The Glory of God in the Wrath of God

Consider this: Is it true that every good thing glorifies God? Could there be a good thing that does not glorify God? "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

What do we say then to God's wrath poured out on the unrighteous? We may see that the unrighteous may prosper for a time or that the righteous may suffer, but God's wrath may poured out on people that they may turn to him and his judgment is certain for eternity.

Therefore, if any are righteous, though they suffer for a time, we will see God's grace and he will be glorified. And if any are unrighteous, though some prosper for a time we will see God's wrath and judgment and he will be glorified.

Nevertheless, it's for better for us to seek after righteousness that God may be glorified in his grace toward us than for him to be glorified in his wrath against us.

How Do We Handle Suffering?

How Do We Handle Suffering?

What physical, emotional or spiritual maladies plague you? I've always considered that everyone has their issues. Such issues shape us at our deepest points and our responses cement our innermost desires. How we handle them indicates our level of spiritual maturity.

I suffer bouts of depression. Most of the time it is mere melancholy. On occasion it is profound enough to rob me of my appetite and my sleep. For most of my life I thought this was just normal, and indeed it is normal for me. It's a physical issue, but the mind tends to seek reason for it and as such depression can distort perceptions of reality. Only recently have I discovered that there is no particular mental or spiritual problem unless I make it one.

I have had other issues in life. There were a couple of times where as a child I was abused: When I was a mere two years old I was neglected and abused by the babysitter that kept me and my baby brother. She favored my brother and ignored my toddling needs. I distinctly remember being left to play in the back yard alone and intentionally stuck with diaper pins because of my soiled diapers. My mom, in her journal, wrote that this lady completely undid my potty training and I wet the bed as a nervous subconscious condition throughout my childhood as a result. I was also sexually abused when I was a little older. This is the first time I've ever made this public and I'll offer no detail there.

Finally, I've mentioned in posts before that between my dad's medical school and subsequent school loans, a move from the Midwest to the Southeast, my mom's fatal and costly bout with cancer and the legal loss of our house in Ohio left my family rather short on finances for a few years. I remember eating onions for supper because that was all we had until payday. I remember going to school with pants that were too small and had holes on the patches. I was ridiculed at school for it. I remember eating squirrel stew because a squirrel had been given to my family and we weren't about to waste any kind of food. I remember mom being amazed at the flour canister miraculously refilling when there was no money for flour.

There are other issues including some minor theological and racial prejudices against me throughout my life, but it's hardly worth mentioning except that some of you may have gone through these things. To be sure, I don't consider that my life as a child was at all too difficult. My family was generally loving compared to many families that I see. We always enjoyed the moral support and fellowship of a church family.

Today, however, I still suffer depression - and I still have trouble building close friendships. In fact, I intentionally waited until a good depression came on to write this article so I could write it with the passion for these struggles that they require. I took this Facebook quiz the other day:

Elijah

You're somewhat of a loner. You prefer to challenge others on your terms. When the confrontation doesn’t work the way you want you may get depressed. The good news is that you have inner strength that few people possess.

I'd say this pretty well nailed me. I can identify with this description of Elijah.

But perhaps you identify with one of my issues. Perhaps you have similar issues, or completely different issues. What do we do with these issues?

From a practical standpoint, should we not turn to friends who can comfort us? job did this and his friends frustrated him with bad advice and poor accusations. Perhaps you have good friends. Wonderful! I'm blessed with my wife who lays my head on her and strokes my head. At least she's not like Job's wife who admonished him to "curse God and die." However, I spend most of my day virtually alone. Except when my wife comes to town I have no one to spend lunch with. I don't have a friendship where I'm comfortable picking up a phone and calling for compassionate company. Who do I know who would answer who would not wonder why I called THEM and who would ask, "Has he no other friend?"

But we know this, that God must be glorified in everything and he will be glorified in everything. Have you done this? I haven't always done this and occasionally cry out, "Oh God... Why!?!?!?" Recognizing that the clay cannot ask of the Potter, "Why have you made me thus," I am humbled and moved afterward to count my suffering as blessing.

And depression is a matter of physical suffering. My heart pounds. The acid in my stomach rises up. I lose appetite and sleep. I'm suspicious of others. I obsess over insignificant things such as a lack of close friends and near-imaginary wrongs done to me. I rise up in the morning tired for lack of sleep. My thoughts are difficult to gather. There is pain in my chest and stomach. My joints ache. My head hurts. My body cries out for death. This is depression.

I deprive my body of food. (How do you think I lost 40 pounds a couple of years ago? I was heart sick and constantly depressed for several months then.) Yet I also deprive my body of death, for I will not consent to it. I discipline my body through vigorous exercise. I struggle to bring it under subjection to what I know to be true. I weep.

Jesus wept. He brought his body under subjection even though blood came from his pores. He calmed the storm only when the disciples lost faith. Otherwise he was content in the storm. He suffered on the cross so that he cried out to the Father asking why he had forsaken him. My Lord suffered far worse than I, and for my benefit! How small are my sufferings by comparison? How much am I like Christ when I suffer in faith?

Like Elijah God is faithful to sustain me even in threat of death for I am his. For lack of friends, he sends the proverbial ravens to feed me though they would just as soon eat the flesh off my bones. Yet I can see God's provision. He is faithful not only to sustain me but to glorify himself through my suffering for that is a far greater thing.

Do you look for God's glory in your suffering? Abraham left his country and his people and lived in a tent in his old age. He was led to kings who would kill him for his wife and claimed that she was only his sister. And God blessed him by moving these kings to bless him for fear of his God. He paid a tithe to Melchizedech and his wealth grew far beyond that tithe. Even that was a small token of the promise of faith for he suffered into old age without a son to carry the promise and sinned with Hagar. Yet after Isaac came by no small miracle for Sarah was beyond the years of childbearing, Abraham went in faith to sacrifice his own son according to the instruction of God. And he suffered to the point of cutting the wood himself for a burnt offering as he agonized over God's command. Yet God did this to bring about the promise of the Christ, the followers of which constitute a legacy of faith attributed to Abraham by Christ himself that all who have his faith are his spiritual children.

Moses suffered exile to the wilderness for his sin of murdering an Egyptian. Yet God blessed him with a law condemning murderers to death. And still God himself took Moses' body when he was full of years. Now we see him in the scriptures standing on the mount of transfiguration with Elijah and Jesus a sinless, glorified man.

Therefore, our suffering is temporary and through faith our sins are covered by the blood of Christ. Moses is no more a murderer and Elijah is no longer friendless. Therefore, give glory to God who gives all things.

So we should count our suffering as blessing. Regarding suffering, one man's curse is another man's blessing, and for those of us who know Christ, we are blessed in our suffering. Just as Elijah had that inner strength, so God strengthens his children, yet not against suffering but because of suffering.

Do we hide our suffering? I usually do. Others ask how I am and I reply, "I am alright today." I lie. I'm not alright and I fear the shame of it. Yet I suspect that others don't really want to deal with me otherwise. It disturbs them. I suspect they will be like Job's friends and condemn my depression as sin. Perhaps it is. I am a sinner after all and I submit myself to God's judgment in the name of Christ. Though I cry out in my turmoil to God, I also submit my turmoil to him that he be glorified. And how might he be glorified unless I don't find occasion to share my resolve with others who suffer their issues that they may be encouraged? Yet I must be careful lest I wallow publicly and offer my identity as one who perpetually wears the proverbial sackcloth and ashes so as to be recognized by my false humility. So we suffer and look for the glory of God that He may receive glory and not us.

God is faithful in all things; He is faithful to subject me to suffering. He will be glorified in all ways. I will submit my suffering to him that he will be glorified in it.

I think I'm starting to feel a little better. Praise God!

Fear Not

Many American Christians, when asked why they are hesitant to be involved in missions will say that they are afraid that God will send them to Africa. What about African Christians? When they are asked where they are afraid God will send them, many say Tanzania. There usually seems to be somewhere worse than where we are.

What are we afraid of?

Perhaps it's the discomfort of living within means that seem woefully impoverished although the people missionaries minister to are typically moreso. Would it be the infestations of various insects and vermin? There are cockroaches in South America that chirp you to sleep at night from the wall next to your head. There are the tiny ants that you share your food with in places in Africa. You may just get several with each bite for some additional protein.

Perhaps its the security factor where you shouldn't go out at night exposing yourself to attack by various types of mauraders. Sometimes theft or attack happens in broad daylight.

Perhaps its the exposure to diseases and parasites in the water, the people you minister to, or the animals you come in contact with such as stray dogs, flies or mosquitos.

There's the trepidation we all have towards various governments and their hatred for Christians. We fear imprisonment. We fear separation from loved ones. We fear torture and even death.

Face it, many people around the world don't like us. We could get caught with an extra Bible in China or the Middle East. We could be burned to death in a car in India with our children. We could become deathly ill in the Himalayas with no physician, medical care, or even roads for quick travel for many miles. We could be taken prisoner in the Indies and required to live in solitary confinement. We could be taken hostage by a rogue militia in the Phillipines and watch them kill our spouse. We could watch our spouse go out to make first contact with a tribe in Ecuador never to return. We could be beheaded in the Middle East or tortured to death in Turkey with multiple surgical stab wounds designed for the maximum amount of pain. We could spend hours in gruelling interrogation for our activities. We could discover that the government has an extensive dossier on us and has been tracking our movements for years for the purpose of destroying the local underground church and all who attend it and minister therein. We could sit by and watch as our villiage faces attack by a neigboring villiage - right in your front yard.

All these things have happened and it's only a small sample.

Is this what we are afraid of?

I got into a conversation recently where the fate of the United States was questioned. It was noted that once we were a moral people and now we are decidely not. We have gone through periods of relative morality and periods of relative immorality. At no time have we been completely immoral or completely moral.

As an aside, part of the most recent slide into immorality comes from the fact that our last spate of morality in about the 1940's was merely moral and not explicitly Christian. It's one thing to do the right thing becuase doing the right thing is in your best interest and another to do the right thing because you want to glorify God.

The larger picture is that history is like the vibrating of a guitar string. There is a cyclical arch to it. However, the string does not merely vibrate between its end points. It also vibrates in subdivisions. That is, it vibrates from the center point to the ends or in halves. It also vibrates in thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, on up to the point where the segments are too small for it to physically vibrate. Each of these vibrations, being fractionally smaller than the length of the string have different pitches that comprise the harmonic overtones that characterize the timbre, or tonal quality, of the string.

History is like this vibrating string in that historical patterns happen at large intervals as well as smaller intervals such that history resonates with harmonic regularity: the flow of thought through history, the conduct of wars and international policy, the fidelity of the people of the living God, the settlement of the land, the technological advances, etc. Have we the capacity to build structures that rival the pyramids of Egypt or the Colossus of Rhodes? Sure we do. But for a long time after the pyramids were built, we didn't. Read the book of Judges and see how the Hebrews would become unfaithful, God would punish them, they would become faithful for a time, only to slip back into infidelity as a nation.

Inasmuch as men have been barbaric, and have become civilized, the civilizations of men will fall once again into barbarism.

As the conversation the other night progressed, one fellow conceded that he feared that our way of life would be over and our children would have a difficult world in which to live. I assured him that God was still sovereign and told him that he therefore had nothing to fear. This is why we need to prepare our children now.

Do you fear the future? In whom is your trust? If you trust God then no matter what happens, fear not.

Trusting God in Suffering

I remember a day when kids were encouraged to dream big. There was a time when one could hope to do well enough to be the President of the United States. The American Dream was that anything was possible. We had hope. In many ways, we still do. However, it's waning.

I'm sitting here glancing at the photos of past trips to Venezuela where we've played with the children. Our hope is to share the gospel with them and plant seeds of spiritual growth - the hope of the gospel. Some dare to believe and come right up to greet us. Others are tentative, only daring to hope after a while. The pictures I see are of children with varying degrees of hope in their eyes.

I ask myself, what hope do they have? Could they grow up to be the president of Venezuela? Do that have hope like that? Is their environment one that encourages people to dream big? Do they see people who work hard and create wealth for themselves and the society at large?

But there is a greater hope. President of any country is a small thing compared to being a child of the Creator.

Last night I read Exodus 1 and Psalm 79 with my kids. I don't plan our readings ahead so much as we just go through the Bible systematically. We got to the end of Genesis. Psalm 78 was a good overview of the OT history to come, so we went on to Exodus instead of bouncing up to the Gospel of Mark, which was the other simple option.

In Exodus 1, the Hebrews have a bad turn of events in Egypt. Formerly they were honored guests in Egypt. Now, they are enslaved by the Egyptians under the control of Pharaoh. Pharaoh feared the Hebrews who were growing in number. Through Joseph's leadership, he inherited ownership of the Egyptians. Perhaps he also feared the foreigners in his land who were not his to command. In any case, things got bad for the Hebrews. Pharaoh ordered newborn boys killed at birth, which the midwives disobeyed.

In Psalm 79 we read about how Israel was destroyed and Judah taken into captivity. Jerusalem was reduced to rubble in the first verse. The overall message of the psalm is that God is our deliverer and avenger.

I like to make things real for my kids. It's one thing to say that Jerusalem was destroyed, many people killed, and most of the rest enslaved. It's one thing to say that your unborn brother was to be killed when he was born. After all, it's just a piece of boring history. Things aren't like that today, we are tempted to think. It's another thing to realize that China has forced abortions. How can the Chinese government do this? Simple: They own the people.

How about entire villages that are leveled and infrastructures that are destroyed? People killed? Many taken into captivity? Where is this happening today? Sudan. So I bring it home to my kids. An enemy comes and destroys much of the United States. Our house is burned to the ground. Our church is reduced to rubble. Our town is a pile of smoldering debris. Many of the people we know are either dead or captured and taken away never to be seen again. How do you feel? Where do you turn? There is no hope. All the things we place our trust in, like the safety accorded us by the presence of the police department, fire department and ambulance service, are gone. We can't even pick up the phone to call a friend.

We must be comforted by the fact that these things are only reliable for a season. The message for the Hebrews then is the message God gives us in the Psalm. He is the only one worthy to be trusted for all things. Even if we lose our life, we gain it through the One who created it to begin with. He is never surprised by our suffering and He uses our suffering to turn our hearts to Him. May we do so.

Bearing One Another's Burdens

I generally don't like to repeat others' materials. I enjoy a fertile mind and like to share unique observations. I read people who analyze things. Analysis is taking things and breaking them up into mental byte-sized pieces. Synthesis, on the other hand, is taking pieces and discovering transcendent truth by correlation. That's what I do - synthesize.

However, sometimes something comes along that is worth repeating. "The Constructive Curmudgeon" is Dr. Douglas Groothius: Philosopher, professor, preacher, writer. He wrote a short article entitled "Suffering and Listening". I commented in his meta with the following passages:

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, The God who is our salvation. Selah. (Psalm 68:19)

But He said, "Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. (Luke 11:46)

Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone, and not in regard to another. For each one will bear his own load. (Galatians 6:2-5)

This was in response to this poignant article:

Suffering and Listening

1. If you listen to [those] who address you with their suffering, you will suffer more yourself. But you will also put yourself into a sympathetic or even empathetic position.

2. If you listen to those who address you with their suffering, you will decrease the suffering of the one suffering.

3. If you fail to listen to those who address you with their suffering, you will increase the suffering of the one suffering.

Now, what of a religion whose aim is to alleviate suffering through detachment from it?

What kind of ministry do you have for those who suffer? Do you alleviate or increase the suffering of others? What religion do you practice as a Christian? Do you bear the burdens of others? Do you need others to help you bear your burdens but find yourself alone?