieval of a sheaf that has been left out in the field. It is to be left there for the poor. The rich are required to show mercy to the poor even through the way that they respond to their own forgetfulness. According this law, the forgetfulness of the rich is a remembering of the poor. Truly, God’s laws are not burdensome, they are full of kindness and compassion.
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September 15, 2009 at 10:29 am (Christian Experience)
I wrote this about a month ago. My situation has since changed having now received a diagnosis but I thought I’d record this as a blog to help me remember some of the important things that God has taught me through Job.
The specialists have not been able to shed any light on things for me. I still seem to be getting ever so gradually weaker but God has been very gracious through it all. Each night my father reads some scripture and we pray together. It’s been really good. Last night we read James 5 where he reminds us of the endurance of Job and the Lord’s mercy to him. I’m so thankful for the book of Job. I find it hard not knowing what is wrong, not knowing if God plans to restore me, keep me sick or even take me home. I find it hard to understand what God is doing but last night my father reminded me that God never gave Job an answer. He never knew why he was sick. He didn’t know if God planned to restore him or slay him. He desperately wanted an answer but God in his mercy withheld it. If he had an answer he wouldn’t have learned patience and his faith would not have been vindicated. I wonder too whether he would have been able to understand if God did give him an answer. Jesus said to his disciples, I have many things to tell you but you cannot bear them now. Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I felt encouraged when I considered that the uncertainty and mystery that I struggle with is actually a token of God’s mercy – to prove and strengthen faith, while at the same time not giving us more than we can bear..
I’ve also been thinking, how wonderful heaven will be, not just because pain and sorrow are gone, but because it will be intellectually satisfying. Our questions will be answered, the mysteries of providence unravelled – our minds will be so perfected as to be able both to bear and enjoy the glorious and infinite wisdom of God. ‘Now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face, now I know in part but then I shall know fully even as I am fully known.’
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September 14, 2009 at 11:28 am (Scripture)
There are essentially two kinds of proverbs in the book of Proverbs. There are proverbs that tell us what life is like and there are proverbs that tell us how to live. One is descriptive and the other is prescriptive. In many cases the same topic is addressed by means of these two different kinds of proverbs. For example there are proverbs that describe what it is like to be poor. “All a poor man’s brothers hate him; how much more do his friends go far from him (19:7).” There are also proverbs which tell us how we should deal with the poor. “Whoever is gracious to the needy lends to the Lord and he will repay him for his deed. (19:17)”. This may provide a key to understanding how wisdom operates in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs teaches us wisdom by showing us not only what life is like but how we ought to respond to it. Many people are able to describe life but only the wisdom of God enables us not only to understand the way the world ticks but also the way God wants us to live in it.
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