A Modest Proposal

One way to look at trials and suffering is the relief at the end and perhaps a blessing from God as a reward to all the trust and faithfulness we demonstrated during the time in the fire. I have lived most of my life with that perception: to look forward to when the trial was over and to receive from God Himself a confirmation that His job in me for that finer quality he wanted to reveal or produce in me was now present. I had grown. I had learned. Now I could go on with a deeper relationship with Him and look back to others that might be behind me and encourage them to keep stepping forward at faith’s pace and eventually be as blessed and experienced as myself….

What a crock. 

What is so special about the reward we receive after the trial we are facing is passed? When really looking at it and examining the state I have found myself in and have been in for years, I have come to realize something that in the outset I did not see.  If you have been following or reading this blog at all, you will know that I have been blogging over a decade and in those posts over the years you have perhaps  journeyed along with me through all kinds of struggles I have faced. But I have to say in all of those, there was at least an inference, a hope, that the situation I was living through would have resolution. So many patterns in the Bible infer and even exemplify such endings: Job’s final state, David’s victory over Absalom, Abraham’s raised knife, Pauls jarred prison door and dare I say it, Jesus’ angelic relief after His testing. The scriptures do tell of such great a powerful endings that one comes to, even trained, to think of a trial only in the light of its coming resolution. 

But.. what if you have waited in light of that and only that: The resolution you have imagined and hoped for. What if that has not come? What if there doesn’t seem to be any hope of it? I know what others have said to me ‘Just keep believing, keep trusting God for that outcome…’  Here is what I have come to: 

“Our soul wait for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name…  Ps 33:20-21

I have come to a point that I no longer hope in a good outcome in my situation and trial. It has been over ten years and over those years I waited for a good outcome. I have learned to sit at His leisure and no longer look for relief. In the verse above is wisdom. David expresses a great truth so often missed in a pursuit and focused attention on relief. There is another way to live and I will provide and example of such:

When you are married, you are beautifully teamed with another. In some times, that other is strong when you are not and it goes the other way as well. You are elated, comforted, strengthened, relieved by that other. The point is it is a life shared. It is this that we must realize is perhaps the greatest thing we can accomplish. When we finally stop looking for the answer and share our lives with Christ where we are and know that wherever we are, He is there sharing our burden, then we have something given to us: our journey has ended in the presence of Christ. I read so many commentaries and expositions that constantly talk about trials in light of their coming resolution when in fact the point may be to learn how to abide with Christ. 

Perhaps this is the truest sign of follower. The point is never the destination, it is being with the Master. The greatest of adventures has no end and so it is with us. 

 Suffering and the Sovereignty of God: The Runes of the Divine

 I have been reading a lot of Charles Haddon Spurgeon these days. Ironically, one of the women my wife knew when we were  in the dysfunctional religious group we were in  had given it to her. I say ironic because it was given for the purpose of looking at the suffering we were going through at the time as a merit badge. Suffering in that group was to be displayed like the phylactery of the Pharisee in Jesus’ time. Funny thing about that it is the religious that crucified Christ not the Enemy. If anything, Satan tried to thwart Him from the Cross. No in a way suffering is a voluntary act. How can I say that? Well it is in the secret of trusting in the Sovereignty of God. We need look no further that the Lord Himself in HIs last hours. 

Christ our Example

The fact is He chose to suffer even separation from God in order to free those who would come under His wings. He suffered for us. We so often overlook the fact that the Father suffered. Oh, what God the Father endured. I cannot imagine. I could never bring myself to turn my back on my own son. To hear all the cries of suffering and impending death and let it happen. I know that He knew the outcome but if I might say it, if God is eternal and His time clock is frozen to the ever present, did He not suffer Himself? I would venture to say that He did. The cries of the 22nd Psalm perhaps through the 31st Psalm it is legend and tradition that Jesus refrained these words written by David as HE suffered and died. It is the phrase of Nicodemus who might have said “Even as He is dying, HE quotes the scriptures…” 

CASTING THE RUNES: COMING TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF SUFFERING

The secret to understand about suffering and how to digest it is to understand that it is the pathway of choice for God to reveal His sovereignty to us all. Through the loss there is true gain. Until His purposes are achieved. 

I know that you are saying “Well and good for you…” and the my words ring inane and hollow like they did for me for the first 13 years after I lost my family to a dysfunctional group after I defected from it. The pain of separation which I assessed  had no purpose was proven wrong. I learned something along the way: the miracle of suffering is that in the beginning, it drives us from God and then turns us miraculously to God. In a sense we fight the impending death we run from it we plead, cry and scream at God to remove it but in the end in the silence of death there is a turning. It is not even something palpable, it is the Spirit or Soul that turns. They say the when the heart is broken and hope is dead and the body cannot go another step, it is the spirit that keeps us alive. I have found that to be true. It is that turning when the heart is broken and the body desires death that the spirit we have turns to God.  No, it is not scripture but it is experience. It is a truth that cannot be read nor cited or even seen because these truthful words are inscribed by the finger of God on our hearts. It is the uniqueness of our own journey from which I source this truth. Just go ask Job. 

THE DEADLY ROOT

Charles Haddon Spurgeon authored at least 25 sermons on the book of Job during his life. Each one is a journey into the understanding of pain. In that walk with him through these sermons, I have learned that God is not often the instigator of suffering but uses it to change us.  I would venture to say that Satan is often blamed for it but I don’t think he is interested in us to that degree. No, suffering mostly comes from ourselves. It is mainly sourced in decisions made by imperfect people; decisions to go or stay, to do or not do something, or even the hesitancy to make any decision at all. Once we understand that we stop blaming God for our condition and stop accusing some phantom demon for our suffering. No, the  enemy stares back at you each day while you shave or put on makeup. In fact, instead of leading us into suffering, our Father and our Brother Jesus are leading us out of it. It is just that the mess we have gotten ourselves into varies. The degree we suffer is in proportion to what life experiences we have created  or been exposed to.  But rest assured He rarely leads us into suffering and when He does so, it is in confidence of us  that He does so knowing we are going to prove His trust in us was well placed. I have found this to be a apt and pithy adage and I wish I had authored it: 

“It is the clinging hand of His child that makes a desperate situation a delight to God…”

                                                                                                                             L H Cowman

READING THE RUNES OF SUFFERING CORRECTLY

The truth is we have gotten ourselves into the mess and God is leading us out. In the scriptures, there is a prophetic vision of  of a shepherd that rescues one of His flock. He comes out with only pieces of his lamb. A leg, an ear….You see we must understand the reality of life. God always seeks to rescue us but the longer we are in the lion’s mouth the less of us there is to save. I disposed the 'best' years of my life -- that is from young adult to middle age, the most productive years a soul has to give to God into a dysfunctional religious group, that was my choice. I have been rescued by my Shepherd but a lot of me is gone. The rest I give to God.

The Road to Perdition

 "...I saw then that my father's only fear was that his son would follow the same road. And that was the last time I ever held a gun. People always thought I grew up on a farm. And I guess, in a way, I did. But I lived a lifetime before that, in those 6 weeks on the road in the winter of 1931. When people ask me if Michael Sullivan was a good man, or if there was just no good in him at all, I always give the same answer. I just tell them... he was my father..." Mike Sullivan - The Road to Perdition

ReRRecollections of a son of a father across the murky currents of memory. Recently I sold our old home where my wife and I last saw our son. I ran across old pictures of him and his friends that had been stuffed in the attic a decade before. I even remember the time clearly of how they got there. My brother and two sisters came to the house to help us put away all the memories. The pictures, the clothes the gifts from them and even diplomas and awards. The sack had been lost in the bustle and sat as a time capsule of life long dead ready to share its secrets on the last night I was ever to be in that house. As I was going through a lost sack of those memories I pulled pictures of my son smiling at a banquet, some pictures with his great friends and two of the hats he wore quite often, One of the hats had a clear slot on its crown where one could put a picture a favorite snapshot to display. There he was with his friends...Joe Cool. Another was a hat I could not help but smile when I saw it. 'Moonpie' I remember that one. In my wading through that bittersweet bag, I realized it was getting late and the house was to close the next day so I hurriedly put all the treasures. I recalled on the night before he left, he said he was going for a drive. I understood that and remembered the many nights when I myself took drives like that when I was young. Just me and the radio and the drone of a Diesel engine it was a respite for the life I was living and I guess the pain of loneliness I felt during my college and post-graduate years. It was a time to pray and to seek God in solitude as songs streamed from the FM and some how I found a pleasure in the pain and I realized I wasn't alone at all. It's kind of corny but in night drives like that I found out God was my co-pilot. I can only hope my son had that same experience on that last drive. The last night we saw our son.    

         Fast forwarding to the present time, a decade forward, I wonder about him a lot and he and his sister are constantly in my thoughts and prayers. It seems the reasons for their departure grow smaller every year in importance while the wound made then is the same or maybe a little more tattered around its edges from being open so long. The demon or whatever I was made out to be then must be a full fledged monster now. A man hell bent with the smell of sulfur that permeates the air around me and leaves its skank on everyone within my circle. on the road to perdition. I am sure some think I have red glowing eyes too. Or perhaps a weak and broken man living out a pittance in misery as a reprobate Job under the curse and pressure of the Almighty's arm.

         I am neither. 

         I am just a man that misses his son and daughter and in that holy act I am as righteous as I ever was or will be. As the years have melted away and I stand in the twilight of my life, I have come to the conclusion that it is fear that keeps them and not some holy quest. What would be that fear? It is the worst of kind that anyone could ever hold or have. It is the fear of being wrong. I know the path of pride well and I wore that garment out years ago. Making a decision stay away from actually the only ones that will ever really care for them because they would have to admit their error...their sin. If I could talk to them only once, it would not be about who was right or wrong, who held the oracles fo God and who doesn't. Our conversation would not be about such things, it would be about how old the children are, what were they doing now, some laughing about old times and looks that would be disarming because it is not the years that have made me bitter at all, they have finally brought my only fond recollections of my son and daughter and how much I love them, even more now than when I knew them. That is what I would say. 

         It has been said that all roads lead to where we are now. Choices we made lead us here. Do I have regrets you betch. But in all that darkness and pain driving thought the blackness, I have come to realize like I did so very long ago, God is still my co-pilot. 

theh

                                                                                                               

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