A recent post from Alan's blog: Downshoredrift.com
Jesus is my victory, but I feel like a loser.
Jesus is my life, but I feel like death.
Jesus is my salvation, but I feel lost.
Jesus is my hope, but despair settles about me.
Jesus is my light, but my eyes are dim.
The first half of each statement contains things that are
objectively true about God and the life that He gives us, while the
second half is how I feel right now. We must live out of those truths
and reject the lies. Maturity requires it. I know all of that. But,
sometimes, my feelings don't line up with what I know to be objectively
true. Over the past week, I've seen and felt death and suffering. I've
mourned with those who mourned and mourned myself. I've traveled,
contemplated, prayed, and listened. I've been weary and felt broken
down. I'm feeling older now. Those that I have loved and have marked my
life with their presence are beginning to pass. My children are
growing. Things are shifting. The lines around my eyes are growing
deeper and my waistline is growing bigger. Loneliness bangs on my door.
Questions about myself, life, my place in this world, and how God is to
be known and followed attend my waking and lying down. The words, "the
scans are clear," regarding my son, Caelan, are words of praise and I
am grateful beyond belief, but my soul is singed from the nearness of
the fire. I recognize how fragile life is and how we are guaranteed
nothing. God cannot be controlled or coerced, nor can the things that I
want from Him be extracted by my pleading.
God's sovereignty is not a comfort to me at this point. I know that
He is God and I do not doubt His Lordship over creation. I also do
not doubt His goodness or anything about His character. What I believe
is not the question. But, we don't always experience what we
believe, at least in the moment. Cassie. 4 years old and at clinic with
her parents so they could hear where she stood with her cancer. Her Mom
and Dad love her so much. They held her yesterday while we were there
with Caelan and played with her. Her Mom talked about "mom" things like
what foods Cassie ate and how she likes to play. She sat on her Dad's
lap and he held her close. A little while later, while we got good news
about Caelan, they found out that the tumors had spread through little
Cassie's body and that there was nothing they could do. Thinking about
objective truth doesn't alleviate my heartache for this family because
their objective truth, at least the truth that grips them with cold
fingers around their neck, is that their little Cassie is dying.
Erika tells me that of all the children and parents that she met
when we started with Caelan's treatment 3 years ago, only 3 of those
children are still alive. Death has taken all of them. Death will
take all of us. Some of what I am feeling comes from seeing our
limitations a little more clearly. We don't like to talk about death
because it makes us feel uncomfortable. We want to pretend like we'll
live forever and that things will keep getting better and better in
this world. But, unless we look death in the eye, I don't think that we
can understand what life really is. Unless we stare upon the horror of
our sin and failure, I don't know that we can know what holiness really
is. Unless we experience some of the groaning of creation expressed in
the pain of loss and the sorrow that it produces in us when people we
love are lost to us, then I don't know if we can experience the joy
of the new birth. I'm not saying that we have to go out and search for
suffering to really enjoy life. I'm saying that suffering comes to us
all eventually, whether we like it or not. We will see it if we live
with our eyes open and not deaden our hearts to the pain that exists
all around us.
Jesus Wept. Jesus saw and entered into this pain. The Bible
says in a couple of places that he was "moved with compassion." That
literally means that he was moved in his bowels with deep feelings of
compassion for people. Hebrews tells us that he is able to sympathize
with our weaknesses and that He suffered too. Isaiah 53 tells us that
Jesus was despised and rejected. He suffered and was crushed. Psalm 22
speaks to the loneliness and isolation of Jesus. We skip his passion to
get to the victory of the resurrection and in doing so, we trivialize
the work of Christ and separate him from us in our deepest need.
The Christian life is not all sunshine and roses just because Jesus
is victorious over death. We are not Buddhists who find salvation in
the absence of desire as we cease to feel anything. Yes, there is
victory. But, we also recognize that God has placed eternity in our
hearts (Eccl. 3:11). We are made in God's image. Death hurts so badly
because we recognize deep in our hearts that it was never meant to
be this way. God did not intend for us to die. He didn't intend for us
to be separated from one another. We hurt and suffer when we experience
things that do not line up with what God intended. Being made in His
image, the pain that we feel when love is replaced by loathing, when
relationships are broken, and when rejection takes the place of
acceptance, only speaks to the eternity in our hearts that is being
frustrated by the groaning of creation caused by the effects of sin.
Death comes from sin (Rom. 6:23). When we fall short of God's glory and
experience sin and its effects, it hurts, because we were meant to live
for the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:12).
The Good News that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ arrives in the
midst of suffering. Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, shows up
at Lazarus' tomb when all those that loved the man inside are broken by
despair. He says, "Come forth" to people who have tasted death and its
encroaching coldness. We don't experience more of Jesus by pretending
that life isn't hard and that loss is not real. God is not closer when
our heads are in the sand. Rather, it is in the suffering and darkness
of despair that the light of Christ truly shines because He has taken
our despair upon Himself. He enters into it and overcomes it.
He grabbed it off of me. He took my rejection and my shame. He bore my
sin and my pain. He became poor for me so that I might become rich in
Him. He who knew no sin became sin for me that I might become the
righteousness of God.
I don't feel better by convincing myself that everything is going to
be okay and that things will work out the way I want them to. That
doesn't always happen. It isn't happening for Cassie's family
right now, or the other 5 families that I have encountered this week
who have either lost loved ones or are losing them. My emotions only
come in line with the objective truth of the victory of Christ when
I meet Jesus in the real place, the dark night that engulfs us all at
times.
Jesus comes to the prison to be with the convict who committed
horrible crimes against innocent people. He is in the hospital room
with the family saying good bye to a beloved husband and father. He is
in the village with the mother holding her young child dying of
starvation or dehydration caused by diarrhea, things that I don't
have to worry about because I can eat and drink when I want. He is on
the battlefield with the soldier who reaches down for his legs to find
that his lower half is gone. He is with the woman who hears that her
husband no longer loves her and has found another, after she has given
her life to him and their children. He is with the man who hears from
his employer that he is no longer needed and his job is being shipped
overseas or is being given to someone younger, less experienced, and
cheaper. He is with the alcoholic who has been clean for a year and
started to get his life back together, only to be overwhelmed by the
demons of the bottle and take that first drink that leads to another
and another until he finds himself face down in his own vomit, having
thrown his sobriety away. He is with all of us that suffer, all of us
that can't stand to look at ourselves in the mirror, all of us that
fail and sin and struggle and still call upon the name of the Lord.
You better know the real God when the dark night comes - the God who
invades death, pain, and destruction and takes it upon Himself. The God
who suffers is the only God who can meet our need. We were made in His
image and only God can deliver us. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good
news because it speaks to our pain, our alienation, and our suffering,
whether caused by us or others, and tells us that there is deliverance
and freedom for all who look to Him. This life is not all there is.
There is a life to come that is far beyond what we can imagine
because Jesus is there and we will be with Him. He meets our need
because He sees us in our pain and He comes after us. He is not a
doctrine or a teaching. He is not a set of assumptions or speculations.
He is God of Gods and He is my Creator and my soul only finds rest in
Him.
_______________________________
I just got a phone call from the son of a man that I have have come
to love and admire deeply over the past few years. The man's name is
Roy Nutt. He's battled cancer for the past several years with great
courage and just a few minutes ago, he finally succumbed, his body too
weak to fight any longer. I saw him Thursday night in the hospital,
tubes coming out of his body and him barely conscious. His faithful
wife and children keeping watch in the waiting room. Roy was a man who
struggled against cancer and fought it valiantly. He loved Jesus. Even
though he suffered greatly, he was always thinking about others and
prayed for my son, Caelan, everyday. He was in his late 70's when he
passed away and was just baptized a few years ago because he wanted
to obey God and had never been baptized. He was a good man and he was
my friend and he will be missed greatly. Tears are filling my eyes as
I write this because I am feeling the pain of how it is not supposed to
be. We were not supposed to die. We were not supposed to grow old and
suffer and lose the ones that are precious to us. I feel that pain
and I have the strength embrace it, because while the pain is there the
fear of what is coming for all of us is not. Perfect love drives out
fear (1 John 4:18). I know that I am loved perfectly by a Savior who
knows what I am feeling. Because Jesus wept at Lazarus' tomb, he
understands why I weep at Roy's death. This is not how it was supposed
to be and God knows it. And, it is to this world that He came to
deliver all who would look to Him.
We do not weep as the world weeps. We do not suffer as the world
suffers, without hope. Though the pain of loss is real and acute, it is
not final. The God of Comfort comforts us in all our troubles.
He invades the pain and the loss and the questions and the uncertainty.
He is found there and He ministers the truth to us that this life is
not all there is. He is Christus Victor, the conqueror of evil, death,
sin, and shame. Facing my pain, I encounter Christ and my feelings come
in line with the objective truth of the victory of Christ. Jesus is
real and He is the Resurrection and the Life. He has overcome and He
will overcome. He will wipe away every tear. Our sins are remembered
no more. Our healing is complete in Him.
I don't know what to do with plastic Christianity that just tells us
to be happy and that life with God will all be wonderful if I do
everything right. I don't know what to do with a pack of lies that
masquerades as biblical faith. I don't do everything right, and even if
I did it would not keep death and suffering from my door. This world is
convulsing in devastation because of the effects of sin and our flight
from God. I experience the trauma of the Fall just like everyone else.
But, it is into this rebelling, obstinate, angry world that Jesus came
to deliver and set us free. He is on a great rescue mission, invading
enemy territory and snatching us from the fire. We are in a world at
war and I, for one, don't want to pretend that I don't feel the pain.
I'd rather be honest about my suffering and bring it to Jesus than to
pretend that it doesn't exist.
Roy's funeral is Tuesday. But, at this moment, his suffering has
ceased and he has stepped outside of time and space and is complete in
the arms of his Savior. He is experiencing life, real life, for the
first time. For the first time he is experiencing life the way that it
was meant to be. No tears. No suffering. No pain. Knowing as he
is known. Complete in Christ. For the first time, his feelings and
emotions are fully in line with objective truth and his questions are
answered in the One who created, saved, redeemed, and delivered
him. Roy is at peace, and because I know this and believe it as well, I
find peace too - The peace that surpasses all understanding as I
encounter the Prince of Peace in the midst of suffering.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and
the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit in Philippians 3:10-11
