Gratitude is Vulnerable

In the first line Future Grace, John Piper says (much more articulately) what I have been trying to say about gratitude:

Like most precious things, gratitude is vulnerable. We easily forget that gratitude exists because sometimes things come to us 'gratis'--without price or payment.

Yes, gratitude is vulnerable. That's a much better way to say it. Here's another way, from Thomas Merton's No Man is an Island. I don't think he's accurate on some theological points, but I still find this quotation useful:

As long as we secretly adore ourselves, our own deficiencies will remain to torture us with an apparent defilement. But if we live for others, we will gradually discover that no one expects us to be 'as gods.' We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complement one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another. Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and 'one body,' will we being to understand the positive importance not only of the successes but of the failures and accidents in our lives.

Divine Multi-Tasking

"I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city" (Isaiah 1:25, 26).

In Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Ray Ortlund notes that the Hebrew verbs translated "I will turn" and "I will restore" are actually the same verb. He explains the significance of this fact:

We translate this with different English verbs, "turn" and "restore", because our idiom requires it. But Isaiah is implying that one God, acting in one way, is able to accomplish two things at once. When God turns his hand against us, it isn't a disaster; it's an act of restoration. The discipline of God achieves just what he intends, in purification and in restoration, both at the same time. We can expect the goodness of God to show up in unlikely experiences. When he turns his hand against us to purify us, let's trust him to restore us.

This illness is not a disaster; it is an act of restoration. Every morning, I have to sweep aside all of my cherished hopes and dig into the Word for evidence of this truth. I find that the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and he works all things together for their good. In my better moments, I am encouraged by the fact that the Lord is treating me as a son and I am fortified by the truth that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him." Still, I can walk away from the Word and moan over my aches and inadequacies with a heart as wobbly as my legs. I am dissatisfied far too easily--a word, a thought, a mis-step and I am undone.

But dissatisfaction is not my deepest problem. The strength of my desire for temporal things (as evidenced by my dissatisfaction when they are removed) points to my lack of love for eternal things--or my lack of faith that such things will truly fulfill all of my desires. In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis writes, "Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." My dissatisfaction is not an isolated problem; I have a satisfaction problem, too.

Purification (I will turn) sets us free from the weak loves that satisfy and dissatisfy us in order that we may be captured by a new love through restoration (I will restore). In one act, God achieves what this heart can neither ask nor imagine, in its current state. But "the Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands" (Psalm 138:8).

Place is Always and Only Place

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long? Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love. For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise? I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes. Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment (Psalm 6).

I can't help but notice David's confidence as he concludes this Psalm. "The Lord has heard" and "the Lord accepts," he boasts—though he had opened the Psalm with the plaintive, "How long?"

The "how long" question is a consequence of looking around. It is a natural question to ask, particularly in the midst of a trial and is, in itself, morally neutral. It may be a prelude to faith or a prelude to doubt. If the question is fostering doubt or fear, though, then it is the wrong question to ask.

Over the past few days, I have been plagued by a sort of emotional tedium. “My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, ‘My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.’” All around me I have seen loss and lack; pain and emptiness; absence where presence once stood. All around me…

But David’s boasts, in Psalm 6, are not yet manifested in his present circumstance. He boasts in the fact that the Lord has heard his plea—maybe the same plea that he has uttered now for days, weeks, months—although he has seen no salvation. He looks ahead and predicts the shape of his victory—the degradation of his enemies—though they are still encamped about him.

In general, I think that we can extract a guideline from David's example that may serve us when we get mired in the "now." Like David, we may be better able to boast in the Lord if we look back and look ahead instead of always looking around.

Looking back is the easier of the two charges. This discipline has served me, even today, with reminders of God's faithfulness in the face of my faithlessness. When hope is in short supply and sin is threatening to fill the vacuum, the remembrance of God’s goodness to us in the past can steady our hearts.

Looking ahead is a bit more challenging, since it depends upon faith and not sight. Piper, in Future Grace, suggests that remembering can "incline our hearts to trust in future grace." This remembering is not an end in itself, but when combined with the living and active Word, it is a motivator to faith and obedience. Several of you directed my attention to one or the other of these affairs today, and the Lord brought them all together to strengthen my weak faith.

It’s hard for me to let go of my expectations for today—for what my life, at 28, should look like. But by remembering what the Lord has accomplished, I am encouraged just enough to be willing to look ahead with hope, nay—with faith.

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are…

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

Men as Trees

Something in my heart switched off a few days ago, and I just can't feel anything right now. It’s almost as though the glut of emotions over the past few weeks—toward God, toward my friends, toward my family—has just saturated my heart. I cannot hold one more tear (of joy, sadness, or any commixture of the two). The puzzling thing is that I can’t seem to release them either. Suspended. Frozen. There’s something in front of me that I cannot see.

I'm going through the motions of interacting with people, of praying, of studying Scripture, and yet everything is wearisome. I feel restrained or sedated, or somehow reduced to an unresponsive state. There’s something in front of me that I will not see.

I think that I'm a little bit afraid to hope now. It's been five weeks and I still (for all practical purposes) can't walk. I have no diagnosis, no treatment, and no clear path to a sustainable lifestyle. People assume that things are "getting back to normal" for me, but normal is not yet in view. There’s something in front of me that I haven’t yet seen.

Like the blind man, who had received Christ's healing touch and yet whose vision remained distorted, "I see men as trees, walking." I am not blind, yet I hardly see. I am not walking in despair; neither am I walking in faith. In the face of the indistinct, I am tempted to rely on what is most clear—the weakness of my limbs, the limits of my stamina—and stand warily where I am. Jesus, touch my eyes and restore my sight—that I may see you clearly and see myself and my circumstances in your light.

"It is no longer I who do it..."

Whenever I read through Romans 7 and contemplate indwelling sin, I always hesitate over verses 17 and 20. In fact, to call a spade a spade—I feel embarrassed by them. They seem to advocate a denial of responsibility for sin which, you may realize by now, I fight against vociferously. The verses read as follows:

17) So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

20) Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

As I was driving home from church today,* I confessed my sins again to God and felt as though the confusion of these verses obscured even my confession. “How am I to even think about this?” I asked. Clarity consumed the confusion all at once. Indwelling sin is “mine,” though it is no longer “me.” Paul’s attribution of his sinful acts to the "sin that dwells within me" is not a question of culpability but of congruity.

Romans 7, extracted from its context, conveys tension and incongruity. This divided man is wrestling against an enemy within himself, and he knows well the weakness of his own defenses. Sin remains and exerts a powerful influence over him, though he is being delivered from his “body of death.” It would be easy to walk away from this chapter wondering if the doctrines of sin and salvation were somehow inconsistent. Verses 17 and 20 help to make the distinction between my remaining sin and my new identity in Christ—bolstering both doctrines, along with those of us who fight to build our lives around them.

*Note: I drove myself to church today. Whereas most of my prohibitions have been instituted to deal with the pain, my driving restrictions were strictly based on fear. I faced that fear today and drove the 35min drive to and from church.

God Saves Sinners

“The biggest obstacle to our spiritual progress is that we feel healthy.” Ray Ortlund, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners

Throughout the past month, my reading of Scripture has been self-consciously topical. The needs of each day have been so insistent that I have required immediate and obvious application from my reading. Over the past few days, though, I have been sensing the need to immerse myself into a more settled book study. I’ve decided to add Isaiah to my readings in the Psalms and in Colossians.

I'm fortunate to have a copy of Ray Ortlund's commentary, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, to use as a reference in this study. Here's a little tidbit from the introduction. You'll notice immediately how my recent reflections situate me right in the middle of the "we" of whom Ortlund speaks:

"[Isaiah's] Hebrew name means, 'The Lord saves.' This man's very identity announces grace from beyond ourselves. We don't like that. We want to retain control, save face, set our own terms, pay our own way. Every day we treat God as incidental to what really matters to us, and we live by our own strategies of self-salvation. We don't think of our choices that way, but Isaiah can see that our lives are infested with fraudulent idols. Any hope that isn't from God is an idol of our own making.”

These strategies of self-salvation are what is under attack in my life right now. I recognize in myself both the search for salvation and the resistance to receive it; I know that I have positively located that salvation in Christ and yet that I continue to search for it in other places. And I know the slavery of those “other places.”

Isaiah describes Judah’s spiritual crisis in chapter 1:

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.

He uses imagery of physical sickness to speak about the spiritual malady of Judah; in a similar fashion, I look at my physical condition and draw conclusions about my spiritual health. I don’t draw these conclusions to suggest that this sickness has befallen me because of my spiritual condition. Instead, I look at it as a manifestation of the overwhelming tendencies of the human heart to self-destruct and to rebel. I think of my portable altars and am saddened. But I do not hope in my heart or its rightness or righteousness; I hope in the fact that God saves sinners.

Father, you have made known to us through your Son and in your word that you save sinners. Your spirit has opened my eyes to the truth that I am such a sinner and that your salvation is my only hope. I confess that I could not pay my own way, save face, or set my own terms. It was on your terms that I came to you, in order that you might receive all the glory for my salvation.

I thank you that you continue to awaken in me a fresh sense of my own sinfulness through conviction. Help me, Father, always to turn from that sin and focus upon Christ. Help me to see that he has borne those sins and put them to death at the cross. Help me to live in Spirit-empowered freedom instead of fleshly idolatry. I give you thanks, even now, for the physical suffering that reminds me of my spiritual need. I thank you for the helplessness that points to hope; for the emptiness that points to satiation; for the pain that points to joy. I trust you that what is mortal will be swallowed up in what is eternal, and I long for that day. Sustain me until I see you face to face, in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

From Foot-Washing to Feet

No theological or philosophical reflections today, friends. Just the facts:

After being off those horrible steroids for only two days, my feet are swollen again (for the first time in nearly three weeks). I had to search for a pair of shoes that would fit this morning and have had much more trouble walking.

It seems logical to now assume that the steroids have been serving some useful purpose. But the new facts beg further questions, like this one: If my pain level was that high on steroids, what am I to expect now that I'm not medicated?

It is hard not to dwell on these questions and fears, so I am grateful that Scripture makes known to us the consequences of doing so. I read in Romans 8 that "to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace." Here I am warned of the effects of clinging to this fear, which is neither fruitful nor faithful.

But to actually fight it, I must throw myself upon the God who is faithful. I must remember the God who has forgiven all my iniquity if I am to trust him to be the God who heals all my diseases. I'm going to spend some time doing that now.

The Foot-Washing Kind of Love

It's satisfying to pay the people who serve me. It maintains my equilibrium, you know? It perpetuates my illusions of control, and it even infuses me with a delicious sense of my own magnanimity.

It feels completely different to be served. I do not give and yet I receive; I am honored by admitting weakness. My needs are met by ceding control to another. This feeling cleanses me—feet, head, hands—with a humbled gratitude.

So many of you have been asking me regularly, "What can I do to help?" You have offered to assist with meals, shopping, transportation, housekeeping, and even finances. For the most part, though, I have "graciously" declined your help. I can do many of these things right now; I simply do them very slowly and with a great deal of pain. I mean, isn't it wrong for someone like me—who can do these things—to accept help? Doesn't God help those who help themselves? (As absurd as the words sound, the thoughts seemed much more plausible).

My small group, in particular, has been relentless. One of the women in the group cornered me again on Sunday. She asked if they could begin to provide regular meals for me and, anticipating my automatic answer, explained: "We know that you can take care of groceries and food yourself, but we're asking if it would bless you and serve you to have someone else help." When she put the question that way, I had to say yes.

Yesterday, I received an email from another member of my small group. She and her children wanted to clean my apartment for me and, within just a few hours, they were on my doorstep—buckets, rags, and smiles in tow. They might as well just have washed my feet at the same time…

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34

In John 13, Christ provides a commandment and an example. He commands us to love one another and exemplifies that love in his washing of the disciples' feet. Likewise, our service to one another is a way that we can manifest the love of Christ to "all people." My small group is, right now, living out a testimony to the transformative love of God in their service to me. I truly thank God each time I remember these dear brothers and sisters, and I hold them up to you as an example of the extravagent, foot-washing love that binds us together in Christ.

From Suffering to Hope

About three or four months back, I began to meet with my pastor and a couple from my small group to talk regularly about some persistent, indwelling sin in my life and the ensuing temptation to depression. In fact, I met with them just a couple of weeks before I went into the hospital. Without going into detail, I was battling specific issues related to control, self-gratification, and hopelessness.

What I was surprised to realize today is that these are the specific strongholds now under attack. Consider control and self-gratification. What can I control right now? I can hardly do my own grocery shopping! With what can I now gratify myself, when all of my ordinary pleasures—in work, food, exercise, AND in control itself—are suspended or so transformed as to be barely recognizable. All of the touchstones by which I would assess my own success or failure are moved; all of the rewards I would give myself are now altered.

The curse of my sin—of my controlling works and my hedonistic indulgences—had become a flight from grace and a temptation to despair. I knew that my system was defective, even if it remained intact, and I hated it. David Powlison explains, in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God:

"It is worth noting that Christians, as new creations in Christ, also live in an essentially different relationship to their own sinfulness. Your sin now afflicts you. The 'dross' no longer defines or delights you. Indwelling sin becomes a form of significant suffering. What you once instinctively loved now torments you. The essential change in your relationship with God radically changes your relationship to remaining sinfulness. In Christ, in order to sin, you must lapse into temporary insanity, into forgetfulness. It is your worst cancer, your most crippling disability, your most treacherous enemy, your deepest distress. It is the single most destructive force impacting your life. Like nothing else in all creation, this threatens your life and well-being."

Let’s examine again the three sins that I mentioned as the most pernicious and persistent for me: control, self-gratification, and hopelessness. These were sinful patterns of living that I had been unable to undo; with Paul I cried, "I do the things I hate." The first two sins are being ravaged by this physical suffering, and I know that the third one is under a similar (if more subtle) attack. Remember Romans 5, where we learn that "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope"? This text makes a direct connection between suffering and hope. So, while I never would have anticipated my need to suffer, I knew well my desperate need for hope.

Though the Lord has not revealed to me all the means, I know and trust His purposes. This is why we are exhorted to rejoice in our sufferings! It is not some type of masochistic feat; it’s faith. It's faith that all the promises of God—including this one—are YES in Christ. Faith is how we move from suffering to hope, and our God is the (unmoved) mover who grants that faith.

Lord, increase my faith!

Love Not the World

Thomas Chalmers explains how we can love not the world:

"Nothing can exceed the magnitude of the required change in a man's character—when bidden, as he is in the New Testament, to love not the world; no, nor any of the things that are in the world—for this so comprehends all that is dear to him in existence as to be equivalent to a command of self-annihilation. But the same revelation which dictates so mighty an obedience places within our reach as mighty an instrument of obedience. It brings for admittance, to the very door of our heart, an affection which, once seated upon its throne, will either subordinate every previous inmate, or bid it away.

Beside the world it places before the eye of the mind Him who made the world, and with this peculiarity, which is all its own—that in the gospel do we so behold God as that we may love God. It is there, and there only, where God stands revealed as an object of confidence to sinners—and where our desire after Him is not chilled into apathy by that barrier of human guilt which intercepts every approach that is not made to Him through the appointed Mediator. It is the bringing in of this better hope, whereby we draw nigh unto God-to live without hope is to live without God, and if the heart be without God the world will then have all the ascendency. It is God apprehended by the believer as God in Christ who alone can dispost it from this ascendency.

It is when He stands dismantled of the terrors which belong to Him as an offended lawgiver, and when we are enabled by faith, which is His own gift, to see His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and to hear His beseeching voice, as it protests good-will to men, and entreats the return of all who will to a full pardon, and a gracious acceptance—it is then that a love paramount to the love of the world, and at length expulsive of it, first arises in the regenerating bosom.

It is when released from the spirit of bondage, with which love can not dwell, and when admitted into the number of God's children, through the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the spirit of adoption is poured upon upon us—it is then that the heart, brought under the mastery of one great and predominant affection, is delivered from the tyranny of its former desires, and in the only way in which deliverance is possible."

From a (10 page, single-spaced sermon!) entitled The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

The Haves and the Have Nots

On my five-minute drive home from work today, I heard two lines of a sermon from Tony Evans. I remember only one of them. It went something like this:

"If you are busy thinking about what you don't have instead of what God is doing, then you are in enemy territory."

Though I had spent quite a bit of time over the last few days reflecting upon what I have lost, my heart was disguising this dialogue as a supplement and not a replacement. Surely I can think about what God is doing and still maintain a little energy for self-pity, right? I'm just being a realist here...no need to start talking about "enemy territory."

Both Paul and Tony seem to disagree with me:

"For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8).

Wow. I consider anew the losses that have plagued me, each bandying about its own fears and threats as though it was of ultimate importance. Loss of efficiency. Loss of beauty. Loss of self-sufficiency. Loss of physical comforts.

While it's not wrong to notice these things and even to be saddened by them, it is wrong to dwell on them. It is wrong not to take these thoughts captive by considering who the Lord is and what He is doing. Why? Because those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Want more evidence? I wish you could have seen what a miserable few days I've had; that experience would illustrate the point better than I can do with my words. As my mind has been focused on fleshly matters, I have reaped a harvest of profound bitterness (to which several of my friends can attest). Should I have been suprised at the hostility that I felt toward God? Or in the disobedience that rapidly followed those first allowances of self-pity? At what price did I buy those trinkets for myself?

"Father, heal me from the nearsightedness that sees only my loss. Enable me, by your Spirit, to see the presence of your hand in my life and to look toward my future with faith. Because I trust in you, I will not feel sorry for myself. Because I have been raised with Christ, I will seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. I will set my mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For I have died, and my life is hidden with Christ in You (Oh! What security!). And when Christ who is my life appears, then I also will appear with him in glory." This is my hope and my comfort. Have or have not, I shall not want."

More Good Questions

I posted previously (May 15, "Speaking to Those in Pain") about good questions to ask a sufferer. David Powlison is much better equipped to make suggestions along these lines, so I'll let him speak through his helpful chapter in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God:

"Often the biggest problem for any sufferer is not 'the problem.' It is the spiritual challenge the problem presents: 'How are you doing in the midst of what you are going through? What are you learning? Where are you failing? Where do you need encouragement? Will you learn to live well and wisely within pain, limitation, weakness, and loss? Will suffering define you? Will faith and love grow, or will you shrivel up?' These are life-and-death issues--more important than 'the problem' in the final analysis. They take asking, thinking, listening, responding. They take time."

I like his questions very much, although I would recommend that either a close and honest relationship or an invitation to accountability should be the premise for the "will" questions. Coming from someone who stands at a distance, they could be construed as an accusation.

For the record, if you are reading this, you may ask me any of these questions. Accountability is such an important means of grace in this time (as in all others). I am committed, by the grace of God, to squelching the feeling of condemnation that hard questions can invoke. The process always gives life even as it humbles.