Applying God's Promises While Bones Break
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Them's the Breaks
I'll be undergoing colon surgery at the end of this month. It's to finally deal with diverticulosis that turned infectious and ruptured in 2023 that I have been living in fear of happening again ever since. Each time I let myself think about the surgery, there's a split second of anxiety before I'm able to hold my thoughts captive. It's not clear to me what that anxiety is over -- each time I introspect it, it hides. This could go poorly for us it mumbles, we could suffer. Never clear on how but always persistent it will. Things will go poorly it tells me, you won't be able to handle the outcomes.
What does God say?
If you go to any given church in America on Sunday, you will be told
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11
and
7The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121:7-8
They preach that I can go into this surgery with confidence of God's provisions for here, in His word, He says He would! When confronted with the factual reality we live in where good people suffer for no reason, they call out
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
And perhaps they are right. Perhaps I can go into this with confidence that God will move mountains to keep me safe and to help me recover from this surgery. Perhaps. He has, after all, helped me be without serious health issues ever since the original hospital stay and the doctors were amazed at how fast I healed. Perhaps He is currently performing miracles on my behalf. That is a way to interpret the Bible. However.
19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
Ecclesiastes 3:19-21
God also said we all will die. That we are no better off than the animals, the road kill we see on our way home from church. Tell me again how the Lord will keep us from all harm. As I ask myself what God promises me, in this anxiety and fear over the surgery, I am reminded of something else that happened in 2023 -- my wife's miscarriage.
We had been trying for so long, and we shared the news early out of pure excitement. And, for some reason, it was not viable, some random flip of chromosomes didn't mesh well. It apparently happens quite often. We were able to lean on our community, my wife was able to lean on God, and we got through it, but I ask -- What promises did that clump of cells have and what promises do I have?
It Is All Hevel
10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
Job 2:10
After the miscarriage, I tried to lean on the Psalms, the Gospels, the happy things. But they felt hollow. If any Psalm resonated, it was Psalm 22, fittingly the Psalm Jesus quotes on the cross. Where I did find solace, however, was in Job and Ecclesiastes, two books that I had heard about but never spent time reading or studying. In these two books I found real conversations, detailing the ugliness of life, the unfairness and injustice we live under. Finally I had found in God's Word what I had known to be true for decades: life is dukkah, it is suffering.
I believe that Christians today focus too much on the post suffering world as their only way to cope with this and in that have turned God into an insurance scheme, a way to ensure that by trying to be a good person in the suffering, God will reward us with blessings both in this life and in the bosom of Abraham. Instead, what I found in my grief and turmoil was God asking me "am I worth it?"
Suppose, like the Essenes, we misunderstood what Jesus meant about the afterlife. Suppose, try as we might, we just missed the boat and there is no heaven or hell. We just die. Would you still follow God? If instead of us being the Jeremiah 29:11 promised generation, we were the exiled, the persecuted, the generation that suffered? Would you still follow God? Imagine you were Job and, for what sure appears to me to be a flippant bet or showmanship by God, your complete life is destroyed and your friends accuse you of horrible things. Would you praise God in that moment?
During the miscarriage, during the emergency room stay, during this anxiety, God continually asks me "am I worth it alone?" Is the Kingdom of God, God's rule, God's glory truly the only thing that is important to me? Or am I here just to get something from God? Am I hear just because God offered me protection and a better life? Will I follow God because of who God is or am I only here because of what He offers?
21 and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”
Job 1:21
the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. Is that actually my heart? Is that yours?
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
Ecclesiastes 1:1-2
I believe this is the only way to truly get there -- to completely and utterly understand that life, in all its good and bad, ups and downs, is at the end of the day utterly meaningless.
2 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?”
Ecclesiastes 2:1-2
What does pleasure accomplish? Why do we ask God for good things in our life if, as the Teacher says, good things are meaningless? Why do we listen when our body tells us that we want those things in the first place? We roll the dice and we get the life they decide -- there is no justice in the roll, just happenstance. Why do we bring these childish, meaningless desires to God and expect Him to do something about it? Yes, as a wise man said "If God cares about anything it means He cares about everything" but I care about the tree I prune and God "[...] disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son." God does care and He wants us to live a peaceful, joyful life. But. Our understanding of what "peaceful" means may be wrong.
Peaceful does not mean without struggle, strife, pain and suffering. What God promises me is that He is more important than the suffering and it is through that perspective that we can find peace in the fire. The suffering in which we endure is as meaningless as the greatest pleasures we could experience. The only thing that is meaningful is God. But how do we get there?
The Flesh Is Loud
While I know that it is all meaningless, that doesn't mean that I feel like it is. As I told my Bible study -- If there was a gun to my head, I'm not sure if I'd choose God. If I was Peter, I would deny Christ more than three times. If I was the church that the Book of Hebrews was building up, I would have fallen away from the faith. It is only by the grace of God am I not yet the first three seeds. As Paul wrote
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Romans 7:14-25
Try as Paul could, he lived in this struggle against the flesh. I believe Jesus, in His complete humanness, struggled and overcame the flesh but struggled all the same. God is not promising us a struggle free life, neither from external nor internal. God is not offering an effortless life, where because we said a prayer we are entitled to grace. God is not offering nirvana. God is merely asking is He alone worth it?
If we decide that God is worth it, how do we pummel the flesh into submission? If we "do not do the good" we want to do "but the evil" we do not want to do, how then can we be servants of Christ? How can we actively overcome the flesh so that we may bring glory to God alone? How can one truly be born again? Yes, it is by grace, through faith, yes it is through Christ alone, yes what is impossible for man is possible for God. But how? What am I responsible for doing today in order to ensure that I am aligned with God's will while I struggle with the flesh?
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
We are responsible for making our body a slave. We have been bought and sold and it is our job to serve our new master fully and completely, with the rigor and dedication that an Olympic athlete applies to their sport. We must train ourselves, building self discipline, becoming better slaves to Christ. As Rousseau might say it is by becoming complete slaves to God do we gain the freedom that the Spirit offers, but we are slaves.
Today, in this moment, I am responsible for aligning myself with God's will. Doing that necessitates that I participate in this relationship. While God could plug you into the Matrix and upload all of the knowledge you need, He doesn't seem to work that way. Instead, He seems to ask "am I alone worth it?" He seems to require effort from us daily in order to fully participate in the relationship with Him. As James wrote
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
James 2:14-19
Yes, we are not justified by our actions, but we seem to become sanctified through them. Jesus is calling us to an active participation in the relationship -- He is requiring it from us. It is only through self discipline, through self sacrificial actions that glorify God, are we proven justified. The demons believe in Christ, they know He is God, and they shudder at the fact. We as Christians are called, I believe, to daily make the often difficult, self sacrificial choices that we best believe to glorify God in that moment. They are the only decisions of any consequence. Everything else, everything else is hevel, meaningless.
I believe that it is through this active participation are we changed, reborn, becoming new wineskin. Yes, we are not justified by these actions but we become changed through them. No muscle that is worked will not become stronger. It appears that while I am a slave to sin, I have some sort of an effect on what I choose to do in this moment. Put in a different way: you fall to the level of your training. If you have never trained up in the Lord, how can you ever participate with the Lord? We must be active in our salvation, in our participation and cocreation with Christ.
But Like, How?
We all are called to be closer to God, but how do we do that? How can we be justified by grace through faith but be required to do some actions that are never defined? How do we know what we should be doing today? That, my friend, is a really good question.
It starts with understanding, really accepting that God is the only thing of importance. Not my job, not my health, not even my family. We are good husbands because God calls us to be. We are good neighbors because God calls us to be. We smile going into surgery because the outcome doesn't matter in comparison to God's glory. Every decision we make should be rooted in the fact that God's Kingdom is the only Kingdom that matters, that God is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. From there, from that fully mentally engrained and accepted truth can we even begin to be true followers of Christ.
And while I am not there, I believe that through Spiritual Disciplines and through seeking God's will, I can become a true follower. With fear and trembling I am working out my own salvation. The Path is long and I am only at the first gate -- there is time for me to become the second or third seed if I am not actively participating. In coming posts, we will look into the concept of Spiritual Disciplines and I will apply some personal theology to expound on this but I think the way in which we are proven justified is through this process, these disciplines, through just going through the struggle for God's glory alone. Steel is made within a forge, pottery in a kiln, and I believe Christians within this battle over your own flesh.
19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness
Romans 6:19
We must daily offer ourselves as slaves to righteousness. Today, tomorrow, in the years to come, you must choose to be a slave. Are you actively trying?