Christ & Culture, Faith & Politics, Discipleship & Life
Last time I talked about our inner voices that Satan uses to deceive and discourage us. The beautiful thing is that those voices do not define who we are (although sometimes we are tempted to allow that to happen).
Here are a couple of songs to help make that point. My negative self-talk, my failures, my sinful nature do not own me because I am a child of the One True King.
(Songs by Disciple and Matthew West)
Being out sick for a week gave me a lot of time to think. But since I was sleeping most of the time, I don’t remember much of it, lol, so instead you get my thoughts looking back.
Rest is the best medicine
I once heard someone say, “be sure to take the Sabbath or the Sabbath will take you.” He then went on to describe how we burn ourselves out by filling our weekends, our times off, with being busy. We call sports tournaments and kids’ activities as “recreation”, but neither allow us much rest. We fill our Sundays with church meetings, classes, and even more busyness and then wonder why we’re so tired Monday morning when we return to the grind.
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)
I approached being sick the same way. I could tell I was coming down with something when I started feeling lethargic. Once it got to the point it was affecting my work, I decided to take a day off. I slept in, and then made myself busy the rest of the day catching up on errands around town and chores around the house. I shouldn’t have been surprised when less than a week later, I was laid up in bed, only getting up to help my kids get ready for school. I was restless and felt like I needed to do something, but staying in bed all day is what I needed most.
Treat the disease, not the symptom
I finally went in to the doctor when I started struggling to breathe. I don’t like going to the doctor because treating whatever ails is a crapshoot. Last week about half of my vanpool missed work. We all showed the same symptoms yet we each received different diagnoses and different prescriptions. Mine was for high-powered cough syrup (aka Codeine) and after taking it the first day my cough went away but my stuffy head and sore throat got worse.
The same is true in life and spirituality. We try and fight off a particular sin but neglect the root cause behind it. We confess being irritable with our spouse but deny just how stressed out we are at work (to take my most common example). We read self-help books, watch Oprah, and fill our heads with means of treating symptoms but we can only find healing when we hand over our disease to the Great Physician, Jesus.
“[T]he power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick… When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven… Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.‘” (Luke 5:17b,20,23-24)
Feed a cold, but don’t starve spiritually
While I was sick I didn’t go online, I didn’t read, I seldom prayed (beyond the regular “please, God, make this go away!”). I was starving myself spiritually. But I did get out to church and my church’s Super Bowl party. Just that brief fellowship renewed my [spiritual] strength enough to bring me back to my relationship with God. I didn’t read entire books; and I regretted that the whole time, “I have all this time, I should knock out a couple books!” But I fed just on just enough of the Word to sustain me.
Once I was feeling well enough to be up and about I was starving! I dug into my Bible, I caught up on blogs, I caught up on several books. I almost had to be pried away from my study- it felt so good and it had been so long! And that hunger extended to my prayers, I have prayed like I haven’t in a long time ever since I got better.
“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1)
Follow the Doctor’s orders
Although medicine may not be an exact science, the general advice of a doctor is still worth following. When he or she says to rest, I need to listen and rest. But this advice extends beyond this particular episode of being sick. Do we heed doctor’s warnings about our diet and encouragement to exercise? Are we willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to stay healthy?
Again, this applies spiritually as well. We have our doctor’s orders summed up in a single big book. Do we read it? Do we do what it says? Self-diagnose yourself about your sin. How do you treat it? Do you run from it? Do you confess it? Do you cut off what leads you to it? Are you following the doctor’s orders?
“So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, ‘Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.’ But Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?’ So he turned and went off in a rage.” (2 Kings 5:9-12)
Get well so you can take care of others
Illness is often contagious so naturally, as soon as I started to feel better my son started to come down with the same thing. It is hitting him harder however, requiring both my wife and I to remain as healthy as we can be so that we can take care of him. In fact last night I was up with him four different times. If I was too sick to get up, what then?
Spiritually-speaking, how can we expect to serve others when we are either so sick with sin ourselves or if we are starving from spiritual malnourishment?
“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:1)
Our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit. So it follows that lessons from physical ailments can be applied to our spiritual condition as well. We need to seek out the Great Physician and listen to his advice. We need regular checkups. And we need to know when we are so sick we need a stronger dose of medicine. I’m not perfectly healthy- I won’t be, I can’t be, until I receive a new body. So I need to take care of it the best I can.
There have been several blog posts analyzing the contrast of legalism and grace between Valjean and Javert in the recent movie (and older musical and even older book) Les Miserables. I’ve been wanting to tackle the subject myself but I haven’t seen the movie yet (do any of you want to volunteer to watch my kids so my wife and I can go?). So instead you can check out these posts.
But I am still going to hit this topic, just with a different backdrop. Wednesday the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) failed to elect any player to baseball’s Hall of Fame. I already vented on Facebook, so I’ll spare you my tirade. But this article by Jayson Stark at ESPN got my wheels spinning and turned my thoughts back to the subject of legalism and grace. Stark asks this fundamental question which then shapes how we view the Hall: do we want the Hall of Fame to be a museum or a shrine?
To me, baseball is practically a religion. I already wrote about one of baseball’s “angels” and his effort to get into the Hall. And before about being child-like in our view of the game. Like any compelling drama, baseball has a diverse cast of characters- heroes and villains, or for the purposes of this argument saints and sinners- while trying to maintain an image of holiness outside its sacred walls.
Not much different than the church you or I go to, is it? We are just a mass of saints and sinners and our attitudes towards one another depends largely on to what degree we embrace legalism or grace.
The Hall of Fame voters made a statement against the steroid era by not enshrining any player to its stained glass shrine. The universal condemnation against all (assumed by the rejection of Mike Piazza-best hitting catchers in history, Jeff Bagwell-one of the most durable first basemen in history, and Craig Biggio-who had over 3000 hits) because of the recognized sin of a few (Barry Bonds-all time home run record holder and Roger Clemens-most Cy Young awards) despite the open repentance of some (Mark McGwire who said, “I wouldn’t even have voted for myself”).
On the other end of the spectrum are the vocal fans, more than willing to overlook a player’s sins because of the statistics they produced or because he played for their favorite team (though I’m still having a hard time forgiving Sammy Sosa). It’s hard to like a player who is standoffish when he’s hitting .200, but if he hits 60 home runs in a season, suddenly he’s not so bad.
While it may look like the latter group is extending grace towards these players, they are instead exhibiting the worst kind of legalism- that these players earned their forgiveness, that their performance speaks for itself, the the ends justified the means. The former group are more like Pharisees, upholding a measure of law that can never reasonably be met.
So who in this story is Jesus? Certainly not Bud Selig- he’s more Pontius Pilate. To be quite honest, I have yet to see anyone come out and say to those accused of cheating the game, “I forgive you.” I’ve seen forgiveness conditional on the assumption that others in the Hall have cheated. I’ve seen forgiveness in the guise of acceptance- “well, that’s just the way it was in that era.” But I haven’t seen anyone rise above the petty arguments over statistics and legacies and forgive just because. The writers haven’t. The fans haven’t.
Which brings us back to our own position on the diamond. Is the sinner next to you in the dugout Sunday morning any better or worse than you? Is someone else putting up herculean numbers at the giving plate that deserve special recognition for their feat? Or are we all just players in this game and no one is keeping score?
My stats aren’t worthy of induction. Thankfully, because of the grace of Jesus Christ, I don’t ever have to worry about being voted in.
In the busyness of the Christmas season, I’ll be reposting some of my favorite posts and scaling back my original content. Leading up to New Year’s I’ll be posting a best-of 2012. This particular post was published in January and had the most comments this year (in fact, comments are still coming in!).
The tweet read “this is perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of college football.” It was followed by, “Filing this report made me sick to my stomach.” Obviously the first tweet caught my attention. The second made this a must-click. The tweets were from Yahoo Sports report Dan Wetzel, who broke the Gary Sandusky story. A simple recap if you’re not familiar (and a simple recap does not do this story justice): Gary Sandusky was a former assistant coach at Penn State University who headed up a youth foundation out of an office there. The first break was simply a report of Grand Jury testimony describing how a then-graduate assistant observed Sandusky molesting a young boy in the Penn State football locker room. Like most things of this magnitude, this was only the tip of the iceberg. Eventually, more names surfaced, Sandusky was arrested, and famed head coach Joe Paterno was forced out of his job. Sadly, last week Joe Pa passed away with this cloud still hanging over his otherwise record-setting legacy.
It’s a shame really. Just like you cannot say Catholic priest without conjuring up images of that scandal, so it is likely to forever be with Joe Paterno. Never mind anything else he had done over the course of his career, this is too awful to leave as a footnote in his biography.
I’m glad I didn’t get around to posting last week, as I really didn’t want to pile on. This story disgusts me, and I’m not writing about it just to get more hits to my blog. But the popular public face hiding the seedy underbelly of Penn State football, where Legends and Leaders are more important than integrity and protecting those who cannot protect themselves, kept coming to mind as I was reading the fifth chapter of Kyle Idleman’s Not A Fan, “following Jesus or following the rules?” In this chapter, Kyle calls our attention to the “seven woes” in Matthew 23 where Jesus lashes out against the religious elite.
Six of the seven woes begin, “Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” While we throw around that word, hypocrite, we usually don’t think of what it actually means. I’ve read both that it means the actors in Greek plays or that it means the masks they wear. Either way, the word is synonymous with, duplicitous, two-faced, masked, or putting on an act. As more evidence of the Penn State scandal it appears that administrators at Penn State, including head coach Joe Paterno, were more concerned about the reputation of their university and football program than exposing, reporting, and prosecuting the truth. Literally, they were hypocrites. (And to be fair, it is still not clear the extent of who knew what, but the dismissals of their Athletic Director and famed head coach indicates that they knew enough to act, but chose not to. Their motives may never be known.)
But like I continue to say through these series of posts, this isn’t a sports blog. Yet we can learn a lot from the headlines around us to cause us to pause and consider our own motives and our own religiosity. Christians are notorious for condemning vice from the soapbox while engaging in that very same vice behind closed doors; putting on our Sunday best while acting differently the rest of the week. It is the contrast between being religious and being faithful. Or in the context of this book, being a fan or a follower.
If we can learn anything from the Sandusky case, it is that not exposing the truth often leads to more hurt as bad behavior is enabled by inaction. We may be tempted to be hypocrites to protect some private sin, but that only allows the sin to grow. In the case of the Pharisees, their hypocrisy hurt not only themselves but also those whose very souls they were responsible for. The Pharisees were guilty of piling on rules upon rules that they themselves did not obey. And when we become more concerned about our spiritual image, we neglect the condition of our hearts.
The hypocrisy of the Sandusky case is stomach-turning. We need to have the same gag-reflex to spiritual hypocrisy. Our sin needs to disgust us to the point of being sick.
“So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to [vomit] you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16)
“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” (Proverbs 26:11)
This post continues my series blogging through the book, Not A Fan by Kyle Idleman. I encourage you to follow along by clicking on the Not A Fan label to the right. And I urge you to pick up a copy of this book for yourself.
Even though I grew up in ski country, I have only been skiing once. Not only was I not very good, but during one of my many falls I dislocated my thumb. That may not sound like a big deal but it still affects me from time to time nearly twenty years later. When I played summer-league softball in college, every hit shot pain up through my arm as the impact of ball on bat pushed back just enough on the joint of my thumb. While playing a game of pickup basketball after I graduated, I went to the ground after a loose ball and couldn’t put weight on my hand to push myself back up. These days when I do yard work, I have to take breaks from shoveling or hacking away at wood because that tender area between my thumb and my hand hurts just too much.
That thought stuck in my mind as I read chapter VIII of A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, “Restoring the Creator-creature Relation”. Right at the beginning of the chapter Tozer writes, “the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation, and upset in our relation to God and to each other.” (pg 70) Dislocation. The word made it so clear, so obvious. And subconsciously caused my thumb to ache.
God designed the perfect relationship: tending to the Garden of Eden together with his creation. But ever since The Fall, mankind has been dislocated from that perfect alignment. Just as my thumb hurts when conditions are just right, discomforts in this world remind us of our fallen state. The common question is why does God allow bad things to happen? The answer, based on this observation, is to remind us of our condition.
I can put my hand in a brace, isolate it from movement, take pain killers to dull aches and pains, or even just keep my hand in my pocket and never take it out, but none of those things change the fact that it is forever injured. In the same way we can dress ourselves up with religion, practice all the spiritual disciplines, lock ourselves away in a monastery to guard us from the world, but those are just physical means to medicate a spiritual injury. So long as we are in this world, our flesh will oppose a right relationship with God. So long as we are exposed to this world and its ideals, our mind cannot fully comprehend our position with God. But our hearts, guided by the Holy Spirit by the grace of Jesus Christ can desire to be adjoined with our Creator. And that is enough to bring comfort to our terminal injury.
This blog is part of a book club reading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. Please join the discussion here and at our hosts, Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter. Need a copy of the book? You can get it for free on Kindle.
A few days ago my son told me how he made a decision at school not based on simple right or wrong but whether or not I would get mad at him. Even more, he said he thought Satan would have made me mad at him.
First I wanted to encourage him not to be afraid of me getting mad at him and had a deeper talk about right and wrong. But I wanted to dig deeper on what he meant by saying Satan would make me mad at him. Amazingly he recalled a conversation we had months ago when he asked me if Satan was real. I think this was around Halloween and he was afraid to go to bed. So I described how Satan wasn’t some monster that would come to us in the night to harm us, but instead he gets in our hearts to trick us into making bad decisions. He dropped it then and peacefully went to sleep, so I was surprised to hear this come up now.
Satan is a tricky subject to tackle, especially for a seven year old. Even believing adults struggle with the notion of a fallen angel running around causing us to do bad. On one extreme some will blame everything on Satan, from catching a cold or a series of red lights that makes one late for work to serious sin and addiction. The other extreme considers Satan “an idea” that represents all that is evil. Of course the truth is somewhere in between. But to someone not as devout in their faith, either notion makes Satan sound more like the boogeyman than the real spiritual force he is.
It is with this latter attitude that the media has approached Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s comments from 2008 where he stated that Satan had his “sights on” America. To the infamous Main Stream Media, someone who believes in Satan is as foolish and naive as someone who believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
But according to this MSNBC news piece, a 2007 Gallup poll and a Harris poll in 2009 show that most Americans (7 in 10 and 60%, respectively) believe the devil is real. Yet a 2009 Barna survey of self-identified Christians (versus the broad swath of Americans in the other studies) shows that 59% either agree or somewhat agree with the description of Satan as an idea or symbol of evil versus an actual living being.
While on the surface, it looks like these polls are contradictory, the devil is in the details. In the first two, people we asked simply if they “believed in the Devil” where Barna gets more specific. In that context, Barna found that 92% of those polled believe in some notion of the Devil.
Of course none of this data is relevant in choosing whether Santorum should be the president. Yet it highlights the diversity in the nuances of our faith. There is no broad-brush “Christian” in America that can be painted into a single corner politically no matter how much the media may try.
But I digress. I’m interested in you; what do you believe about Satan? Is he real or symbolic?
***Update: Added the full Green Eggs and Sin poem at the end of this post.***
So I mentioned I liked Sunday’s sermon so much I would dedicate two posts to it. Click here for part 1 (and an awesome video!). You can also listen to the whole thing here.
That was the meat of the sermon. But the outline was taken from Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. In that story, Sam I Am pesters an unnamed man to try green eggs and ham.
Would you eat them in a house? Would you eat them with a mouse?
The man resists and resists.
I will not eat them on a boat! I will not eat them with a goat!
After running though nearly every scenario imaginable (I mean, who eats with a mouse or a goat?), the man (SPOILER WARNING!!!) gives in and tries this unique delicacy.
And. It. Is. Delicious!
Satan is the same way. He pesters and pesters, pokes and prods.
(In fact Satan was pestering Ivan during the sermon. His phone went off. The wireless mic wasn’t working. And the video I shared Monday didn’t play.)
Will you sin in your house? Will you sin with your mouse (click)?
And sometimes we get so tired of resisting we give in. And sin tastes delicious! Just ask Eve.
But remember what I referenced Monday: if you “resist the devil, he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Think about how adamant the man was against trying the green eggs and ham. That is how we must oppose Satan’s schemes.
I will not sin here nor there! I will not sin ANYWHERE!
Here’s the full version. All credit goes to my friend, Ivan Strean. I’m not that creative!
Huge hat tip to Ivan for a powerful sermon yesterday. So powerful in fact, that I’m dedicating two posts to it.
“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
The following video has been seen 64 million times. It is that cool. In fact, all you have to do is start typing “battle” in YouTube and this is the first thing that comes up. I’ll let you watch before babbling further.
Satan is like a lion looking to devour. Who does he devour? The young, the weak, and the alone. In the video, the lions pounce and go right after the young water buffalo. But just when you think the lions have won (out comes a crocodile!) the water buffaloes come to protect their own.
The spiritual application is obvious. Satan preys after the spiritually young, the spiritually weak, and the spiritually alone. But when we stand by our brothers and sisters in their most vulnerable times, we can help defend against the roaring lion. Just as important, as the baby water buffalo proved, no matter how beaten down you may be you can never give up fighting.
“Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” (v 9)
“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7b)
For more, I recommend the book The Lion Never Sleeps by Mike Taliaferro.
As I mentioned Monday, this past weekend’s Halloween-themed sermon was on battling our monsters drawing lessons from David’s confrontation with Goliath. (h/t Fred for the lesson and Dave for the additional insight!)
Recall the epic battles in “Braveheart” with each nation’s army lined up on opposite sides of the valley below. Remember the shouting back and forth, signaling strength and confidence. Now imagine that continuing on for 40 days and NO ONE ACTUALLY FIGHTING! I figure everyone would’ve been pretty hoarse after just a couple of days.
That is the scene David walks into in 1 Samuel, chapter 17. For 40 days the Philistine army had been lining up opposite the nation of Israel, daring them to fight. Leading the taunting was nine-foot tall Goliath and not a single Israelite dared to take him on. Except for young, diminutive David.
I think the reason the army of Israel was afraid to fight was because they were thinking of a conventional fight, taking on strength with strength. Of course that strategy works if your strengths match up. But if you know you’re at a disadvantage, it is wise not to fight.
“Suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.” (Luke 14:31-32)
But this wasn’t a conventional fight. The army of Israel wasn’t fighting alone. They had the power of the Lord Almighty fighting beside them.
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” (2 Corinthians 10:4)
Somehow they forgot that in the face of someone stronger. But David didn’t. He remembered the LORD his God. But he still needed a strategy of his own.
It is obvious that he was thinking of this while with Saul when he told him he “could not go [in Saul’s armor]” because he “was not used to them.” (1 Samuel 17:39) He knew his only chance was to match his speed against Goliath’s strength.
Also note that he picked up not just one, but five smooth stones. He expected he would need to get off more than one shot. He had a plan and he had a strategy.
But God had another strategy in mind. He only wanted one to stand up for His Name. So David only needed one shot to take down this giant.
Sometimes when facing our own inner demons, the sin that so easily entangles, we get stuck in a stare-down. We are too afraid to commit to the fight. Other times, we try and match strength for strength, but we can not overcome our sinful nature on our own. “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” (Romans 7:21) So we need to try unconventional means. We need to plan. We need to be cunning. “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) We need a strategy.
This post is part of the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival hosted by Peter Pollock. This week’s topic is strategy. Be sure to click the link to check out other posts!
“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’
On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’“ (Matthew 9:10-12)
“‘Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’ So he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Get up, take your mat and go home.’ Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.” (Matthew 9:5-8)
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1-2)
“…’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
When the Chilean miners were rescued last month, the whole world watched. Christians praised God as they heard the news and the credit the miners gave to their Lord. The miners become not only pop-culture celebrities, but also anecdotal heroes of the faith. But this religious fervor raises an important question. What if they weren’t rescued? Would God have been there then? Just how much did God have to do with saving those miners? Besides the Evangelical response, was the ecumenical response, and the skeptic response. Which is right? Is it possible they all are?
Michael Spencer, in the twelfth chapter of Mere Churchianity, questions the “perfection” demonstrated by many Christians under the guise of Jesus being both healer and savior. The premise goes that since they are saved, they are therefore healed. Healed of malady, financial hardships, depression, addiction, their own sinful nature. Paul, in the passages above would counter that claim, praising God for his weaknesses in one breath while reminding us that we are dead to our sin in the next. In the miracle above, Jesus’ acts of healing and forgiveness were not the same. They were two different events.
I’ve found there are two extremes to this theological and philosophical dilemma. On one side are those who praise God for being healed of everything under the sun. On the other are those who mope around acknowledging that they are sinners, always have been and always will be, who are just saved by God’s grace. On the one hand are those who believe so strongly that God heals completely through salvation that any sin or weakness must be the consequence of hidden sin or a lack of faith. Then there’s the temptation to over-rely on God’s grace for forgiveness without accepting our part to die to our sins (Romans 6, above). At the same time many Christians feel defeated by their sin, looking at Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” example from 2 Corinthians and just accept their sinful nature while not doing anything about it. Each is dangerous because they lead to using their present condition to judge others. Michael seems to fall towards the latter extreme. I admire admitting weakness, but he seems to dismiss any healing or providence from God.
But it begs the question of just how involved is God in our day-to-day struggles? Is he only around in the big things (Chilean miners) or in every little thing? And if He is involved in everything, then why doesn’t everything “work for the good”? Why do we still struggle with sin? Why does he have cancer, why did she lose her job, and why are they so “blessed”?
I don’t have the answers. I wish I did. But I know from experience being and working with addicts, that God can overcome our sinful natures. I also know that when he does so, “blessings” pour out in abundance. And I also recognize that this is completely different than salvation and grace. We joke in my recovery group that if you show up single, you’ll leave married. That’s been the case for four now-married couples. One brother just celebrated one year of sobriety. In that year, he’s returned to church, gotten married, and is now expecting a child. I would not be married to my wife if not for both of our recoveries. I’ve also seen the same number of marriages saved from the brink of divorce through recovery. Yet there are defeats as well. One couple separated as they both went through recovery and have had limited and mixed success in their sobriety. His heart is broken because a judge just ruled that she can move two states away and take their kids. He has since left church while she has stuck around. After the judge’s ruling, she posted on Facebook, “praise God…” He posted, “please pray for me…”
God is still there, still involved, and still active. How things will ultimately work out, I do not know. But I also do not know if God will grant me another day of sobriety, another day with my kids and my wife, another day employed. What happens next I just have to trust in Him.
(And iteresting dichotomy considering God’s providence: Michael Spencer died from a brain tumor before this book was released. Why him and why then? Yesterday was posted an interview with Matt Chandler, who one year ago was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Why him, why has he been spared? The interview is worth checking out.)