Thinking Like Rain

The downtime from retina surgery has stressed my small brain and tried my spirit. Temptations to discouragement, depression, and general feelings of uselessness do not lessen with illness or recovery. The devil takes a particular delight in kicking the downed soul as much as he enjoys torturing the body. On the other hand, for reasons of his own and probably my particular bent toward depression, God has allowed me to endure and made me endure a minor onslaught of human weakness. I say minor because I remember how many of your burdens are greater than mine and I feel even worse for have the large capacity and ever-present leaning toward making everything about myself. 

However, and it is an important however to me, I have no doubt of God’s goodness. I have great ignorace of his ways, but I cannot say with any real despair that I think he is getting it wrong. By ‘it’ I mean the care of this world in general or my life in particular. How he has chosen to deal with the resident evil of this fallen creation is just, necessary, and sufficient for our salvation. That, I believe.

Why it takes so much time to finally put an end to suffering is more of a mystery to me. I’m sure it has much to do with human willfulness, with our sinful insistence to resist him at every tick of the clock. Saving sinful man clearly takes more time than creating him in the first place. This should tell me something about the nature of love, that true love, in the face of seemingly insurmountable evil, requires a good amount of time. Life needs time to grow; death comes quickly. That is the tension, that is the fulcrum we are caught on, the push and pull, the up and down, the strain between the immediate threat of death and the time it takes to grow a good thing. Yet life is stronger than death and wills out in the end. Such is the promise of life in Christ for those who believe.

I’m probably not making this very clear. In fact, what I am doing now in writing out my thoughts is a feeble attempt at some clarity for myself, not only for you. I’m sharing the process as much as the truth of how I think about such things. There is nothing novel in my confusion or the way I seek some resolution. Many write themselves toward the light, running like a child for home through the dark, wild wood. I’m not happy about where I am so I run forward. I run ahead to something better. Is that denial? I can’t be absolutely sure, but it feels more like an unwillingness to confuse fatalistic acceptance of misery with the hope faith engenders. I know that may not sound very clear. I’m still thinking it over, the differences between fatalism and faith. I do know the first lacks life and the second is full of promise. 

You’ve caught me here in my need to speak, to write, to sit here and wait after casting these thoughts on the water for some validation from my fellow sufferers and wanders in the life of faith. I’m letting myself drift out to you, hoping a sympathetic soul, a reader with eyes that see and ears that hear will respond with understanding, compassion, and companionship.

That last word of the sentence, companionship, reminds me of my essential loneliness, a thing a enjoy and abhor in equal measure and in equal metres of time. Contradictions, I’m full of them. The paradoxical boy who is more simple minded than he supposes, more vain than he desires, compelled to believe in Someone greater than himself.

Though my thoughts are coming as incessant as the Kentucky rain pouring out of the grey sky, off the trees, into my gutters, and over the road, I have to stop, to stand still for a few moments and do something else. If I have the courage or the boredom or the creativity I’ll come back to report again on the flow of my life from the insdie out. I really can’t be sure.  

Hidden Desire

        Jesus, who is the Life and Light of the world, enjoyed life…not to keep it for himself…but in giving his life to others. His pleasure was not in selfishly fulfilling sinful desires but in satisfying his desire to save a world lost in sin. What quenched his thirst and gratified his hunger was drawing a soul out of the dark, alienated loneliness of despair and uniting them with his Spirit to God, to himself. Love and mercy for a wandering, dying humanity motivated every act of Jesus. 

        His pleasure is to be ours, will be ours, once we are united with him in spirit. Being reborn in the image of God means we no longer leave to please self, to have the first place, to be the center of attention or the object of worship; we no longer live in fear that our most basic needs or our greatest passions will not be met. His holy desires become ours. If this has not happened we are following another spirit, not the Jesus revealed to us by the Father. 

        Holiness in the life we call Christian is life in the Spirit, a life not centered in how good God can or does make us feel, but how we let no personal need or want to divert us from our true mission of glorifying God in a spirit of sacrifice for the salvation of others. 

        Christian desire, Christian joy is often replaced today with a worldliness that almost completely counterfeits the revelation of God’s love in Christ. Our mission and identity are conveniently constructed to make us “helpers” or spiritually gifted ministers when the bottom line has been to find a lifestyle that satisfies our need to be significant and safe no matter what. We hear too much about the wonderful works of Christians today, about their well-designed, well-planned, artfully lived lives of service. I now prefer the silence, to have faith in the unknown servant who quietly follows Jesus into those places where the loud trumpet of success cannot be heard, where the expressions of joy are most often mingled with tears rather than laughter. 

        We see Jesus most when he is seen the least. So it should be with us, who take his hame, who take his name with perhaps more thought of self than he had when he took our sins upon himself. I want to be hidden with Christ more and more. I need to be if I will be like him, if I will be effective as his servant. How can I not be if I am following the humble Christ, the Jesus who still is found in the streets, alleys, and hallways of suffering and want? How can I not if I follow him as he walks the dark hills in search of the lost sheep, treading the lonely, unmarked trails the crowd has never known?

        May God give us a true repentance and revival as we consider, not the imagined Jesus of our idolatrous desires, but the Scriptural Jesus, the revealed Messiah, the only Son of God born in a manger and hung on a cross for our salvation. Risen he is, but changed he is not. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Let me be with him for another day of Life. 

An Evening Blessing

            No doubt, the good report from the doctor regarding my eye and how it is healing makes me happy. I’m grateful for the prayers of my friends, for their kind attention, visits, phone calls, and messages; I’m thankful for the companionship of Christ in my illness, and for his mercy in giving me the faith and patience I need. I’m grateful fo the skill and dedication of my doctor, the nurses, and the support of my church leadership. How rich I’ve become in having such care and friendships through Christ!   

        I’m feeling so blessed by God this evening, which is not the same as taking it for granted or knowing I am blessed without feeling appreciation for it. The Lord has been very good to me from the time I was born, yet I’ve forgotten most of what he has done for me, not only the seemingly small things, but even the big interventions he has made in my life. I’m praying for a clearer understanding of our fellowship together, of how he has and is mingling his life with mine, taking my sinfulness and giving me his character. 

        As Sabbath was coming on tonight I was laying down on the bed, face down in my post-op recovery position praying, talking to him, sharing my thoughts and feelings, asking him to share himself with me, and he has. What mercy and love he has for us! What grace! Knowing he loves me personally means everything to me. He gives me confidence to push ahead notwithstanding my tendencies toward pride and this never ending desire to feel good all the time. I want his discipline, his teaching, his correction. I want to be like him at any cost. 

        Walking around the block tonight after prayer, I felt a deeper longing to be more like him. I can honestly say I see nothing wrong in God, that I have no conscious doubts about his goodness, or righteousness, or justice. God is good, always, God is good. I trust him with all I have because all I have has already come from him. I want nothing apart from him or without him. That is my Sabbath blessing and I wanted to share it with you in the hope that it will encourage your faith as he has mine. Even in physical pain or emotional loss we can be sure Jesus loves us and will meet our need in the very best way. 

        All he ask is that we have faith in him, that we trust him and let him weave his character into the fabric of our lives. He wants to be with us and us with him. That’s the point of it all, to be one with God through his Son by the power of his indwelling Spirit. We can be full now, yet have more and more in our relationship as time goes on. Eternity to come will not exhaust the richness of his character as he shares himself with us. Tasting what our small faith gives us now, we have every reason to hope for better things to come, an overflowing of his goodness toward us and in us that will satisfy us forever. 

        Study the life of Jesus, walk with him through the Scriptures, hear his word to you, recognize the Father in all that he does, all that says, all that promises. See how forgiving and welcoming he is toward the most sinful. And remember that he also hates the sin that hurts us so. Let him fill your mind and heart with a desire to be like him. Worship him in spirit and in truth. Take his offer to carry your burdens, to forgive your sins, to wash away the guilt and shame of your life. Accept his companionship as your Savior, Teacher, Friend, and King. You can always trust Jesus, so let nothing persuade you to withdraw your affections or attention from him. Keep him very near in your thoughts and feelings, always remembering he will be as close to you as you will allow. He won’t force you to serve him, but he will work hard to show his love for you. He wants to take you sins, your grief, your disappointments, and mend the brokenness in your life. Let him be your God, your tender hearted Father, your loving brother, the soul-mate you’ve searched for all of your life. Jesus will heal you and give you the virtue of his character to be your own. All that he asks is that you place all you trust in him, that you believe on the name of the Son whom God the Father has sent to save you. 

No matter who you are or where you find yourself now, I pray with hope that you will put your faith in him or if you already have, that you will renew it again for the simple joy of abiding in his love. May God’s grace and peace be yours in the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Retina Surgery

I'm recovering from surgery, two in ten days, to repair tears and two successive detachments of my retina in my right eye. I'll post more when it is less of a chore, or danger, to spend much time writing. There was no accident, simply the result of aging in this particular body and a failed first-surgery that was complicated, not by the surgeon, but by my body's over-eager absorption of the gas injected into my eye to hold the first retina repair in place. I'm spending the larger parts of the day face down this week. Life, if not my eye, will return to a more normal routine in the weeks to come.

A Morning Blessing

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever!

Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,

whom he has redeemed from trouble

Psalm 107:1-2

        I am feeling very encouraged, thankful, and hopeful in Christ this morning. I’ve been blessed, though deserving none, in the sacrifice of Jesus for my sins, in the gift of his Spirit to abide with me, and in the fellowship of those who share a mutual faith in the one true God and his Son, Jesus Christ. I have a wife who loves me, warm hearted family and friends, more than I need to eat, a home, and a little dog that is always happy to see me. God has entrusted me with gifts for serving him as an ambassador for Christ and given me the love I have not had in myself, even for my enemies. Nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, nothing in life or in death, as long as I keep the faith he continues to grow in me. For this faith lays hold of its one true object, Christ himself, “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” He is our peace, having broken down the wall of hostility by the forgiveness of sins, making us one in him through the blood of his cross. All glory goes to the Father who has done more than we could think or ask, just as he purposed for us in Christ from eternity past. And in a short time, all that has been promised will be fulfilled in the return of Christ from heaven to earth. Look up. Our redemption “draweth nigh”.