THE QUESTION OF SUFFERING – Part 3 of 3

Let me finish the story of Leslie and me in the fog in Wisconsin. We were following the taillights of that truck when the fog slowly began to lift, the rain let up and we entered a town with some lights. And there, silhouetted against the night sky, we saw the steeple of a church and the cross of Christ. After driving through the confusion of the fog for so long, that image struck me with poignancy I'll never forget -- because it was through the cross that Jesus conquered the world for us.

God's ultimate answer to suffering isn't an explanation; it's His incarnation. He isn't some distant, detached and disinterested deity; He entered our world and personally experienced our pain.

Jesus is there in the lowest places of our lives. As philosopher Peter Kreeft says: “Are you broken? He was broken, like bread, for us. Are you despised? He was despised and rejected of men. Do you cry out that you can't take any more? He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Did someone betray you? He was sold out. Are your most tender relationships broken? He loved and was rejected. Jesus is much closer than your closest friend. Because if you've put your trust in Him, then He is in you. And, therefore, your sufferings are His sufferings; your sorrow is His sorrow.”

So when tragedy strikes, when suffering comes, when you're wrestling with pain -- and when you make the choice to run into His arms, here's what you're going to discover: peace to deal with the present, courage to deal with your future and the incredible promise of eternal life in heaven.

“I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. But be courageous! I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33)

-- Lee Strobel in “The Case for Christianity Answer Book” 

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THE EFFECTIVE PRAYER

My relationship with God is part of my relationship with human beings. Failure in one will cause failure in the other. It isn’t necessary that it be a distinct consciousness of something wrong between my neighbor and myself. An ordinary current of thinking and judging -- the unloving thoughts and words I allow to pass unnoticed -- can hinder my prayer. The effective prayer of faith comes from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not as a result of what I try to be when praying, but because of what I am when I’m not praying, is my prayer answered by God. 

-- Andrew Murray in “With Christ in the School of Prayer”

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NO PEDESTALS – Part 1

It is a remarkable thing how the writers of Scripture never do what churches are so temped to do, which is put people on a pedestal. To illustrate how grittily honest the biblical writers are about human nature, answer this question: Who in the Bible would you say had the best marriage?

Adam and Eve had their honeymoon in paradise, and it all went down-hill from there. Abraham lied that Sarah was his sister – twice – and impregnated her servant, Hagar. Isaac and Rebekah spent their marriage battling because he favored Esau and she favored Jacob. Jacob had children by two wives and the wives’ servants. About all we know of Moses’ wife, Zipporah, is that they had an argument over circumcising their son and she called Moses a “bridegroom of blood.” David was a disaster as a husband; Solomon was worse. When Job’s life got hard, Mrs. Job told him to “curse God and die!” I am not making this up: Someone online said they thought the best marriage in the Bible was between Noah and Joan of Ark.

In fairy tales, life is a difficult adventure until you get married – and then you live happily ever after. But nowhere in the Bible do a couple get married and then live “happily ever after.” Marriage doesn’t save anyone. Only Jesus does that.

-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want to Be”

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TO ALL WHO ARE WEARY

You are tired. You are weary. Weary of being slapped by the waves of broken dreams. Weary of being stepped on and run over in the endless marathon to the top. Weary of a year-long pandemic. Weary of political polarization and fighting. Weary of putting your trust in someone only to have the door slammed in your face. Weary of staring into the future and seeing only futility.

What steals your childhood zeal? It is weariness that makes the words of Jesus so compelling. Listen to them. "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Come to Me… The invitation is to come to Him. Why Him? He offers the invitation as a penniless rabbi in an oppressed nation. He has no connections with the authorities in Rome. He hasn’t written a best-seller or earned a diploma.

Yet He dares to look into the leathery faces of farmers, the tired faces of stay-at-home parents, the anguished faces of those fighting for social justice, the fatigued masked faces of front-line healthcare workers… and makes this paradoxical promise: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29)

The people came. They came out of the cul-de-sacs and office complexes and hospitals of their existence and He gave them, not religion, not doctrine, not systems, but rest.

As a result, they called Him Lord. As a result, they called Him Savior. Not so much because of what He said, but because of what He did. What He did on the cross during six hours, one Friday. 

-- Adapted and updated from “Six Hours One Friday” by Max Lucado

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SHARING THE GOOD NEWS

Isaiah said, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’" (Isaiah 52:7)

Christians who can't or won't share their faith with others may be in a crisis of faith of their own. The question is whether they believe in the efficacy of the gospel -- the gospel which justified so that we don't need to earn our status before God or vie for position with others; the gospel which gives shape and purpose to live, making us other-directed rather than self-centered; the gospel of peace which reconciles broken relationships and builds community; the gospel of justice which advocates for the poor and the marginalized. This is good news. So how can one keep from sharing it? 

-- from the Leadership Network, first published in "Christian Century", 11/20/02

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