Category Archives: Suffering

Is suffering the achille’s heel of the Christian faith?

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Join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.  (2 Timothy 1:8)

For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps….  (I Peter 2:21)

If you like your religious faith shallow and thoroughly thought-out for you without you needing to engage your brain for any aspect–that is, if you prefer a manmade and easy-to-digest religion–you’re not going to hang around in a real Christian church long.

The Christian faith is a lot of things, but shallow and neatly systematic it is not. Rather, it’s historical and complex and true. It is true-to-life. And it has been revealed to us in such a way that we are required to put our thinking caps on and engage the brain in order to appreciate what we have been given and how it all fits together.

If you say “Well, the Bible says what it means and means what it says” to explain difficulties, you and I have nothing to talk about, for you have chosen not to deal with the hard parts.

Take suffering, for example.

Adversaries and critics of the Christian faith–these Christopher Hitchens and Bishop James Pikes (google these if they are unfamiliar)–have always been with us, so don’t let the latest “smarter than God” genius upset you by saying the fatal flaw to our theology is suffering. Critics of the Christian faith are constantly insisting that the Bible does not adequately answer the question of suffering and pain in the world.

You read that and shake your head. Scores of books from Christian writers pour off the press every year dealing with just that subject, particularly after natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis. And the recent worldwide epidemic.

What the critics actually mean, but would not admit in a hundred years, is that Scripture has no easy explanation of suffering.  And they do want their religion to be easy.  And simple.

Which it is not.

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A resounding testimony for Christ will do a lot of things for you, including get you into trouble!

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A resounding testimony of faith in Jesus Christ will get you into more trouble than you’ve ever been in, in your life.

You thought we were going to say how good life would be if you went “all in” for the Lord and told everyone about Him?

Let’s say it again…

A strong outspoken witness for the Lord Jesus Christ will box you into a corner and make you put up or shut up.

That’s why you ought to do it. That’s why you ought to erect a neon sign in your front yard declaring that “Jesus is Lord at 203 Garden Cove” or wherever you live. You ought to put a Bible on your desk and wear t-shirts that celebrate Jesus and put Him in your conversation.

Pray in restaurants before meals, speak to waitresses about their spiritual welfare, and witness to your colleagues at work.

So live and speak that when someone wants to attack the Lord Jesus Christ and can’t lay hands on Him, they start looking for you. (Acts 5:41 comes to mind.)

In declaring yourself for Jesus, you ought to remove your safety harness and throw yourself totally into God’s hands.

Quit being so cotton-picking careful.

What are you afraid of?

Tell people you’re a Christian and that it’s the best decision you ever made and that to know Jesus is the best thing on the planet.

Keep doing it and then watch what happens.  It might be painful, so be strong.

We have a couple of stories, one from a longtime friend and the second from God’s Word.

Diane tells this story about her family.

There was a time when their children were small and times were hard.  Diane had quit work to be a stay-at-home mom, and they were trying to make do on Philip’s salary from the department store.

As if life were not already complicated enough, Diane got sick and had to have a battery of tests and medical treatments. The condition was on-going and the costs were frightening.

As the one who paid the bills, Diane always made sure they sent the clinic a payment of some amount each month. However, it hardly put a dent in the total bill, which kept increasing.

During all this time, they never missed tithing their income to the Lord through their local church.

One day, they received a phone call from the clinic.  “We appreciate that you pay toward your bill each month, but we are going to have to ask for one-half of the total now. Until you do, you can’t charge anything more to this account.”

That was a blow. They began praying in earnest about what to do.

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The amazing power of a life-altering crisis

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“No chastening for the moment seems enjoyable, but painful. But afterwards, to those who have been trained by it,  it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11).

In the middle of the pain, no one enjoys the experience. Only in looking back–at some distant day–do you see how God used it. You lost a job, experienced the death of a loved one, went bankrupt, were falsely accused, had a near-death illness, and now at a great distance, you see what the Heavenly Father did with this in your life.  You are not the same person you were previously.

Life is understood only in looking backward, the saying goes. But it must be lived going forward.

It doesn’t work that way for everyone, Hebrews 12:11 is implying. For some, the trials are fatal.  It just depends.  To those who have been trained by it surely means “the people who have learned to give their woes to the Lord for His purposes.”

We can wallow in our defeat, be chained in despair by our sorrows and troubles, or we can rise above them by putting our trust in the Savior and finding His purposes.

In her book Character, Gail Sheehan tells of the lengthy rehabilitation Senator Bob Dole endured after his World War II injuries. German machine gunfire had hit him in the upper back and right arm. Medics gave him the largest possible dose of morphine, then wrote “M” (for morphine) on his forehead with his own blood, so no one who found him would give him a second, fatal dose.   Dole went through multiple surgeries and experienced recurring blood clots, life-threatening infections, and long periods of recuperation and therapy.

An interviewer once asked Senator Dole, “How did this delay your career plans?”

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This is a first for this blog. (Reposted. From Dr. Glenn McDonald’s “Reflections.”)

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(Each weekday Dr.  Glenn McDonald of Indiana posts a message he calls “Reflections.”  It’s always thought-provoking and so worth reading.  But this one hit me hardest.  This is as good as we could ask for.)  

Shaken

On November 1, 1755, the citizens of Lisbon, Portugal were crowded into churches. They were celebrating All Saints Day.

At 9:40 am the world as they knew it came to an end.

Somewhere offshore there was a sudden lurch at the intersection of two massive tectonic plates. What followed was one of the most intense earthquakes in recorded history, estimated at 9.0 on the Richter Scale.

For seven terrifying minutes, the city shook.

Fissures as wide as 15 feet opened up in the central squares. By comparison, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, estimated at 7.8 on the Richter Scale, lasted only half a minute.

Before the citizens of Lisbon could even make sense of what was happening, the first aftershock – almost as strong as the initial quake – rocked the city. Another aftershock came two hours later. But the real horror happened along the shoreline.

The waters of the Atlantic Ocean receded dramatically from the city’s harbor, then returned as a tsunami – a 50-foot-high wall of water. Within the space of an hour, some 60,000 people had died. Virtually every building of the nation’s historic capital had been reduced to rubble. Fires burned unchecked for days.

For all the suffering experienced by those in Lisbon, the most lasting damage happened in the minds and hearts of Europe’s intellectuals.

After this disaster, how could any thinking person seriously believe that the world was ruled by a powerful and benevolent God? Weren’t the citizens of Lisbon the very picture of innocent, faithful people – doing the right thing at the right place at the right time – on All Saints Day, no less? Why would God allow such a catastrophe?

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Where joy goes to die

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“Joy is the business of Heaven.”  –C. S. Lewis 

What started me thinking of this was a line from former FBI director James Comey’s book A Higher Loyalty.

“Although I have had a different idea of ‘fun’ than most, there were some parts of the Justice Department that had become black holes, where joy went to die.” 

Sound familiar, pastor?

“Where joy goes to die.”  A fit description for a place–a business, a family, a team, a congregation–characterized by low morale, battle fatigue and discouragement.

I’ve worked in places like that. I’ve pastored a church or two like that.  And I’ve known several such congregations.

God help your church.

Comey says,“The more stressful the job, the more intentional I’ve always been about helping my team members find joy in our work.  Laughter is the outward manifestation of joy, so I believe if I’m doing it right and helping people connect to the meaning and joy in their work, there will be laughter in the workplace.”

This blog is about churches and church leaders, not governmental offices or bureaucracies.  So, let’s think of those churches where joy goes to die…

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20 things a pastor can do to get past a rough time

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Some power clique in the church is on your case.  Some church member is leading a movement to oust you.  The church has a history of ousting pastors every so often and it’s time, and some members are getting restless.

Or, perhaps, as the pastor, you did something wrong and it blew up in your face.  People are calling for your head.

Or, you failed to act and some cancer has gained a foothold within the congregation and your job is in jeopardy.

What to do now?

It would be foolish to try to offer a panacea here, a cure-all for what ails the church.  And I don’t mean this to be that. But here are 20 steps which many pastors can take to right the ship and set it back on track (to mix metaphors)….

1)  Don’t hesitate to apologize if you need to.

“I blew it, folks. I’m sorry.”

Apologies should be as public as the act was public.  If you did one person wrong and it’s known only to that one, go to him/her and admit what you did and ask for forgiveness.  If your mistake was churchwide, stand in the pulpit and take your medicine.

2) Don’t hesitate to seek advice from the best Christians you know.

Ideally, you already have a mentor or two, older and wiser veterans whom you call on from time to time, and whom you can call for counsel now. The advantage to your having a continuing relationship with mentors is that they will know your situation and will not require a lengthy background when you call them.

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The hazardous art of predicting the future

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“And it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortunetelling….” (Acts 16:16)

Some culture writers and half-serious columnists do it for fun, giving forecasts on life in the future.  Some, like meteorologists, work at it seriously to protect  lives. It helps to know the hurricane in the Caribbean may be headed our way or that the tornado season is upon us.

But then, once in a while we come upon those strange individuals who believe they are endowed with supernatural gifts of prophecy and fortune-telling.

If you are one who believes you have such a gift, I have a word for you….

Give it back.

Newsweek of January 1, 2000, reported on a prediction from 98 years earlier.  In the 1902 Atlantic Monthly, economist John Bates Clark wrote “Looking Back on the 20th Century” in which he projected himself into  the year 2000.  He concluded we would be seeing….

–strawberries the size of apples and oranges growing in Philadelphia.

–Moving sidewalks through pneumatic tubes in order to transport people

–No more slums

–War and poverty eliminated.

–A near “pot-hole free expressway of progress” for all of mankind

–Wealth evenly distributed

According to Mr. Clark, “Humanity has it made in the shade” by the start of the 21st century.

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Turning putdowns into motivation

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Jesus said, ‘No doubt you will quote this proverb to me, “Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” No prophet is welcome in his own hometown (Luke 4:24).

John Fogerty’s group Creedence Clearwater Revival is unforgettable to anyone who has owned a radio in the last 50 years.  A few years back, in an interview with newsman Dan Rather, Fogerty was remembering a key moment in the 1960s.

The group was one of many bands to perform at a particular event.  As the final group to warm up, and thus the first band to appear on stage, suddenly CCR found they had been unplugged.  John Fogerty yelled to the sound man to plug them back up, that they weren’t through.  The technician did so reluctantly, then added, “You not going anywhere anyway, man.”  Fogerty said, “Okay.  Give me one year.  I’ll show you.”

One year later, the group was so hot with hit record after hit record (“Proud Mary,” “Born on the Bayou,” “Bad Moon Rising”) that “we were too big to play in that place any more!”

Turning a sarcastic putdown into a healthy sic ’em!

I’m remembering the first day I began pastoring a church on Alligator Bayou some 25 miles west of New Orleans.  In April of 1965 I was in my first year of seminary.  The church was running 40 in attendance, and had done so for the two decades of its existence.

After the service, I’m shaking hands with worshipers as they exit the building.  Behind me, coming through the doors, two men were talking.  They had no idea I could hear them.  One said, “Well, this little church is doing about all it’s ever going to do.”

The other fellow agreed.  But it was like a spark to my powder keg.  Everything inside me went on full alert and I said, “We’ll show you!”

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Suffering: Christianity’s Achilles’ heel?

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For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps….  (I Peter 2:21)

If you like your religious faith shallow and thoroughly thought-out for you without you being required to use your brain for any aspect–that is, if you prefer a manmade and easy-to-digest religion–you’re not going to hang around in a real Christian church long.

The Christian faith is a lot of things, but shallow and neatly systematic it is not. Rather, it’s historical and complex and true. It is true-to-life. And it has been revealed to us in such a way that we are required to put our thinking caps on and engage the brain in order to appreciate what we have been given and how it all fits together.

If you say “Well, the Bible says what it means and means what it says” to explain difficulties, you and I have nothing to talk about, for you have chosen not to deal with the hard parts.

Take suffering, for example.

Adversaries and critics of the Christian faith–these Christopher Hitchens and Bishop James Pikes (google these if they are unfamiliar) have always been with us, so don’t let the latest “smarter than God” genius upset you–say the fatal flaw to our theology is suffering. We’re repeatedly told that the Bible does not adequately answer the question of suffering and pain in the world.

You read that and shake your head. Scores of books from Christian writers pour off the press every year dealing with just that subject, particularly after disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis.

What the critics actually mean, but would not admit in a hundred years, is that Scripture has no easy explanation of suffering.  And they do want their religion to be easy to digest.

Continue reading →

Why we need a little conflict in our lives

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“Where there’s no friction, there’s no traction!”  –Overheard from an elderly Baptist preacher in North Carolina 30 years ago

Tim Patterson, executive of Michigan Baptists, had a great insight about catfish and codfish, who are natural enemies, that fits here…

In the northeastern part of our country, codfish is a big deal. However, shippers discovered that freezing the fish to ship destroyed the flavor.  So, they tried shipping them alive in tanks of seawater.  In addition to that being too expensive, for some reason the cod still lost their flavor and arrived soft and mushy.  Something had to be done.

Eventually, someone hit on a solution. After the codfish were placed in the seawater tanks, one more thing was added:  catfish.  Their natural enemies.

“From the time the cod left the East Coast until they arrived at their destinations, those ornery catfish chased the cod all over the tank…. When they arrived at the market, the cod were as fresh as the day they were caught.  There was no loss of flavor and the texture was possibly better than before.”

There’s a lesson there.

All sunshine makes a desert, the American Indians used to say.  We need the rain and the occasional storm.

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