Fall into grace…..
I just got off the phone with a dear friend. Please pray for her. Her husband is across the country and unable to get home until next week. They are financially VERY tight, with no health insurance for Mom and Dad. She thinks her 4 kids are sick, as is she. And now her mother (who lives with them) is gravely ill and hospitalized with a very rare disease whose name escapes me. I happened to call her tonight, not knowing what was going on. She sounded awful, perhaps at the breaking point. There is a lot going on in that home. More than one woman can handle on her own. Unfortunately, I live 400 miles away, or I’d go scoop those 4 sick kids up and put her in bed.
Towards the end of the conversation, she said “I’m just trying to figure out what God is trying to teach me in all of this. I know there must be something I have to learn.” OH, how I hate that sentence! I lived and breathed that sentence for 6 months last year. What is it about our faith/teaching/evangelicalism that automatically presupposes fault or lack of worthiness on our part when something goes wrong? Yes, I know that we are sinful. Boy, do I know it. But what about REDEMPTION??? What about a new heart? Isn’t that what God promises us?
I’m angry right now. I’m angry at leaders. I’m angry at bible teachers. I’m angry at churches. I’m angry because AGAIN, I see the result of preaching/teaching from the standpoint of the fall, and not the standpoint of new creation/new earth/new man. No, we are not there, but God is working it out. We, as the church, are the vision of that new creation, we are the foreshadowing of that. Yet we do not talk about that, we talk about only our sin, only our unworthiness. No wonder the church is so ineffective. Why should we be anything but?
I don’t know why these things happen. I don’t know why children get sick or die. I don’t know why events converge in such a way that a sweet, wonderful, kind and loving woman is pushed to a breaking point. I do know we live in a fallen world with it’s sickness, heartbreak and pain. I do know that every day brings us one day closer to New Heavens and New Earth. I do know God’s grace is more compelling and more powerful than our failures.
Fall into God’s grace and mercy, Lisa. It’s the one sure thing we have.
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Amen! and Amen …
Jamie,
I don’t know. I didn’t sense that your friend was finding lack or fault within herself by asking those questions at all. Of course I wasn’t there to hear the conversation either.
Obviously we all go through crap from time to time and our lives seem screwed up. I think in everything God has a purposes and plans that may only become revealed when we’re willing to ask the hard questions. Why am I going through this, God? You know what I mean. You’ve had your share of these moments. The hope in despair is that even though my life sux right now, I can still hear God! Even though trouble is on every side, I can still see God! He hasn’t left me and I know he is there but why am I facing this. For sovereign reasons often unknown to us, God allows us to go through things but I think there is a learning process in them all….I think we have to learn to “zoom” out and not focus so much on the problem we’re facing. Get a bigger picture of God. When we’re fixed/focused on our problem we tend to magnify it rather than magnifying God. I would encourage your friend to zoom out and get the bigger picture of who God is…it is dangerous to focus on the problem without considerations of God’s power to get us through the problem.
Because we are new creations in Jesus we have hope beyond the struggles of this life. Because God is working in me a worth and value are added to me that never existed before. God is going to see your friend through this trial and she’ll be a stronger/more beautiful creation when He does.
Shannon–
Good thoughts. Do you think that there is always a lesson in our hardships, though? What about the women in Congo that have been raped, their husbands killed and now have AIDS? I just sometimes think that we assume God is “allowing” certain things with a “lesson” to learn in the midst of it. I’m not sure I think that way anymore. Could it be that we live in a world with hurt, pain, sickness, murder, rape, disease etc because of the fall, BUT, in the meantime, throughout the course of history, God’s intention is to redeem that and (to quote N.T. Wright) put the world back to rights….Israeal, Jesus, the Church, New Heavens and New Earth.
In some ways, I think this idea of “something bad is happening, there must be a lesson God wants me to learn” is our own way of trying to rationalize the evil we see. I really think that’s what the book of Job is about. All these horrible things happen and for 30 some chapters, Job and his friends try to explain WHY. Sin? Lack of following God? A lesson to be learned? In the end, God never gives a reason….He says, “Why do you question me? The One who created everything….Can you put a leviathan on a leash and take it for a walk?” It’s foolishness for us to try to “figure out” a specific reason for the calamities that befall us. God is God. We know His bigger purpose. We know His mercy and grace, and at the end of the day, until HIS Kingdom comes to earth completely, that’s all we have. And that’s enough
Whew….didn’t know I had THAT much to say
Glad to see you back!
Jamie,
I have to believe that God will bring the best out of whatever calamity that comes my way. Consider the life of Joseph. He never complained about his treatment at the hands of his evil brothers, Potiphar, his wife or anyone else. If he did, we don’t have record of it anyway. My point is, through his abandonment, slavery, imprisonment, God was working a greater plan. Yes, I do believe God is at work even in the worst of situations if we’ll allow him that freedom. Romans 8:28 is more than just a good sermon topic, it’s truth! Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose.
Along with the verses that follow, I’m encouraged that God can show his glory in the darkest days of my life. I have to believe that. I don’t always believe it’s a “lesson” to be learned but who among us finites can possibly begin to understand all that the Father holds in his infinite wisdom?
It’s good to be back!