good news?

It’s conventional wisdom that when it comes to trials, God only gives us as much as we can handle. If that’s the case, I’m a spiritual pygmy. Today at a meeting of Asian American pastors, I prayed with 2 other pastors. One has had to leave the pastorate to tend to his wife’s physical needs. She has a heart condition that caused a massive heart attack a few years ago resulting in some brain damage. She’s lost some memory and is greatly weakened. The other’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago, and then more recently was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Both of these friends are experiencing a level of suffering that I can hardly imagine.

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul invites Timothy to “join with me in suffering for the gospel” (1:8). It’s a very odd phrase to repeat in the ears of a contemporary American Christian. Is the gospel worth suffering for? That’s not the way we market the gospel these days. If the gospel is “good news”, why would we suffer for it? Unless Paul’s (and God’s) notion of good news is different from ours.

I haven’t suffered much. I get prayer letters from a friend who works in a country that severely limits religious freedom. He regularly writes of Christian leaders in his city who have been imprisoned and beaten. Is the gospel worth it?

When I visited Thailand a few years ago, we were taken to a Buddhist temple that sat on many acres of land. Included was a compound of residences for people with HIV. The Buddhist monks didn’t know what to do for them, so they let Christians come and help. By serving their physical needs, the Christians had converted pretty much every resident in the compound. I’ll never forget one woman who was there as a result of her husband’s sexual promiscuity. She told us that she was glad that she had contracted HIV because now she knew Jesus. Is this the same Jesus that I know? Is this the good news that I preach?

I don’t have an easy answers for these questions. Like I said, I feel like a spiritual pygmy when it comes to suffering. Anything that I say seems too trite or cliché, mostly because it is. I’m not asking for suffering. But it makes me wonder about all my prayers that are specifically requests to avoid suffering. Am I missing out on something?

fill my heart

My 11-year old sometimes talks so quickly I can’t make out what she’s saying. And I don’t think it’s just my ears getting old. I think it’s a symptom of living in a world where everyone’s multi-tasking and the number one prayer seems to be “help me with my time management.” We are a rushed and hurried society and she’s probably afraid she won’t be able to get a word in edge-wise unless she talks quickly enough.

In our staff devotions this morning I was struck by the phrase “fill my heart with gratitude”. Filling takes time. Most of the time we try to get by with a perfunctory “thanks” (which is an abbreviation in itself). But if we are to be filled with gratitude we have to take time to ponder all the ways that God has been good to us and has brought that goodness into our lives through others around us.

Imagine what it would be like to live in a world of thank-filled people. What would happen to anger? To greed? To conflict? Maybe that’s why Paul says we are to be “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:20). In fact, being thankful is part of God's cure for worry: “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6).

Taking time to consider God’s goodness and give thanks sounds like a good thing to do but let’s face it: it’s pretty low on our list of priorities. We have so many things to do, and most of them are good things that we know God wants us to get done. But maybe he wants them done by thankful people.

rejoicing

In Francis Chan’s recent book, “Crazy love: overwhelmed by a relentless God” he mentions that “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4) is a command from God. Thus, if we aren’t joyful we are saying that we know better than God, that we have a special dispensation to worry or be bitter because we know our circumstances better than God does.

Being a bit of a curmudgeon, I started to think of commands that might contradict this idea of being joyful all the time. When can we not be joyful? “Mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15) came to mind… and that was it. The only time when we are allowed not to rejoice (that I can think of) is when someone else we know is in pain. And our own pain and stress do not excuse us from considering our own place in the higher purposes of God or from submitting ourselves to his sovereignty. We are not allowed the comfort of feeling sorry for ourselves.

Christian humility is not wallowing in depression and self-pity but accepting that God is truly working out his good for us in spite of the externals of our situation: “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28).

At the same time we are to see others’ pain through God’s eyes, to feel their suffering with his heart. And that should move us to pray, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Being a Christian is not easy. It means I can’t be self-centered, which is my default mode. It means that God still has a lot of work to do in me, work that he can’t do unless I continually submit myself to him and get out of my default mode on a regular basis. But I like the promised result: “The fruit of the Spirit is… joy.”

inauthentic worship?

There was a recent article on “authentic worship” in a Christian magazine I subscribe to. It struck me that even the term “authentic worship” turns the emphasis of worship back onto the self rather than on God. Contemporary Christians seem more concerned with expressing our true selves to God in our worship experience rather than with expressing truths about God in the ways that we worship.

The point of worshiping God is to express outwardly and as God’s people that He is the Lord of all, that He is our King, that we are grateful for His amazing grace toward us in Christ, and that He alone is worthy of being worshiped. Whether I do it “authentically” or not doesn’t change who God is. So it seems to me that Christians should be more interested in articles on Who God is, and what makes Him worthy of our worship. And we should be more concerned with finding ways to use our limited resources to declare what an infinitely glorious and gracious God we worship.

In other words, maybe we should read more theology and build more cathedrals? What a concept.

prayer

I was playing basketball in the driveway with my 7 year old yesterday. He surprised me by praying before he shot. I have no idea where he picked this up. He doesn’t watch professional sports on TV (he much prefers cartoons) so he hasn’t seen players praying before a game or bowing their heads after scoring a touchdown. But he seems to have caught the notion that God is all-powerful and therefore can help him make a shot if he asks in the proper way.

My first instinct was to point out the logical conflict: what if the person you’re playing against is praying that you won’t make the shot? So does God really care if you make a shot? In the grander scheme of things, how much does it matter that a basketball goes through a hoop or not?

But now I’m thinking that maybe it’s wrong for me to assign my own values to my 7 year old’s world. For him, it does matter if the basketball goes through the hoop. And because it matters to him, it matters to God. Jesus told us that even the sparrows matter to God, and so he takes care of them (Matthew 6:25). Jesus went on to tell us not to worry because we matter so much more to God than the sparrows.

How God juggles all of this is an inscrutable mystery. Somehow he is able to pay attention to the concerns of sparrows, 7 year olds, and the universe all at the same time. And so it makes sense for Peter to tell us to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Or for Paul to write, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).

By the way, I lost the basketball game. Of course, I let my son win. Or maybe it was answered prayer.

expectations

I’ve lived my life with high expectations of myself. I’ve sought to be a responsible person. I suppose what I’ve done is to accept the goals that society has of those who would seek the good of others (i.e., people like pastors). I’ve sought to not disappoint. And I’ve assumed that these same expectations are the ones that God has of me.

But where does that get me? If I think I’ve attained the goals then there’s nothing else to live for (and I’m probably in prideful denial anyway). Or if I disappoint, who will forgive me and give me a new start? Even if God forgives me, does that mean he sets the bar lower so that I can reach it next time? And so I’m still some kind of disappointment to him?

What would it be like to live life with a sense of expectancy instead of expectations? To have hope instead of a sense of responsibility? To replace obligation with joy? I just finished reading “The Shack”. (Don’t worry: if you haven’t read it and intend to, there’s no spoiler here.) As I finished the book tears came to my eyes. I had gotten a glimpse of the joy of living a life filled with God’s sense of expectancy and eternal hope, even for me. (Sorry if that didn't make sense: you may need to read the book yourself.) My past couple sessions of spiritual direction have been about letting go of my expectations of myself, expectations that I thought God had of me, and accepting who God made me to be with a sense of expectancy and joy in what is going to happen next as I partner with what the Holy Spirit is doing and transforming in me.

What’s the difference between vision and expectations? Vision isn’t fantasy, but is grounded in the reality of what God is doing. It sees the beauty that is unfolding under the supervision of God’s Spirit. Expectations are stifling and demanding. Meeting expectations results in pride. Vision realized brings joy. I pray that my influence on Grace Community will be through vision and not expectations.

breakfast in bed

Serving someone breakfast in bed is intended to make her or him feel special, to show that they’re honored and have a special place in your life.

I was talking to the 4th-6th graders last Sunday about our corporate worship. I asked them if we should call our worshiping together on Sundays a worship “service” or worship “celebration”. I’ve heard it argued that we should get rid of the terminology of “service” because it denotes obligation and drudgery. But as I was discussing this with our 4th-6th graders I realized that it’s like serving God breakfast in bed. It can be fun to do, and it can be done with all the trappings of celebration, but the focus isn’t on how we feel but on the fact that God is worthy of being honored and has a special place in our lives.

Sometimes we burn the toast or overcook the eggs. But God’s love and grace are so amazing that as long as we are intending to honor God, as long as we are truly offering ourselves to him, even if we sing a wrong note or lose our place in the sermon or even fall asleep during the service, he takes what we offer and transforms it (Romans 12:1-2).