Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Bread of Adversity

There is nothing more fundamental to the sustainment of life in our thinking than bread (or a similar staple such as rice) and water. Providing these elements are present we can live and grow; without them we die. While in the western world we consider only having access to such elements to represent a life of hardship, in many places in the world they constitute the provision of sustenance for which people are continually thankful; a lesson that we in the western world so often loose sight of.

In Isaiah Chapter 30 and verses 15-21 there is a reference to bread and water which we probably would prefer not to think of too often.

In verses 20 & 21 we find the following:

"Although the Lord gives you the bread a of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying 'this is the way, walk in it'"

The concept that adversity & affliction can be the elements through which our life is sustained and probably even grow is something that we would rather not contemplate. Moreover, the passage also suggests that they also an integral part of our learning process and guidance (verse 22). While in hindsight many Christians will acknowledge that times of significant growth most often occur during times of adversity/affliction, it is not a state they relish nor a state in which they desire to stay. In fact, generally speaking, affliction and adversity are states to which we devote significant time and energy trying to avoid and/or exit as soon as possible. Consequently, we are left with a dilemma; the situations during which we grow the most and learn a lot are the very situations which scare us the most and in which we want to spend the least possible time! Why is this? Does God have some perverse characteristic that enjoys putting us through spiritual boot camp? Is it a way by which we are meant to show what we are made of; a proving ground if you like? This is a question that many before me appear to have struggled with, as evidenced in books such as the Psalms (eg: Psalm 38) and in the New Testament letters of apostles such as Peter to the church which by this time has been scattered all over the place as a result of persecution (1 Peter C5 v 6 - 11).

Today you only have to visit your local Christian bookstore to find a plaethora of books dealing with suffering. The explanations/ exortations provided in them are extensive ranging from "we are to expect it, so bring it on so we can grow", "God causes suffering so that we can grow", "our need to be broken/crushed before God can use us", "spiritual warfare", "there must be something wrong you haven't dealt with ( along the lines of Job's comforters)" and "trying to survive as best you can until the trials have passed". While there may be some elements of truth in some of these explanations, they offer little consolation while we are passing through adversity. Furthermore, many of these explanations leave me struggling with how this is consistent with a God who right from Genesis through to the death and resurrection of Christ has consistently demonstrated how he loves each one of us, desires to have a relationship with us and sacrificed His Son to make this possible.

Some insight into these issues can be found in the beginning of Isaiah 30. If you go back to the beginning of the Chapter you discover that God's chosen people are at a stage where they are trying to solve their problems by consulting with and/or making alliances with everything and everyone but God. In fact by the time you reach verse 10 they have reached the stage where they no longer wish to hear what God has to say as they no longer want to look at what is actually facing them, but rather "pleasant things (NIV)". In verse 12 it becomes more apparent that they have been bound and determined to solve problems in their own way, using their own resources. This ultimately leads to the statement in verse 15 where God says:

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of if (NIV)"

As a result of God's children choosing not to follow God's direction we see that they become fearful( verses 16 & 17).

It strikes me that this so often resembles my own walk. God points me towards a path that I can see requires me to face adversity and affliction and my first instinct is to run the other way, to use my own guile to develop solutions which I perceive will minimize my own pain anything to try and avoid the direction in which I am being pointed. Why do I do this? If I am truthful I think it is most often because I realize that the situation is too hard for me to handle, something about which I feel too vulnerable to handle or something which previously caused me a lot of pain and which I vowed I would never deal with again. What I have forgotten to factor into my assessment at this point is Paul's observation that we can do all things in Christ who strengthens me (Philippians C4 v 13). You would think that such a promise would excite me, but too often it makes me start to realize that my life in Christ involves becoming dependant on him and giving up any pretence of personal control; a pretence that although in my heart-of-hearts I know is false and ultimately leads to failure I for some reason still choose to stubbornly cling to. Instead, of following God's direction to return to Him and His way and rely on and trust Him to address adversity (paraphrase of verse 15), I panic, start flayling around and end up in a constant state of fear as I alternate between gingerly approaching and rapidly retreating from the adversity/affliction that I perceive lies ahead. All the time I am asking, or probably more accurately yelling, at God about why I need to face such adversity/affliction in the first place?

A partial answer to this may lie in an example from my profession. I am trained as a aircraft structures engineer. Part of my job involves helping to evaluate structures through both analysis and test to ensure they will not fail in flight. How is this accomplished?; by loading up the structures beyond the anticipated worse loads they will see in service to validate that they are indeed capable of taking those loads. The general public expects that such testing will have been carried out and verified before they get on a plane. Can you imagine what would happen if you and I were traveling together on a plane and upon finding out what I do for a living you ask me is this plane safe? If I replied "I expect so, but we haven't really tested it out but it will probably be OK", you would probably have some serious reservations upon getting on the plane. Furthermore, if after further reflection, I then turned to you and said "hmm .... as we haven't actually tested the plane I will skip this flight so that I can observe what happens. When you land safely you will know that the plane was OK", you probably wouldn't want to get on the flight at all! Conversely, if I explained all the testing that had been done to substantiate that the aircraft could survive all conditions it was anticipated to encounter in service, you would feel a lot more cmfortable getting on the plane, regardless of whether you had a detailed understanding of the engineering or not.

If you compare verses 15 and 18 & 19, I think that in a similar way to my description of aircraft testing God might be trying to show us that although in this life we will be confronted with adversity and affliction we only have to call out to Him, He will provide all the help and resources to deal with whatever we are facing whether we understand the "Engineering" behind it or not. The net result is that at the end of the day we know that we can totally rely on God as oppossed to our own "Egyptian Alliances" (guile and resourcefulness). This is something that the apostle Paul discovered as evidenced by passages such as Romans C8 v 26-38. So perhaps what we are seeing in Isaiah C30 is God encouraging us not to flee in fear from adversity and affliction when it presents itself to us but rather to approach it in God's strength so we can truely see it for what it is, see that God can deal with it and subsequently be freed from any fear or other hold it might otherwise have over us. This also helps us to atart making more sense of the passage in 1 Peter C5 v 6-11 alluded to earlier in this article. As we allow God to teach us with the bread of adversity and the water of affliction and not rely on our own guile and resourcefulness, so we humble ourselves before God, cast our fears to Him who is able to resolve them. This allows us to resist the Devil and not giving him a foothold of fear. Ultimately this will lead to is being restored, strong and steadfast (Compare Isaiah C30 v 15 with 1 Peter C5 v 6 & 10).

Maybe what we most need to learn is that the bread of adversity and the water of affliction are only something we need to fear if we attempt to face or deal with them by ourselves as opposed to realizing that our salvation lies in giving up our self-reliance, turning to Him and seeing our strength come from trusting Him as He works in our lives(Isaiah C30 v 15). While I am starting to realize that this is the way we need to go, I for one am certainly not there! In that regard the prayers of those of you who read this would certainly be appreciated!

Steve

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Faith and Fear

It has taken me a long time to realize that the opposite of faith is fear. I base this observation on the effect that each one of these actions has on my daily life. Whereas faith draws me closer to God, fear tends to drive me away from Him, almost shy away and go into myself. A much worse version of being somehow caught with one's hand in the cookie jar.

While I often talk about faith and living in faith, if I am honest I often catch myself configuring my life and how I live my life around fear. Such thoughts as "what happens if I didn't pray out of the right motives and God doesn't come through" or " I cannot just sit here and pray" continually dog me. This puzzles me as time and time again God has shown me that He is faithful and yet, despite this I still find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. Some of this angst seems to be rooted in a sense that I am not strong enough or good enough to be blessed and cared for by God. This is in total contradiction to what is in the Bible in passages like Matthew C5 - C7, and I know that; so why do I let this stuff keep hanging around?

Consistently throughout the bible there are admonishments not to fear but to trust in God. Joshua is a prime example where in the first Chapter of Joshua, as he prepares to take over from Moses, he is told to be strong, courageous and not to be afraid (Joshua C 1 v 6-9). I guess I can take some comfort from the fact that as God emphasized to Joshua this was something not to do, presumably it was something that Joshua was struggling with .......... although taking comfort in that manner is somewhat akin to one passenger on the Titanic saying to another passenger on the Titanic " never mind were all in the same boat!". The Psalms also seem to contain a lot about fear and overcoming fear as do Proverbs. Perhaps the most telling verse though occurs in 1 John C4 v 16 -18:

"And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Him. There is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love" (NIV).

Not being made perfect in love as a reason for being fearful is perhaps not the most intuitive explanation that springs to my mind and something that has given me cause to ponder. However, upon reflection, there maybe some merit in it........

The nearest thing I can liken it to are some of my exploits as a child. When I had done something I shouldn't (which unfortunately was not that an infrequent occurrence!) any elation that might be associated with the act was fairly quickly replaced with a slowly growing concern with what would happen if I was found out and had to face my parents. The first alternative was to lie and I tried that periodically, but generally I was not to good at that. So it seemed that my only alternative was to try and bury it and hope I wasn't found out. There then followed an uneasy period when I was in the presence of my parents wondering whether they would find out, whether they already knew or whether I was going to betray to them something had happened by not acting "normal". In essence, regardless of whether or not I was found out, our relationship was severed as I wasn't at all at peace because I was constantly worried that what I had done would come to the surface. I n addition to a feeling of guilt there was also the associated sense of shame of having let people down, of failing to meet expectations, of breaking trust and a whole host of other things. Later on I realized that I wasn't the first person to go through this cycle, one only has to read the biblical account of the fall in the early Chapters of Genesis to realize that Adam and Eve went through the same thing.

Inevitably, many of the things that I had done wrong did come to light and I was faced with standing before my parents. When I think back there were two things I feared. The first was the immediate consequences which were invariably not that pleasant. The second, possibly more subconscious fear, was this the act that would have blown it, that my parents would finally give up on me and justifiably (in my mind) abandon me and I would be left alone, unloved and out of options. Thankfully, while the immediate consequences, usually involving some form of restitution were never too pleasant, the second series of consequences that I feared the most never came about.

Fast forward to adult life and the childhood example above has not changed that much in concept just in application. It now has to do with fear related to times I have hurt others by doing what is expedient either personally or professionally rather than what was right; of the fear of having deceived myself and my family that I really could provide all the things I thought they had to have immediately, and racking up so much debt in the process to the point of it being unbearable; of the fear of the consequences engaging in occupations and pastimes that were often focused on personal gratification without a thought for the consequences on those around me; of the fear of being found out of being patronizing and uncompassionate to others who had been caught doing what I had not yet been caught doing; and/or the fear of loosing the love and respect of those I love the most. The list can go on and on and I guess we all could substitute similar or different incidents in our lives. As with the childhood example they cause a severing of relationship, but this time we discover to our horror that this severing of relationship extends beyond our earthly circle of friends and acquaintances to God; whatever our concept of God maybe. The thought that we might have contravened/severed a relationship with a heavenly being who probably knows everything we have done anyway is daunting in itself. It becomes even more terrifying when we are faced with the possibility that while we might be able to attempt some earthly restitution, we do not even know how to begin reconciling ourselves to God and obtaining some heavenly restitution.

The bad news about this predicament is that we in and of ourselves cannot make restitution to God. The really good news is that we don't have to; as a Christian I understand that is what Jesus Christ did on my behalf, even though I didn't deserve it (You can read about this in Romans C3 v 9 -30). Christians commonly term this as "Grace" which boils down to us being reconciled to God purely on the merits of what Christ did through His life, death and resurrection ( if you would like to talk more about this aspect E-Mail me and I will do my best to share and explain how I understand this fits together). In other words, Christians believe they have been given an amazing free gift they don't really deserve and through that they have a personal relationship with God. For those of you who are reading this that are Christians you are probably thinking that this is Christianity 101, so what is his point! I guess my point is, if so many of ustruely believe this, why do we find it so hard to live in grace in practice?

Based on my limited observations it would appear that a lot of Christians, myself included, struggle to live in the light of the Grace we proclaim. We live fearful lives where we just seem to be surviving day-to-day and if the truth be known, we don't act that much differently from our non-Christian friends. We are consumed with fears about health, inadequacy in our jobs or roles as parents, lack of money, retaining jobs, having to remain strong and deal with everything life throws at us by ourselves because if we don't we are somehow incomplete. In this environment we become subject to the same struggles with depression, marriage breakdown, addictions etc. and our victorious Christian life degenerates to one of pleading in the hope that maybe we can convince/coerce God into doing something. At this juncture I should state that I am not suggesting that as Christians we will not be assailed with some of these things and that sometimes they just seem so huge, so overbearing and or painful we buckle as we try to sustain pressure which God never intended us to sustain alone.

So what lies at the root of our struggles to live in the Grace which we have been freely given? In my own case I am drawn back to the little boy that stood in front of his parents knowing that some restitution that was inevitable but desperately hoping that he had not blown it and thankfully they never did stop ;loving me. However, this time around I realize that I am now stood in front of God and despite what it says in the Bible, despite the assurances I have received I am having a hard time believing/living that I haven't blown it that despite the mistake I have made I can come before Him and know that through Christ I am loved, will not be rejected and can seek and obtain forgiveness as He is determined that in Christ we will not be seperated (You can read about this bit in Romans C8 v 26 -39). I don't have to stay in the background desperately trying to patch things up by myself to salavage some level of "respectability"; fearful, because as the verse from 1 John ( way back at the beginning of this entry) says, there is no fear in love as fear has to do punishment. So perhaps what I should be striving for is not so much related to being freed from fear but rather being perfected in love ........... because if that happens I should end up being freed from fear.

All great theory, but the question then arises as to how do I become perfected in love. That is something I am still learning, but I think some of that has to do with taking God at His word even when I doubt that somehow he hadn't anticipated the things I have done when those words were spoken and consequently they don't really apply to me. Therefore, the best I can hope for is to try my best and just hope I scrape into heaven in at the end! This is where the faith that counters the fear comes in .... am I prepared to trust God at his word, to claim the promises about asking, seeking, finding and being provided for that it talks about in the well known passages of Matthew Chapters 5 -7? One part of me says that it can't be that straightforward, it has to be more complicated than that, yes I am sure God means what he says ........ but.............? Within that "but" perhaps lies my biggest fear in this whole faith vs fear dilemma that it might actually just be that simple and straightforward and that it involves total commitment with no holding back (Hebrews C11 v 1 -2; Matthew C16 v 24-28) .............. I think sometimes I would actually prefer it to be more complicated as that way I could sort of test things out while maintaining a Veto ............ but that is another story!

Steve

Monday, August 3, 2009

Finding Direction

There are numerous books and advice on how to find God's will for life. Many offer compelling arguments which eventually manifest themselves as formula and/or rules; while some can be helpful, I still find periods in my life when I am basically confused.

Of late, the thing which I keep coming back to is Jesus' encouragement to:

"Seek first the kingdom of heaven and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" - Matthew C6 v 33-34 (NIV).

In the past I have so often seem to have attempted to work it the other way around, ie: Seek first all the things (usually trying to do "g0od" things) and the kingdom will be given to you. This is really backwards and in my head I know it is; so the question remains why do I continually approach faith and Christian growth in this manner? For me there is probably no one answer. Maybe its a desire to be in control, to maintain some sort of independence. Could I be scared about what God might do if I really let go .........am I truely not too sure or rather am I sure but am not ready to deal with it?

It is probably not by accident that this encouragement to seek first the kingdom of heaven is surrounded by passages that talk about not being anxious ( Matt C 25 v 25 -34) ......... that is something that I certainly learn more about. I guess when you come down to it it all boils down to trust, faith if you like, and that in turn really comes down to relationship. When things get tough, confusing or even just down-right unpleasant where am I going to turn .......... to my own resources or to God? In other words who am I going to trust my own wisdom, insight and resourcefulness (perhaps not such a good idea if you look at Proverbs C3 v 5-8) or God's? A no-brainer some might think, and in many instances at an intellectual level it is. The problem is that so often my life doesn't reflect what I know in my head ......... where that leaves me I am still pondering!! Perhaps if I am finding it hard to go to God then I need to look a little closer at my own relationship with Him ...... A whole topic in and of itself!

These verses can almost seem like God is saying make sure you do things my way because that is the way it is. While I think there is truth in that, it has started to dawn on me that it is not necessarily being conveyed in the harsh way I have always imagined. It seems like it may be more along the lines of "seek my perspective on things, see them for what they truely are and then you can start to understand the way I want you to respond". This starts to tie in with other passages I know about the truth setting you free (john C8 v 31 -32). I guess such a passage assumes that I want to know the truth or maybe that's the rub, in some areas of my life where I have been hurt or been the purveyor of hurt, I really am not willing to go there ...... hmmm yet something else to ponder.

One thing is for sure is that although I have been a Christian for many years, I am starting to realize I have some really messed up ideas about who God is, truely living in God's forgiveness (grace) and a whole host of other things......

Some further walking, understanding and insight is definitely required!

Steve