hope

MAKING SOME SENSE OF MAYHEM & MADNESS

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Remembering the Chaos of Ten Years Ago this Month

Every year the month of June makes me uniquely reflective. My mind cannot help but revisit the chaotic events which occurred back in that month of 2016.

There was individual chaos in my health. Just a little more than three months earlier I underwent an eight-hour surgical reconstruction of my jaw. I posted often about that challenge beginning with A View from the Hospital.

There was relational chaos in my marriage. On May 31, 2016, I lost Nancy, the beloved wife of my youth, to an eighteen-month battle with ovarian cancer. At 5:50 PM that evening I became a widower. I posted often about my journey through the valley of the shadow (Psalm 23:4) beginning with Sad News about My Nancy.

And then there was cultural chaos in my city. On June 12, 2016, 29-year-old Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people and wounded 58 in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The news that weekend left me and the nation shocked at the latest occurrence of murderous madness in America.

The following day, Sunday, June 13, I received a call from longtime close friend, Frank Reed. At the time Frank co-hosted the morning show at 94.9 KTLY, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas. Like the rest of us, Frank, a onetime resident of Central Florida, suffered from the aftershocks of the Pulse shooting. Beyond that he wondered how they might address the crisis on the air the next day.

He suggested we record an interview about the shooting that they might include in their programming. Imagine my surprise. I swallowed hard but agreed to give it a shot. Not everything I said in the recording made it on air, but what did can be heard at the less than five-minute interview here.

Please remember my title of this post if you care to listen to the interview. I sought to make some sense of the chaos–to offer some comfort to the listeners. More could be and has been said about such tragedies by wiser and better pastor/theologians than I. Still, I trust that some perspective proved better than none for coping with hope through the heartbreaking futility (Romans 8:18-25) of our broken world in seasons like June of 2016.

HOW KING DAVID WOULD LEAD IN A PANDEMIC

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Three Musts for Guiding Others in Crisis

 

In contemplating a blog post somehow helpful in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, my thoughts turned to Psalm 131.

There may be no other text I use more frequently in pastoral care for people making war on worry. Charles Spurgeon rightly called it “a short ladder rising to a great height.”

King David, the shepherd/leader of Israel, authored it. It has much to offer for leaders and followers alike suffering through a pandemic.

Psalm 78:72 says this of David: With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand. That hand is all over Psalm 131.

And it is Godward in every way.

I see here three aspects of Godward aim in leadership through a crisis.

A Mindset of Learned Humility before God (1a).

My heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high.

He makes a genuine confession about the condition of his heart. It’s lowly, humble. He has just the right perspective before the Lord.

David entertains no delusions of grandeur about himself. He suffers no illusions of over-inflated self-importance, even though God anointed him as Israel’s shepherd king.

Notice the way that translates into a word picture in the next line.

My eyes are not raised too high.

The trajectory of one’s eyes reveals the condition of one’s heart. He won’t permit what Prov. 6:16-17 calls haughty eyes.

That begs the question—how might we self-diagnose pride? Read on.

A Manner of Composed Rest on God (1b-2).

Whatever historical vantage point of hard providences from which David learned this, he eventually grew in his spiritual maturity to a point where in the face of the most difficult circumstances he made a consistent choice.

I do not occupy myself with things too marvelous for me.

The Hebrew word for occupy comes from a root which means to walk.

When David bumped up against challenges too marvelous, he refused to walk in them. He wouldn’t go down that road obsessing over what he couldn’t control.

He refused an arrogance that wigged out over stuff above his pay grade. That’s how I unpack the word marvelous.

Proverbs 30:18 is enormously helpful in getting at the meaning here: Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand.

Perhaps the best translation is the word difficult. I do not trouble myself with things too great and difficult for me.

John Calvin favored things too high for me.

Jim Boice captured the thrust this way:

What David seems to be concerned about in this verse is . . . peering into the hidden purposes of God. . . . He is saying he had learned that he did not have to understand everything God was doing in his life or know when he would do it. All he really had to do was trust God.

So what might that look like if we embraced the same humility and resolve? Verse 2. I have calmed and quieted my soul.

The word for calmed gives us another visual image to help with its meaning. Literally, I have smoothed and quieted by soul.

David testifies to making a choice that likens his composure to a smooth-as-glass-lake at dawn’s first light. But he wants to focus our attention on a more vivid, emphatic word picture to drive home the point here.

Like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.

This is such a powerful image!

A post-weaning child acts very differently around its mother’s breast than a famished pre-weaning child. It is almost comical to watch infants go berserk anticipating latching on to mom’s milk.

But once weaned, it’s a whole different matter. When it comes time for snuggling―nothing but restfulness and contentment.

David testifies that his learned humility works its way out in his life by a consistent choice of weaned-childlike composure, a manner which rests calmly at every turn on the bedrock sovereignty of God’s providence in all things.

This is an Isa. 26:3-4 calm.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

It’s a John 14:1 Jesus’ perspective/resolve. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.

Leaders must learn this. Followers need this example played out consistently, not perfectly—no one does that—but as a rule regularly demonstrated even in the most troubling of circumstances.

Few of Oswald Chamber’s devotional writings have hit me harder than this one:

Fussing always ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. . . . Have you been bolstering up that stupid soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God? Put all “supposing” on one side and dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about that thing. All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.

A Message of Sustained Hope in God.

Don’t miss the shift in David’s focus here.

He moves from talking directly with I AM in vv. 1-2 to exhorting God’s people here in v. 3.

His message?

O Israel, hope in the Lord.

Do as your shepherd/king does.

Bow before God. Rest on God. Hope in God.

When? ALWAYS.

From this time for the and forevermore.

Never, ever give up on Him.

We really should read Psalm 131 and Psalm 130 in tandem. David repeats the plea of the psalmist in verse 7.

O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, with him is plentiful redemption.

Pastors, if we have anything at all to say to our people caring for aging/ailing parents, waiting for prodigals on the run, agonizing over conflicted relationships, working through difficult diagnoses, fighting against cunning and baffling addictions, grieving over heart-breaking loss, worrying about the next election cycle, bemoaning the Dow Jones in freefall, freaking out over a rampaging novel virus, and countless other too great, marvelous, difficult, and high providences, let our message ever be this:

O dear ones, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore!

Take your people again and again to texts like Rom. 5:3-5.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Point them relentlessly to the counsel with massive promise found in Phil. 4:6-7.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Help them—to borrow from Pastor John Piper’s words—to know contentment of soul that is based not on their circumstances, but on their unshakable restfulness in God.

Whether you’re a leader or not, you may be thinking, I want this, but I struggle so with anxiety. By default, I’m a fear-based person.

What should you do?

Respond to Jesus’ standing invitation in Matt. 11:28-30.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Take your cue from and live in the strength of the One who agonized in Gethsemane at the prospect of the cross, but chose not to occupy himself with its degree difficulty by choosing the calm of “Not my will but yours be done.”

He died for every last strand of yours and my wicked fussing and sent His Spirit to live in our hearts with His supernatural peace.

Repent, believe the gospel, and trust and obey once again.

Humble, composed, hopeful—indispensable qualifications all, fit for shepherd/kings, presidents, pastors and their followers.

LAUGHING AT THE FUTURE?

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future

It never ceases to amaze me. Reading through a passage of Scripture I’ve viewed so many times before only to find this time around something captures my attention like never before.

It happened this morning as I turned to Proverbs 31 and the familiar passage about the virtuous woman who fears the Lord. Verse 25 grabbed me by the jugular. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.

Really? She laughs at the time to come? I’m waiting typically for the next email bearing bad news to hit my inbox DAILY. Good humor about future developments in a broken cosmos doesn’t usually describe my frame of mind. Not so the godly woman who stands in awe of God. Her rally cry? “Go ahead future. Give me your best shot.  I laugh in your face!”

This woman must sink her anchor deep in the bedrock of God’s sovereignty to take on an uncertain future with such good humor.

I suppose it caught my attention in part because of what I read the day before about Nancy Reagan in Peggy Noonan’s best seller biography of President Ronald Reagan, When Character Was King. The author interviewed the president’s wife about what it was like to cope with the idea of walking into history as Mrs. Reagan. She admitted she had no idea that was the case. Noonan inquired, “So how did you learn to do your part?” She replied:

reaganOh, Peggy, you take it each day and you learn along the way. You know, somebody at the hospital recently, when Ronnie broke his hip–someone told me, ‘We were afraid to tell you about it, that his hip was broken, we were afraid it would be too much for you.’ You know, I looked at them and I said, ‘Listen, think back on my life for a moment. I’ve seen my husband shot, I’ve seen his two cancer operations, I’ve seen him thrown from a horse, I’ve seen his brain operation. And if I didn’t fall apart for any of those, I’m not going to fall apart for this. Don’t worry about telling me what you have to tell me” (p. 136-37).

OK, so maybe that doesn’t equate to laughing at the future, but it certainly comes close. And it reveals a secret to facing the future with faith rather than fear. Calculate the faithfulness of God in seeing you through a perilous past and you may well find the strength to step into the future with a trusting-in-God smile on your face.

Thank you Proverbs 31 woman. You make me want to be a Proverbs 31 man.

SPURGEON’S SORROWS, MINE AND YOURS

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Josh thinker

Grief casts a long shadow. At least 365 day’s worth. One year ago today we lost our firstborn son, Josh, or, as he liked others to call him, “Thee Heff.”

Life-threatening cancer proved my effective tutor in 2005. Gut-wrenching loss brought its mastery instruction in 2014. I’m learning, reluctant or not, much in the school of sadness, perhaps most importantly this: some pains in life visit and determine to stay. I don’t expect grief ever to release its hold for the rest of my life. The words, “Josh is dead.” altered my experience forever. I’ve heard other loss-sufferers say such things. I thought I understood. Now I really do.

I find solace this tortuous anniversary weekend in the reading of a book. (Read books. They change lives.) Zack Eswine, thank you for writing Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who Suffer from Depression. In its provision, providence smiled on this sad heart as I read through its 144 pages the last two days.

Any Baptist preacher of the Reformed tradition (others as well) treasures Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Few preached with greater anointing. No one wrote more sermons. Calvinistic, gospel zeal pulsed through his veins in degrees of which I can only dream. With reading Pastor Zach’s book I added a new dimension of appreciation for this giant of the faith – how his near lifelong battle with depression helps me cope with my sadness and in turn comfort others in theirs.

I have long known about Spurgeon’s trouble with melancholy. I did not realize, however, its root for the man in one horrific event early on in his preaching ministry (see p. 19). It brought catastrophic grief, grief, believe it or not, I honestly imagine greater than my own. It prompted this comment from the author, borrowing from a Spurgeon sermon entitled “Weak Hands and Feeble Knees”:

For some of us, we’ve been unable to live in any other scene but the one that crushed us. We were brought so low that we never held up our heads again. It’s like we will go from that time forth mourning to our graves. Circumstance haunted us and went on. Depression came but never left. It haunts us still (p. 29).

Pastor Zack joins our hands with “Charles,” as he fondly calls him, and walks us through his journey. He invites us to view it as “the spurgeons sorrowshandwritten note of one who wishes you well” (p. 23). And well we should. The author has served the reader admirably with numerous citations from Spurgeon’s work on this challenging subject. He has thoroughly mined the precious ore of insight to be gained from one who suffered so greatly and dared talk so freely about it from his influential pulpit. Pastor Zach also shows us from Scripture the reality of sorrow. Additionally he borrows from numerous other works on the subject. He accomplishes a lot in so short a resource. Though I wish I could ask him humbly and gently, “How could you leave out Lloyd-Jones’ classic Spiritual Depression?”

Who should read this book? Easy. Any sufferer of depression and its close relatives, sorrow, sadness, and grief. Here you will find compassion, understanding, hope, and help. Pastor Zach inserts along the way distilled lessons from Spurgeon’s experience that ease the burden of “heaviness of spirit” (p. 46). While not all will agree with or like some of his prescriptions (e. g., medication as necessary), there is plenty of spot on assistance to glean especially from part three (Learning Helps to Daily Cope with Depression).

Caregivers, pastors, and otherwise “one another” gospel-shaped Christians who want to do 1 Thessalonians 5:11 well will also want to read this book. Pastor Zach takes particular aim against “God-talkers” and insensitive Job-like comforters. He pleads for more of us in the helping trade to adopt compassion and understanding in dealing with the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks in this broken world. May the tribe increase.

Gratefully, Pastor Zack leads us from the lesser story of Charles Spurgeon, as instructive, yet incomplete as it is (there are some cautions to hear along this path) to the greater story of Jesus – the Chief Mourner (p. 86) – the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). He even shows tenderness to the skeptic on looker who’s own loss may venture her to wade into these pages though not sure at first what to make of this pastor’s God-talk. You can give this to a seeker and not worry so much.

Thanks to our good friends at Westminster Books, I scarfed up a bunch of these for a mere $5 a piece. Lord willing, you can find them in the OGC resource center next Sunday.

I’m not sure I’ve arrived at the place Spurgeon did, especially after my most recent post, Never Again. But I affirm the truth of it in ending my anniversary reflections on loss:

I am sure that I have run more swiftly with a lame leg than I ever did with a sound one. I am certain that I have seen more in the dark than ever I saw in the light— more stars, most certainly—more things in Heaven if fewer things on earth! The anvil, the fire and the hammer are the making of us—we do not get fashioned much by anything else. That heavy hammer falling on us helps to shape us! Therefore let affliction and trouble and trial come.

They most certainly will. And His grace, as always, will most certainly be sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9).

 

What Are We Waiting For?

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Everywhere I turn, it seems, I encounter someone in wait mode.

Singles waiting for a suitable mate to come along.

Sick folks waiting for a sure cure for their illness.

Estranged couples waiting for a reconciliation of their marriage.

Parents waiting for a wandering prodigal to come home.

Unemployed or underemployed workers waiting for a job.

Students waiting for funding for their education.

Children waiting for favor with their parents.

Missionaries waiting for their support to come in.

And yes, even churches waiting for their buildings to get a CO.

And no, at this writing, we don’t have it yet. Sigh.

I am fond of saying, Waiting is one of God’s favorite four-letter words. It’s true. God makes us wait. A lot. When He does, the temptation remains the same. Like the Jews of old in the Babylonian Captivity we question that our way is hidden from His sight and that our concern is none of His concern (Isa. 40:27).

The prophet had nothing but rebuke for that kind of thinking in the rest of chapter 40. He took them to task for such unbelief in the midst of their wondering if they would ever return to the beloved Promised Land. He did so by reminding them of what they had heard and knew about the character of God.

Everlasting. Creator. Unsearchable.

We may grow faint or weary, but this God never does. Better yet, He dispenses His extraordinary power that hangs the stars in the sky, calls them by name, and sees to their keeping (Isa. 40:26) to the faint and weary and exhausted.

How? By waiting. Not waiting for a change in circumstances. Waiting on Him. Verse 31 is key – But those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength. The Hebrew word for wait comes from a root which means string or cord. The verb form has the idea of twist. The imagery is helpful. To wait on the Lord is to bring our slender strand of strength to Him in prayer, meditation, hope, and worship and have Him wrap His creative, unsearchable, everlasting omnipotence around it so that we are strengthened. To renew means to exchange. We exchange our meager strength for God’s unlimited strength. Matthew Henry, the Puritan commentator explains:

But those that wait on the Lord, who make conscience of their duty to him, and by faith rely upon him and commit themselves to his guidance, shall find that God will not fail them. . . .  They shall have grace sufficient for them: They shall renew their strength as their work is renewed, as there is new occasion; they shall be anointed, and their lamps supplied, with fresh oil. God will be their arm every morning, ch.33:2.
The imagery of this strength and its impact in v. 31 takes the breath away. Mounting up with wings as an eagle. Running and not being weary. Walking and not fainting. From the most spectacular of feats of mounting up to the most mundane of tasks of walking and everything in between, God meets us and give us His strength.
Warren Wiersbe, in his commentary on Isaiah, summed up well the progression from flying to walking:
As we wait before Him, God enables us to soar when there is a crisis, to run when the challenges are many, and to walk faithfully in the day-by-day demands of life. It is much harder to walk in the ordinary pressures of life than to fly like the eagle in a time of crisis. “I can plod,” said William Carey, the father of modern missions. “That is my only genius. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.” The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. The greatest heroes of faith are not always those who seem to be soaring; often it is they who are patiently plodding. As we wait on the Lord, He enables us not only to fly higher and run faster, but also to walk longer. Blessed are the plodders, for they eventually arrive at their destination!
So the question stands. What are we waiting for? If it is for a change in circumstances, that may or may not come. If it is for an exchange of strength with the God of the universe, that you can count on.
So wait, wait on the Lord and renew your strength.

A Bitter Better

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For the second time in less than a week I will go to a house of mourning tomorrow. I will officiate at the funeral of a brother in Christ and member of my church for the last several years. We have shared a lot in common the last eighteen months as cancer victims experiencing the various forms of treatment and the war stories that result.

That’s another blog post. This post concerns my fortune to attend two funerals in so short a span of time. I say fortune because of the wise words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 7:2-4.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

It may well be a bitter better but better it is just the same to attend a memorial service than a wedding celebration or a birthday party. Why is that? Because funerals, uncomfortable as they are to our live-for-the-moment, eat-drink-and-be-merry culture, focus our attention on the one great universal inevitability. This is the end of all mankind. Everyone has the same appointment. No one escapes his destiny with the valley of the shadow, the last enemy, death. Furthermore houses of mourning point us to the brevity of life, the mist-like nature of our existence that is here today and gone tomorrow (James 4:14).

Unlike parties, houses of mirth, that play to levity and the thrill of the moment, funerals focus you on the inevitability of the ultimate and the gravity of the life to come. They can teach us to pray as Moses did in Psalm 90:12 – teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

A heart of wisdom lets the sadness of mortality and the certainty of death lead one to the joy of immortality through the hope of the gospel that the One who both frequented wedding celebrations (John 2) and visited cemeteries (John 11) triumphed over death and will raise from the grave all who belong to Him by faith.

A Needed Lesson from the Weaned Child

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Lately I’ve heard about numerous difficult providences in a variety of believers’ lives. They include things related to marriage, parenting, singleness, childlessness, joblessness, just to name a few. Far too often for my comfort level I grope for explanations to bring encouragement in the face of such gargantuan hurts.

Frequently I find myself pointing folks to a pertinent text in the psalms when all else fails – Psalm 131.

[A SONG OF ASCENTS. OF DAVID.]
[131:1] O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
[2] But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
[3] O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.

Not everything, but more than we might like to think in life, qualifies for the categories of too great and marvelous. So many things belong to the secret things of God and not for us (Deut. 29:29). What are we to do in such instances? Calm and quiet ourselves. Don’t miss the word picture. Calm and quiet like a weaned child who no longer clamors for milk from its mother’s breast.

How do we do that? Verse 3 – Hope in the Lord, always. Matthew Henry said it well: Thus does a gracious soul quiet itself under the loss of that which it loved and disappointment in that which it hoped for, and is easy whatever happens, lives, and lives comfortably, upon God and the covenant-grace, when creatures prove dry breasts.

Creatures prove dry breasts more than not, especially in the hard providences of life. Let us live comfortably, calm and quiet upon God and the covenant grace of His Son, Jesus, in the gospel.

Hope in the Haze of the Mundane

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Sunday’s message from Zechariah 1:18-21 is now on the website. You can listen to the audio here.

Reflecting on the four craftsmen of this passage, Matthew Henry wrote:

Which way soever the church is threatened with mischief, and opposition given to its interests, God can find out ways and means to check the force, to restrain the wrath, and make it turn to his praise.

Lift up your eyes and see the justice of God in the glory of His Son.