Freedom, Faith, and…Burning the Quran?

13 09 2010

“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.”[i]

Photo by Erickson Photograph / iStock

This is a departure from the nature of the previous and future posts here, but I have decided to weigh in on the issue of the Florida group’s recent plan to burn-the-Quran. The event was cancelled shortly after I started writing this, but I wanted to go ahead and publish my thoughts.

First of all, I’ll say right up front that book burning of any kind is a primitive and pointless response by anyone to anything. What does it accomplish? What has it ever accomplished?

Now that I think of it, two thousand years ago it did accomplish something, but not what the guys with matches thought it would (which is usually the case). Shortly after the time of Christ, the Romans, in an effort to suppress the young movement that would not recognize Caesar as god, went around burning Christian writings collected by those early believers. The result was that the first generations of Christians protected the texts they considered as special and sacred.

To put it another way, when the Romans showed up at the door saying, “Hand over your Christian writings, we are going to burn them because you are a bunch of infidels,” the frightened believers would grab something to appease their oppressors but hide the ones that were really special to them. This eventually played a major role in the canonization of Scriptures. (What we know as the New Testament is comprised of writings that they didn’t hand over to be burned.)

To illustrate, if this happened today and they showed up at your door, you might hand over your favorite book written by your favorite Christian author but not your Bible.

All of the ridiculously widespread controversy surrounding the plans to burn the Quran by a little fringe group in Florida, plus the hubbub over building a mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, combined with the fact that the United States has a President that has religiously ambiguous sentiments—one-in-four Americans think he is a Muslim—brings up an interesting angle concerning the separation of Church and State.

This is what I mean: our actions as Americans are different from our actions as Christians.

Clearly, America is not a “Christian” nation, at least not in any official way. Nor, should it be. The Constitution prohibits the formation of a national religion. Nevertheless, the majority of religious Americans, at least for now, still consider themselves to be Christian, so in most cases anything that arouses Christian convictions will affect the feelings and opinions of many if not most Americans. In the same way, things that affect us as Americans will have some impact on the religious sentiment of most of us in America.

As Americans, we defend and protect America and the freedom we enjoy, using the “sword” as necessary. American leadership is to protect and defend that freedom at any cost. Although America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, that really doesn’t come into play in this role as defender of freedom. Americans of all faiths defend and protect Americans of all faiths.

Joe Rosanthal/AP

As Christians, however, our Christian mandate has little to do with defending our country and the American way. Christians are to steadfastly maintain that there is one true God and he has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ who reigns as Lord. Christians and Christian leaders are to protect and defend that central tenant and seek to draw others into like-minded faith through the demonstration of Christ’s love and preaching of the Gospel. This is true whether in America or anywhere in the world.

There is no compromise on either role. Christians may very well demonstrate religious tolerance but in no way can they accommodate other religions within their circle of faith. Partly Christian is not Christian. It is idolatry.

Americans, on the other hand, must protect freedom. Certainly diplomacy is important but there can be no compromise with freedom. Partly free is not free.

And although America must defend herself, Christians, unlike Islam, never seek to advance or proclaim the faith through use of the sword (or the match). They tried that in the Crusades and it didn’t work out so well. Most Christians know that our battle is not against flesh and blood, and our “sword” is the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”[ii]

As I see it, here is a problem we must deal with as American Christians: Although we must keep those two roles separate, Islam has no clear distinction between the roles of their religion and whatever “State” they might have. Therefore, the radicals launch a “religious” attack against the United States (which they consider a nation of infidels), but it is not the Christians who respond, or even religion in general, but America. Therefore, we have a country, charged with protecting freedom, fighting against a religiously motivated group without borders.

Only history and ultimately the return of Christ will determine how this dilemma will play out.

For whatever his reasons, a Christian radical in Florida decides that he wants to burn the Quran. But, in the mind of much of Islam, who is to blame? America? Christians? Yes. That’s the only conceivable conclusion based on the international outrage that the event has inspired. Why else would thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan vigorously protest the planned actions of one old pastor and his congregation of fifty?

For crying out loud, we don’t have “thousands” of Christians crying in protest when a Christian is executed somewhere in the world (Somalia for example) and his Bible burned by Muslims or Communists or anyone else. It’s been going on for centuries. Most Christians and Americans aren’t even aware of it when it happens—much less scream in protest—although admittedly that might change in this present age.

In the end, America must defend America and her freedom. If attacked, whether by Communists, Fascists, or Muslim radicals, America responds and Americans of all faiths join the fight. There is no other choice. Christians, as Christians, on the other hand, don’t take up the sword to advance or defend the faith but stand firm in the faith and pray. Period.

Burning the Quran, if it accomplishes anything, will only serve to incite the haters of America and Christ and further affirm their idolatrous beliefs. I believe that instead of burning the Quran, it would be better to pile them up, surround the pile with thousands of true believers, claim God’s promises, and pray in the Spirit that the one true God demonstrate his power and will in the world…that his Kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.[iii]

Leave the matches at home.

In the unlikely event that our Lord sees fit to rain down fire upon the pile and consume it (it’s been done before[iv]), I’ll be there with hot dogs and marshmallows. Maranatha.

[i] Zechariah 4:6

[ii] Ephesians 6:17

[iii] Ephesians 6:18

[iv] 1 Kings 19:38


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A Survivor’s Interlude

30 06 2010

“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.“

Tom Bodett

I haven’t posted in almost three weeks. In the beginning I was posting two to three times each week. It’s a bit of writer’s block, I suppose. I seem to have said most of what I had wanted to say on this subject, plus my life is in a constant state of flux so I’m in the process of thinking through where I want to go from here with this blog.

Photo by Clint Spencer Photography

There are really only so many ways to say that painful experiences have a profound effect on us, and that there are ways we survive and get through them with a new hope. I’m sure I haven’t exhausted them all, but I’ve covered many of the aspects of survival that I had intended for the encouragement of others.

As I’ve stated, we are all survivors, so hopefully readers have been able to identify with some of what they’ve read here.

I started this blog experiment with an explanation of some of the defense mechanisms we survivors use when life hits us with disappointment, disillusionment, and pain. I did this with the hope that fellow survivors would recognize some of these traits in themselves and take some comfort in knowing that many of us go through similar feelings and behaviors.

I also chronicled just a few of my experiences including the end of my ministerial career and first marriage. I’m still working through all of that and probably will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I will always be a survivor. Although I’d like to think that I’m well on my way to thriving rather than merely surviving, I often find myself slipping back into some of those survival instincts. So, I guess you could say I will always be a work in progress, too.

As I’ve mentioned, I believe I’m in pretty good company, biblically speaking. From Abraham to Jeremiah to David and beyond, God used many flawed individuals. They struggled with life around them, getting angry or depressed at times, but in the end, their faith and hope prevailed. That’s where I’ve been and where I am.

One doesn’t have to look far in this world to find struggles and concerns. But also, faith and hope continually rise above it all for those who seek them. “God is in control” is an unchanging fact of our existence, whether it seems that way all of the time or not. And whether we like what we see at times or not.

I am forever changed by some of the events in my life. Surviving and thriving isn’t always about “getting over it.” Sometimes our way of thinking about things is profoundly changed. And that isn’t all bad. It’s part of the personal “growth” that can result from life’s problems.

M.D. Anderson will be scanning my wife for years to come, always looking to see if there are more concerns to deal with. That’s the thing about cancer; it’s always in the shadows. But, we’ve elected to live our lives in victory, always aware, of course, that the monster might step out of the shadows back into the center of our lives.

Nevertheless, victory is always ahead of us. Always.

That’s what true hope is all about.

What do you think?


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Playing Tapes

25 05 2010

“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’”

Charlie Brown

Photo by Oytun Karadayl

We all replay some of the things we have been repeatedly told or taught. Some were told as children that they would never amount to anything, or that they were not as good as a brother or sister, or that they just didn’t try hard enough, and so forth. Overcoming this kind of parental misguidance and abuse is difficult and can have lasting consequences for our behavior as adults.

When I was in the ministry, I devoted a great deal of time to helping people overcome the lies they hear in their head. However, as a former preacher and a perpetual survivor, I can tell you with absolute confidence that many well-meaning people act according to “tapes” of “truth” they’ve heard all their lives in church of all places, which simply aren’t true. And when they “preach” these tapes to others, usually more harm than good comes of it.

Although there are many such “tapes,” one in particular comes to mind, mainly because I recently witnessed a version of it. It goes something like this: “If your faith and relationship (walk, fellowship) with God is what it should be, then you won’t experience ______________(depression, anxiety, sin, grief, et al).

Nothing could be farther from the truth. When people in their misguided piety say such things to someone who is suffering, they are adding guilt into an already painful situation.

I think there are at least two reasons why this tape is heard and replayed so much. First, it’s a preaching problem. Preachers in their commendable effort to reach people, to evangelize with the “Good News,” promise Christ as a solution to sin and the problems of life. “Confess, come to Christ and leave your troubles behind you” they promise. So, the tape that is heard is “once you are a Christian, you won’t struggle with sin and things like depression.”

Another reason this tape is heard by so many is a misunderstanding of biblical joy. We are told repeatedly that as people of faith, we have “joy.” And, indeed, Jesus promised us his “joy.”

We tend to automatically associate “joy” with a euphoric feeling, and since depression or worry seem to be the polar opposites of “joy,” a person who is struggling must not have the “joy” he is supposed to have. That, in turn, means something surely must be wrong with his relationship to the giver of joy.

A related tape is this idea that the Christian witness to the world is to show that we are different because we have something others don’t. One major way we are to demonstrate this is by being happy (joyful) in circumstances that would have others in stress or tears. Therefore, in order to be a dutifully good witness for Christ, we try to smile and “be strong” in the face of cancer, the death of a loved one, and so on.

Photo by MBPHOTO, Inc.

This denies people the reality of their feelings as they experience the issues of life. Instead, they try to act and look like the “joyful” tapes they’ve heard even when they don’t feel it. No wonder there is so much dysfunction in many of our churches.

Having said that, there is definitely a peace that people of faith experience in the midst of hard times. But that peace is a calm assurance way down inside that God is ultimately in control, and it does not necessarily mean that we have to act like we have no struggles.

The truth is that it is possible to rejoice in living in the hope and purpose of God without necessarily feeling exuberant over how life is going at present. Christ had joy in the cross, but I doubt he was giddy about it.

Faith is a wonderful yet mysterious thing. It takes you where you couldn’t go otherwise. It provides a sense of hope and purpose about all things, good and bad, which happen to us. Faith is the bridge from surviving to thriving. But it isn’t some sort of magic transport from pain and sorrow to a life that is impervious to tears. [i]

I’ve cried rivers of tears over the years—sin (my own and others), death, hardship, suffering take their toll. I’ve been depressed or angry at times because of the same things. And, frankly, there have been times when those issues affected my “fellowship” with God.

I am human—a flawed one at that. Thanks to men like Abraham, David, and Jeremiah, (to name just a few) biblically I’m in pretty good company. Not so much so in some churches.

It seems that I’ve thrown away the tape player and the mask that goes with it. I won’t be the most popular guy at some church picnics, but I think that’s okay. I’ll be honest about my pain and I believe God is pleased with that… even if a few of his loyal followers aren’t.

[i] Psalm 42:3; Lamentations 3:19; John 11:35


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Easter

4 04 2010

[NOTE: The following post is a devotional that I wrote for Easter, 2001. What a message for going from surviving 2 thriving! A blessed Easter to all!]

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “Your are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”[i]

On that first Easter, the women went looking for Jesus in the tomb. They were “alarmed” to discover that the tomb was empty and became afraid. The disciples had the same experience.

What’s this, an empty tomb? Peter looked where the body of Jesus was supposed to be and went away wondering to himself what had happened. Shortly after that, he was locked away in a room with the other disciples who were hiding out in fear.

The tomb many believe was where the body of Jesus was placed

Then came a life-changing event—they encountered the risen Lord Jesus and received the promised Holy Spirit. Their doubt and fear was replaced by hope and power. Instead of hiding from the Jews and wondering what had happened to Jesus, they went right up to them and fearlessly announced, “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”[ii]

I think that many people today are like those disciples on that first Easter morning. Something inside of us sees only an empty tomb while we scratch our heads and wonder what happened. Until by faith we get past the empty tomb and encounter the risen Christ, we will not live as though He lives. When Christ lives, really lives, everything changes. Boldness and power replace alarm and fear. Confidence and hope replace doubt and bewilderment. When we know Christ lives, we live every day accordingly. That means he is Lord. He is calling the shots. His purpose is our purpose. If He lives, then His Word is true and obedience is not optional.

The disciples were able to encounter the risen Jesus face-to-face. Thy touched him and ate with him. However, it is those of us who believe without seeing him who are considered “blessed.”[iii]

And so we look out with the blessed eyes of faith to encounter the Lord Jesus—our living hope and our hope for living. When we see Him, when we know that He lives, our hearts leap with joy, and we simply cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.

[i] Mark 16:5-7

[ii] Acts 4:20

[iii] John 20:29


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Surviving With or Without God

1 03 2010

A couple of weeks ago I was somewhat saddened to learn that one of my very first subscribers (who I didn’t know) had unsubscribed. Horrors! Was it something I said? Later that day, however, I got a new subscriber (who I also didn’t know). All was well again in Blog Land.

My analytical mind was trying to figure out why the one person dropped the subscription. Obviously, this blog doesn’t appeal to everyone. It was never intended to. Yet, this particular subscriber waited quite some time before letting go of it. Why? I asked myself.

If I had thousands of readers, I wouldn’t have ever noticed that one left. But that isn’t the case. Every reader is precious to me, if for no other reason than each and every post is a little piece of my soul, so there is at least a smidgeon of intimacy in the post and read transaction.

There is obviously no way I could know the real reason that the reader decided this blog was no longer of interest. It could be something as simple as not having enough time to fool with it. Maybe it stopped meeting a need and it disappeared off the priority reading list. Perhaps I wasn’t talking about a specific topic enough, like divorce for example. Or, the reader could have simply decided she didn’t like it, perish the thought.

I think, however, it might have something to do with the transition I made into writing about the role of God and faith in our surviving. If you go back and read the earlier posts, you’ll see that God doesn’t really make an entrance in the beginning.

There is a reason for that. There are survivors who have faith and survivors who don’t. To assume that one must have faith in order to survive painful experiences is to deny the human resilience given to us by our Creator. Plus, there are some common threads shared by most all survivors, and I want to explore those.

As I reveal in some of my posts, I have gone through times when I didn’t want a devotional. I didn’t want a sermon. I didn’t want a verse of Scripture. Even though I knew that all of those things were important. My hope is that this project will meet   people where they are at any level of surviving, whether they are walking with God, or whether they are angry, depressed, and struggling with faith.

Having said that, one wouldn’t have to read too far to learn that I believe that faith in God, specifically as he is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, is ultimately the key to moving beyond surviving to thriving. We can talk about the psychological impact of painful experiences (and I do so at length), but until we bring God into the mix, it is virtually impossible to find any purpose or hope in them.

So as the writer and director of this surviving 2 thriving experiment, I walk a line between the gut level responses most people have to the pain that life dishes out, and the faith response that looks beyond circumstances to hope and sees a higher purpose in the experiences of life. Thus, I run the risk that people of faith will think I’m not spiritual enough, and others will think I’m too preachy. What’s a man to do?

Truthfully, on the whole, this blog will be much more about faith and hope, than it will be about human determination or psychological explanations (I’m no Dr. Phil). And that’s because the only explanation for my undertaking this project is that it is what God wants me to do. And the reason he wants me to do it, is to give hope to hurting people.

I have been down a rather unusual path, and I believe have a unique perspective on this subject. This blog will not always read like a typical daily devotional. Nor will it frequently seem to read like a pop psychology newsletter. (There are resources available in both of those categories.)

From the beginning to it’s end, whenever that might be, this blog is about facing the hurts and disappointments of life with a raw realness. But doing so with faith that God is with us and for us… no matter how we feel about that on any given day.

So, I win some and lose some (subscribers). No doubt that my writing will not be spiritual enough on some days for some readers and way too “religious” on most days for others. That’s just where I am with this thing. I believe it’s where God wants me. It’s why he told me to do it. I guess I’ll keep writing until I have nothing else to say about it, or until God tells me I’m done.

I hope you will keep reading until he tells you the same.


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God – He loves me, He loves me not, He loves me… Part 2

12 02 2010

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.
Seneca

This I’ve learned through all my survivor events: Anger is the natural by-product. Painful experiences tend to be a collecting pit for anger—anger at someone, something, anything, and everything. And anger turned inward leads to depression so it’s a double punch. (Although I must confess that I am putting labels on emotions that defy such simple classification. Sometimes they are all jumbled up into one great big heavy feeling that can’t be easily described.)

This heaviness was not uncommon among biblical figures. They, too, had dark times of anger, bewilderment, and fear, even doubt. They, too, had to reconcile the promises of God with the reality of life around them. Listen to the heart cries of one of the prophets:

I am the man who has seen affliction…He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light…I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.”[i]

“He loves me not.” Many good people of faith have experienced those very same thoughts and emotions—that emptiness of feeling alone and far from God. That last verse could have been tattooed on my forehead.

But the prophet’s faith remained. He held on to hope even during his darkest time. He goes on:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.[ii]

“He loves me.” How do we explain this? How can an anointed prophet feel so discouraged and abandoned by God one minute and then be acknowledging and praising God’s compassion and faithfulness the next minute?

I believe, in part at least, it’s because of the intimacy level we have with God. Nothing in life really compares with the relationship between God and his creation. The level of intimacy between man and God is of such a nature that when things go wrong in life, we can feel especially abandoned, even though in truth we are never closer.

It is an incredible dichotomy. When I left the ministry, I never felt so alone. Yet, I never felt more confident that God was waiting for me to get it back together. That’s the way it is. It’s a God thing.

Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son is a great story for those whose pain is at least partially self-inflicted. The story is about a man who had two sons. The youngest became resentful of life with his father and brother and asked for his share of the inheritance. The father grants his request, so the son goes off and squanders the money on wild living. Sound familiar?

Broke and nowhere to go, the young son heads home ready to grovel and apologize and become a servant to his father if he could just move back in. But, the father will have none of that. He celebrates the return of the young son with a great party![iii]

The point for survivors is this: no matter where you find yourself, no matter what betrayal, guilt, or shame you might experience, coming home to God is a ready option. Sometimes it’s a long journey, sometimes short. The alternative is surviving, which isn’t much more than trudging along with our backs to the wind and no particular place to go.

[i] Lamentations 3:1, 2, 17-18 (NIV)

[ii] Lamentations 3:22-23

[iii] Luke 15:11-32


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God – He loves me, He loves me not, He loves me… Part 1

10 02 2010

“When we can’t trace God’s hand we can trust his heart.”

Charles Spurgeon

Sometimes it’s just damn hard to believe that God is in control isn’t it? It’s even more difficult to understand that there could be some divine purpose in suffering. Here’s the good news: our comfort from God does not rely on our understanding of God. On the contrary, faith, in some ways, is the antithesis of understanding.

If we could somehow understand the way God works and why we must deal with trauma in this life, then faith would not be required. Faith, in a sense, is a matter of the heart, while understanding is a matter of the mind. Faith is present through all things; it can take us places where understanding can’t follow.

Suffering typically strengthens faith, at least eventually. It isn’t always automatic. Sometimes great pain causes us to question the things we have believed. But great suffering can also cause faith to swell into a powerful personal encounter with God.  Therefore, God might seem far away or he might seem closer than ever. That’s what heart wrenching, life changing events do to us.

Honestly, the months following my departure from the ministry were times of anger for me. I was angry at myself, angry at God, angry at the church, and pretty much angry at everything. True, the event that led to that departure was of my own doing to be sure, but my behavior didn’t happen in a vacuum.

I felt frustrated and betrayed by God, that somehow God had let me down. Let me explain. I had poured much of my adult life into sacrificially serving him, and I felt that I was being “rewarded” with pain that he had the power to prevent. He could have, after all, delivered me by giving me just a little more strength. Just a little. Just get me over the hill one more time. But instead, he watched me fall.

In my anger (and guilt), I went on an extended period of rebellion. I didn’t much feel like making worship a part of my life and the idea of any kind of ministry, present or future, was dismissed outright.

But through it all, I never stopped believing. I even believed that somehow God wasn’t through with me, but for a long time I didn’t much care. That’s one of the incredible things we need to grasp in our pain. God is there. He is always there. He doesn’t get angry or pout. That’s what we do. And when we have worn ourselves out kicking everything around us, he is still there waiting for us.

Survivors who can trust God’s heart will be able to move on much better than those who don’t—those who go it alone. We trust that God cares for us even if the evidence seems contrary. The tendency at times is for us to measure God’s love by what he is allowing into our lives. If things are going great, then he must love us. If the worst happens, then he must not care very much.

That line of thinking is false. On the contrary, God is acutely aware of our pain and through the wonder of faith will actually comfort the hurting.

Frankly, however, I didn’t feel very comforted in those days. The main reason is that I wasn’t looking for comfort. In fact, I didn’t even want it. It’s a bit hard to be comforted by someone you won’t let comfort you. Instead, I wanted to be angry. Years and years of anger that had been bound and secured behind the walls of The Fortress were now finding some tangible expression and in some ways it felt pretty good.

On the other hand, just knowing that God was there and allowing me to be angry about the way things had turned out was of some comfort to me—a somewhat remote comfort, but comfort nonetheless. God was, in fact, at work drawing me back. I just didn’t accept that at the time.

Here is what survivors simply must get their heads around. God and his love are unmovable. No matter where you find yourself, no matter how angry or sad, God is always there. Don’t fall victim to the false thinking that God no longer cares and has moved on. Be still. Watch. Look. Listen. You will see.


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Faith Remains

8 02 2010

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

George Eliot

There have been times during the years since I left the ministry when God seemed very distant and removed. And yet, faith remained. The fire was gone. But the faith was still there. Now, that is very important. During the moments when God seemed most distant, I still knew that he was there, even though I was having very little to do with him.

That’s the nature of Christian suffering. No matter the pain, we persevere. The early Christian martyrs have taught us that. They suffered as the direct result of their faith. I imagine that being crucified or burned at the stake for professing your faith would prompt some discussion with God. Don’t you think they had a few “Why me, God?” moments? I would think so. Yet, their faith prevailed. And their suffering served a purpose we could not begin to fathom.

For us, the emotional insulating nature of The Fortress can play havoc with our feelings about God. But, thankfully, God is not subject to our feelings.

I found that even when I was intentionally “distancing” myself from God out of anger and guilt, something very positive was happening in me, although I didn’t realize it at the time. Now I know that sounds like double talk, but it’s true. Pain and hardship may cause us to question the heart and motives of God, but in the end faith has its reward. If I may quote C. S. Lewis again as he borrows a parable from George MacDonald:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.[i]

The point of it all is this: no matter what we feel like, God is in the middle of our suffering. He is drawing us to him, not to make the bad things disappear, but in the midst of them to find strength, comfort, and something beyond our earthly imaginings.

[i] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1943, 1945, 1952), 174.


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Holding On To The God of Our Pain

5 02 2010

“All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.”

Chopin

Imagine a concert pianist who, for whatever reasons, quit playing for a long time. Oh, he plopped down at a cheap piano in a few bars and pounded out some beer drinking songs occasionally. But he knew the musical sensitivity and touch required for Chopin weren’t there. So he never even attempted to go back.

He lost his confidence in his own ability to play the compositions of the great composers. He never tried. Just some beer songs once in awhile that reminded him a little of how to play but never captured the greatness he once knew. Somehow he thought it might still be there, but he just couldn’t make himself face the music he had loved.

Then one day he walks into a spectacular music hall all alone. He sits down at the grandest of grand pianos and begins to play. Not beer songs, but the music of the masters. He still had it. But only the angels could hear. The music hall was empty.

That is where I am on matters of faith.

I spent fifteen years in the ministry, mostly as a pastor. I was playing the divine song at the grand piano. Then came a crisis that changed my life, and for the next several years I played a few beer songs that no one really listened to including myself. I was in survival mode. Just getting through one day at a time.

It would take a separate book to document my pastoral experiences. But, there came a point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. Unlike the Apostle who wrote in his dying days that he had “fought the good fight” and “kept the faith,” I faltered. Just for an instant I gave up. And that’s all it took. The ignoble result was that I had an affair. Divorce followed, and the house of cards I knew as my ministry came crashing down. It was the end. I stopped playing the grand piano.

The reasons for this colossal poor choice are many and varied. I believe I have a fair understanding of why it happened, and that’s enough for me. But before you shout, “Get the rope!” know that I have paid a dear price for that mistake. And I continue to pay it in ways you couldn’t begin to understand, so I won’t even try to explain.

For the purposes of this writing, you can know that I entered survival mode like never before. For several years after, the walls were higher and deeper than I have ever experienced. When I drove away on that fateful day, not only were the town and church in my review mirror, so was my wife, virtually all of my friends, fifteen years of ministry, seven years of higher education, and virtually everything that made me who I was.

At that point, there was no hope and no future. Life became all about survival.

“Fallen” ministers not only lose their marriage in some cases, but in almost all cases they also lose their career and the years of preparatory education (not too much demand for divinity degrees out there in the marketplace). They are usually forced to seek out employment in other fields. In my case, I went from being a reasonably successful pastor with a master’s degree to a job in a retail store where I made my living for several years.

I approach the subject of the role of God in our suffering and survival not as a theologian or preacher showing others the way, but as a man who has been humbled and is in the never-ending process of finding harmony between the pain of life and the promises of the faith.

That process has to start with trying to understand that God is not distant from our troubles, whether or not they are of our own making. On the contrary, he is right in the middle of them. This presence of God in our trials is true on a cosmic scale and at the personal level.

C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain explains the pain of mankind as an ever-present reminder of man’s need for God. As he put it, “The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it.” He goes on to say:

God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover.[i]

I don’t believe for a moment that God actually sends trauma our way. However, I do believe the old saying that “sometimes we have to be flat on our back to see God.” It’s only through great difficulty that we see that God is not only real, but he is real at a very personal level.

Individually, I need troubles to make my senses acutely aware that he is working in my life. Let me be clear. I hate the pain. I hate how it feels and what it does to me and to others. I despise that life isn’t fair. I am frustrated that people who love God, including myself, must face the blows of life. At times, I shake my fist at God. But here is the thing: I know that God is there for me to shake my fist at!

Why would I prefer to believe I’m on my own? That it’s just me against the world? Why would I ever choose to believe that because of all the suffering in the world that there must be no God? Not for an instant would I consider that more acceptable than faith.

For if I take God completely out of the equation then there remains no purpose. No purpose in my trials. No purpose in anything. Just random pain and suffering without meaning.

As I cling to my faith, on the other hand, I can believe in something. I can believe that there is a grander purpose in my suffering, even though I might have no idea what it might be. I don’t want to look back on my life and see that I merely had modest prosperity and happy children. I want to look back and see that I have been in a firefight for a reason. I want somehow for every tear and every pain to be part of some incomprehensible divine plan that my puny brain cannot comprehend in this lifetime.

As I write these words for unknown friends in distant places, I once again approach the grand piano. Beer songs are the music of the survivor, but the nature of healing and thriving is that the old bar songs just aren’t enough.

[i] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co, Inc., 1962), 92, 97.


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Survival Mode: The Fortress – Part 2

23 01 2010

“Experience: That most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

C. S. Lewis

[Note: This post has more personal information than I'm really comfortable with. So will some future posts. Believe it or not, I am an extremely private person and this entire project is awkward for me. I don't intend for this site to read like a daily journal or my memoirs. However, the idea for this blog was born out of my grappling with things that I have experienced, so I think it's important that you get at least a few glimpses into my life.]

My experience with The Fortress began when I was very young. But my understanding of life was in its embryonic stages, and I hadn’t yet perfected the fine art of building walls. However, as a young adult, I entered Survival 101.

Unlike most of my friends, I started working when I was in high school. It wasn’t long before I entered the swinging, swirling world of radio as a teenage disk jockey. I was counting on a great future. My life was still ahead of me, and I had some big plans for it.

I eventually got married and dropped out of college, primarily because I hated it and was doing poorly. But I convinced myself that the reason was that I needed to concentrate on my radio career. (Many years later I returned to school and graduated with honors. One of the best things I ever did. Then I went on to obtain a Master’s degree.)

After a few years as a radio legend in my own mind, my best friend and I quit the radio business and started building a reasonably successful business. We had our ups and downs, but for the most part, we were doing pretty well.

One day, he walks into my office, plops down on a chair, and proceeds to tell me that he no longer needed me and wanted to go it alone. Now this might not seem like a really big deal, and I suppose compared to experiences later in my life, it isn’t. But, at the time it was devastating.

The protective emotional walls that I had started to put up a few years earlier due to some significant survival events  now started to take on the characteristics of The Fortress. It wasn’t long before I didn’t care about him, the business, my friends, or anything else. My family, of course, was affected. The walls I built were high and deep, and they stayed up for very long time.

Some walls never come all the way down


When those walls go up, some of them never come down all the way, or at least they haven’t in my case. When life deals you enough blows, you learn to live with the walls. Unfortunately, other people in your life have to live with them, too.

And here is another unpleasant side effect of wall building, at least for me. I have developed the very undesirable trait of blocking out memories that disturb me. I mean really blocking them, and not just avoiding them. Sadly, there are so many of those that I have only sketchy memories of some periods of my life. It’s a bit scary, actually.

That’s why many of the details of the partnership failure elude me to this day. I remember, however, going on the typical job hunt. I probably should have formulated some plan to open my own business, but since I was now in survival mode, I went on an “anything will do, get me out of here” search for a new job. You gotta love that Fortress!

Eventually, I landed a job with a vendor of our company. So, I packed up my family and moved to another state, my first venture beyond the Texas border, and a move I would later regret.

Moving was something I did quite often. I hate to admit that I typically choose “flight” over “fight.” So when the going got tough, I moved! There, a long way from home, I encountered wave after wave of disasters. Good thing I now knew about The Fortress.

It’s no surprise that the new job turned out to be a huge mistake. It was nothing like the “picture in the brochure” so-to-speak, and was a monumental struggle for a naïve twenty-something. To give you just a little insight into just how bad it was there, that company was raided by the Feds and shut down about a year after I left. The CEO was put in jail.

I was really learning to survive. But there’s more! In the midst of the horrible job situation I was in, I started getting calls from creditors of the business now run by my friend that “didn’t need me anymore.” Turns out, my partner who wanted to go it alone ended up going down alone, and all the people he owed money to started coming after me. After futile efforts to settle, I learned about bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy is something you have to functionally survive for a minimum of 10 years. In some ways, you survive it for the rest of your life.

So, instead of a rewarding future as a radio star, or a business executive, I became a wall builder. I had the trowel in one hand, bricks in the other, and an ocean of mortar. I would need it, too.

A Survivor’s Guide Points…

• Be aware of The Fortress. As long as you know you are in survival mode and realize what is going on, you are well ahead of the game. So I say, go for it! Build those walls! In the midst of great pain, don’t even try to care. But let me say emphatically, that you can’t stay there. You must, absolutely must, start trying to take down those walls even before you have them completely up.

• Know that your core person is still there, no matter what is going on around you. If you are a person of faith, trust me, your faith is in tact even though it might not seem so at times. In fact, your faith could even grow through it all, a topic I’ll deal with another day. It is very possible, however, that your faith and your core personality could very well be usurped for a season by strong emotions followed by the numbness of The Fortress.

• Don’t allow yourself to get lost within your own walls. Find a way to start caring again—for yourself and for those around you. It sounds like a cliché, but love is key. Don’t let it disappear into the dungeon of your soul.


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