Ministry Remnants

I've been reading and pondering the story of Jonah. This morning I shared from the first two chapters and then a consideration of the question: "Why does God send the belly of the whale?"

I suggested 4 reasons:

• Due to our stubborness
• To bless us
• To bless others
• To bring about closeness with us

There is more, always more. Is the belly of the whale really a good thing? Does God send it? Of course in Jonah's case he sent it to deliver him from the drink and then, in turn, to break his stubbornness. Then the above effects could come to pass. "For the carnal mind is enmity against God." But when Jonah repented a way was open for peace with God. He went through the belly just as Christ did to atone for the world. Jonah's suffering helped him get there for himself; Christ's suffering did it for the world.

I am tempted to give up the question. Is the belly really necessary? Must we suffer to be reconciled? Certainly we must die to ourselves and certainly we are not eager to do so. Suffering takes us there. "Yet he learned obedience by the things that he suffered."

Even the path of dying to self is suffering. No good thing comes without it. Suffering is a given no matter what. When we accept that instead of rage against it or try to avoid it, the world is open to us. This is being real.

Jesus shows the way. This is why the cross is glorious. We beat the suffering of life by bearing it gladly, dying to self which insatiably seeks pampering and the easy life. It is the only way, and I am a beginner. Maybe we all are.

Take up your cross, follow the Master. I once wrote that with aplomb as a young, eager college student. I now write it in hopes I will receive the grace to live such a way in peace. I hope you will, too.

Meditation from Jonah

Meditation from Jonah

You never know how thought or word,

action, random though it seemed,

within God's vast compendium

has weight and import.

For God-writ sparrow eulogies,

countless, pointless though they seem,

speak layers of the deepest clue:

“To Him we matter!”

So never think the stuff of life,

beasts and work and nature, too,

are “one with God” (the pantheist lie) –

Oh no – He owns them!

Instead believe with dancing joy,

thoughts and action, people, too;

like compass answer polar call,

fit His glad purpose.

What painful burden lays you low?

Joyless deeds that starve the soul?

Each, all of these and infinite more,

within His goodness --

Will show that He can take the ill,

good things, too – for all is His,

and make them serve Him flawlessly:

so trust Him always.

- - - - - - - -

Can you believe this is true in the failings of life? Painful shortcomings, lost opportunities, watching others excel through dint of diligence and hard work while one's lack prevails? Can God work even in this? Is there mercy and grace for the shortfalls we bring on ourselves?

What of those who suffer profoundly through no fault of their own? Is there grace for them? Is God working even in that and so should they trust Him?

I think the answer is yes, for if there is a God I see no other answer. Why does he allow suffering? I can only answer with Job and shut my mouth: I do not know. But I trust him not to test over-much.

Life is a grand testing in which we fail myriad ways. 

But He never gives up. 

Those who excel should inspire us. 

Those who fail should scare us, yes, but also engender appropriate pity and service. 

"Lord, grant humble gratitude before those who do well, 

tender care for those who fall short in the journey."

Did Trials prepare Jesus for Ministry?

Next time I will morsel some crumbs about how...trials prepared Jesus for ministry. 


Jesus needed preparation? How can that be?

I said the above in a post below and decided I might make good on the pledge.

Why did Jesus need trials to prepare him? Because he was human, that is all. He needed household-training from his mother and trade-apprenticeship from his father. Though he was the son of God he did not know these things without effort. That would not be human.

It was emphatically not some kind of artificial thing so that he could identify with us. He could have done that by fiat -- through pure knowledge and sheer power. As another esteemed mentor, Dr. Bill Ury, said in response to such reasoning: "Why, then, did not God just save from heaven?"

He could have, just as you and I can attempt redemptive work without getting our hands dirty. But it cannot be done. We have to be with, to become like. That's the world God made. That's the one he entered. Though he can suspend the ways of his world, he usually does not. And Jesus did not. Much the rather, he submitted to those ways just as we do in our common humanity.

Only his was a willing submission. He never had to become human. But once he did, game on. No looking back and no undoing. He entered our world and knew it in all its pain and trial and death. It was first-hand knowledge: not to posture himself or pretend some kind of empathy, but to actually be with in every way.

So how did his trials prepare him? Same as ours. The tempting in the desert toughened him, wisened him, gave him understanding to overcome many future assaults.

This is all I know and I know it barely. If Jesus were not human, we have no hope, for only a dying God can save a dying race. And to die he had to be human.

But if truly human he must suffer trials necessary to his training. Otherwise his humanity is not as ours.

This may seem arcane, but it is the heart of the gospel. And it is as real and earthy as we can get, if we will. We far prefer a sanitized Jesus in a religious box. That is easier, we imagine, but is actually worthless because unreal.

I go to prayer, to one I dare to believe is real: to one who really understands my trials and can give me understanding help -- one might even say camaraderie.

I pray for the grace to believe it and to enter in.

The Lure of Sugar

So here's something 'right where we live.'

I love sugar. Always have.

I've always known it is bad for me, at least in quantities I consume. So why do I do it?

"Logic!" say the young. "If we'd all rule our lives by reason!" The implication is, of course, that the speaker does precisely that and further, that such a thing is really possible on any meaningful scale.

Fact is, reason tells us that we do not rule our lives by reason, but largely by feeling and emotion.

My body feels good when I have sugar, so I eat it. A thousand rationalizations are easy. Tonight it was typical: "This chocolate cake is from my birthday. I can't let it go to waste."

I've done this for years and I assume most of us do in measure: we rationalize poor eating habits. This is the wrong use of the reason so touted by the young as the cure for what ails us. That is, reason is at work on a wrong assumption, namely, "If it feels good I should eat it. If it doesn't, not so much." Reason is serving our bodily foolishness.

Tonight I read some of a piece about the link between sugar and cognitive decline. Could this move me to 'lick the sugar habit', as goes the title of a book my wife hopefully gave me some six years ago?

Am I really going to answer in the negative such questions as these?

• Do I want a healthy mind as long as possible?
• Do I want to optimize my options for good health and activity?
• Do I want to enjoy my family for the longest possible time?
• Do I want to be here to love and care for my wife as long as possible?

Every indulgence of the sugar habit says "no" to those questions. and this is not some dour, ascetic attitude. We should have dessert. Just not all the time, in Mt. Dew and coffee creamer and German chocolate cake and pizza and jelly, doughnuts, syrup-on-pancakes, candy, cookies, twizzlers, and on and on and on.

I do not trust my will-power, which is fodder for another blog. But this article all-but pushed me over the edge. I must change these habits that undermine good living and increase the possibility that my children will unduly suffer because of my fault.. I do not want that to happen,

What say ye?

On Consciousness

Ran across this puzzling quote today by the skeptical mystic I. Ronia Lirt: "I'm unaware of consciousness."

What do you make of it?

Ministry Remnants: Rewards from Unexpected Places

Maybe the path of suffering is necessary to answer our deepest, truest prayer.

Today we considered this text: "...God rewards those who diligently seek Him." It is clear that the reward in mind is God Himself and it is Him we are to seek supremely. I often remember Lewis' reminder: if we make God our sole pursuit, all else is thrown in. Invert the order and lose all. Jesus said as much more than once, of course, primarily in the oft-quoted text "seek ye first the Kingdom of God...."

But I didn't want to miss the truth that God also rewards us in general, so I tossed out that reminder with this caveat: God rewards us but often the rewards are in disguise. Certainly they do not come when we want them or in the shape or quantity we wish. And they especially come in ways we could never expect.

I remembered how true this was for a dear friend. His son began adult life with painfully bad choices, leaving him poor, sometimes bitter, lonely, disappointed. My friend felt deep remorse, blaming himself. The son, for his part, eventually owned his own fault and began to make amends and develop zealous responsibility. 

My friend wished for the 'reward' of a son with grandchildren and a stable, godly home. He eventually got a godly son, sans home and grandchildren. Then, much to his deep joy, his son developed a large, entrepreneurial ministry that far surpassed anything my friend ever hoped to see. The son began to live out the deepest prayers of his father. 

The reward came by painful means; it came by circuitous route; and it looked nothing like my friend thought it would. And yet it was the answer to his deepest, un-uttered prayer.

Maybe the path of suffering is necessary to answer our deepest, truest prayer.

Waiting...

Waiting is the ellipsis...

Waiting...
...until you hear without effort;
...until a word births itself;
...until hope appears, uncontrived.

In the stillness we find him. Only in waiting we find what is worth waiting for.

Why are we so slow to wait, to get quiet, to listen?

Our trials take us there, but not always. We are recalcitrant.

I have known in rare days the sweet grace of waiting, of being still, of knowing.

I believe in God. When I wait for Him faith is working.

A faith that "diligently seeks" finds Him as its rich reward.

Waiting is the ellipsis, the too many dots that seem wasted space and time. Is waiting for God wasted time?

The reward is worth the wait. Hold on.

He is worth the wait.