online meanderings

When my dad loved me at my worst - A great little story about unconditional grace.

A story already told - Beautiful.

Grief and the gospel and A gospel guide through grief - Two helpful posts about Jesus and suffering.

We are all compatibilists at the cross and God's sovereignty: 3 mistakes - Two interesting posts about God's sovereignty and suffering / human responsibility.

Dating to display Jesus - A useful resource.

Praying with children - The first in an ongoing series about how to pray with kids of different ages.

10 books that shaped my theology of suffering - A useful resource from Mike Leake.

Empty hands and unstudied words are always welcome before God. Georgianne

Find a person who has weathered storms rather than avoided them and you will find someone who is wise. Georgianne

To see more links and quotes, click here (Facebook) or here (Twitter).

grief: a line with three points

There's so much to like about Abe Mysenburg's posts grief and the gospel and a gospel guide through grief.

So much wisdom about responding to suffering and sin as we follow Jesus, who also suffered and wept and grieved.

Here's a bit that spoke to me:

Fixating merely on the hard circumstances of life—past or present—is driven by pride. Effectively, we are casting our cares on ourselves. Casting them on God requires humility, an acknowledgement that life is not ultimately about us, but is about Him and His glory. 

The trials of life can cause us to tell our stories with our eyes pointed downward into our cupped hands, looking at our circumstances as if they were an unintelligible pile of garbage. It’s a line with two fixed points—us and our pile of stuff.

The challenge is to humbly bring your pile to the Father, to hold your cupped hands out and lift up your head, gazing not on your circumstances but on the One who is sovereign over them and present in the midst of them. The line becomes a triangle with three points—us, our pile of stuff, and our perfect Father.

what I'm reading: the uncomfortable issue of anger at God

Sometimes when we suffer we feel angry at God. When we feel like this we have a few choices:

• we can complain about God to others
• we can give way to bitterness and retreat into despair
• we can stuff our anger way down deep and put a brave face on it.

The problem with all of these is that they drive us (and others!) further from God. Joni gives us another option:.

When pain lumbers through the front door, squats down in the middle of your life, and makes itself at home day after day, year after year, we can choke. We can crack. We erupt in anger ...

The author of Psalm 88 abruptly stops on a note of resentment .... The words are ugly. Then again, so is life. 

God is big enough to take on anger like this. It doesn't fluster him.

First, he knows stuff happens. He himself said, "In this world you will have trouble." Secondly, he doesn't tiptoe around it ... He wrote the book on suffering. And he invited people like the one who wrote Psalm 88 to be his co-authors. In so doing he invited angry people to air their complaints. ...

We're usually scared to death to talk to God this way. Too often we repress our deep emotions about suffering. We choose the polite route, bottling up our unspeakable feelings toward God hiding behind a religious pretence as we "give it all over to the Lord" too quickly. All we've done is shove the problem to the back burner. ...The fire goes out. Our hearts become cold.

Anger keeps pushing the problems to the front burner ... 

Affliction either warms you up toward spiritual things or turns you cold ... Hate is sometimes closer to love than indifference. And lukewarmness is the only road that never goes to God. There's nothing mediocre about feelings of fury ... Much better than ho-hum half-heartedness. ...

Strong emotions open the door to asking the really hard questions.Does life make sense? Is God good? More to the point, our deep emotions reveal the spiritual direction in which we are moving. Are we moving toward the Almighty or are we moving away from him? Anger properly makes Someone the issue of our suffering rather than something. And that's moving in the right direction. ... 

After all, the people you really get angry with are the ones you trust most deeply. "I am mad as a hornet, God, and I don't understand what you are doing one bit" sounds like the dark side of trust, but it's trust, nonetheless.

Joni Eareckson Tada When God Weeps 149-152.

online meanderings

God's will for your wait 1 and 2 - When life seems to be all about waiting, big or small.

Wrestling with doubt 1 and 2 - A woman with a chronic illness writes about doubt.

The big question of grief - "Who am I now?" Wise and gentle thoughts.

5 notes on dating for the guys - Worth reading and passing on.

When your teen doubts their salvation - Helpful advice and resources.

What atheists look like - “I really can’t consider a Christian a good, moral person if he isn’t trying to convert me.”

Reaching Muslims with the gospel of God - An interview about Islam.

When it comes to the ongoing work of grace, he is a dissatisfied Redeemer. He won’t forsake the work of his hands until all has been fully restored. Paul Tripp

Father, I have complained about my body when I ought to thank you for it. I have grumbled at its pains and been dissatisfied with its shape. Bring me to a state of shocked wonder at its intricacies, in awe of its marvels. Into a body not dissimilar to mine, and into flesh constituted like mine, you entered, O God, for my salvation. I praise you for it because of and through Jesus Christ. Amen. Georgianne  

To see more links and quotes, click here (Facebook) or here (Twitter).

Couch to 5K: reflections

It's raining when I go for my jog today, a slow, steady, not-too-heavy rain that soaks my clothes in minutes. It drips off my hair and freezes my hands and runs down my face like tears.

Tufts of grass make my shoes as wet as my hair, the ground bumpy under my feet. Concrete, tanbark, gravel. The slow curve around the oval. A small respite on the perfectly tailored athletics track. Then back to bumpy ground, and the gradual rise at the end of my 20 minutes.

I've decided not to finish Couch to 5K, at least for the moment. I made it to 25 minutes, but my knees and I have come to a compromise: 20 minutes - about 3K - is enough for now. That way there's enough pep left in my knees for walking, and carrying bags, and climbing stairs, and all the other things I have to do.

Here's the plan. A 20 minute jog a couple of times a week, and a broken-up getting-used-to-running jog with my daughter on the weekends. Plus a lovely long meditative walk once a week, and maybe some weights once I get around to it.

Once or twice a week I swim with my son. He swims for his health (migraines and chronic headaches). I swim for joy. To my vast astonishment, I swam a kilometre yesterday, all 40 laps of it, without much puffing. And I used to do 8 laps and collapse!

So would I recommend Couch to 5K? Most definitely. This particular couch potato - or computer potato - is now fitter and healthier and stronger, and has muscle in places where fat used to be. Even better, running lifts my mood, helping me fight anxiety and discouragement as I care for our chronically ill son.

As I reach the end of my run, damp and dripping, Sara Groves sings through my earphones. Many times I've finished jogging, done some stretches, then sat on my rock and stared at my lake with the words of Like a Lake drifting through my thoughts. This song, along with a few others, has supported me through the last hard months.

Today feels like a new beginning, the start of a new pattern, a new way of being. I'm settling into this fitness plan now, making it part of my life, enjoying its benefits. So it's appropriate that this song plays now, at the end of my 20 minute run.

what I'm reading: when you love something more than God

I was sitting in my favourite cafe, reading Tim Keller's King's Cross, when I came across one of those passages that picks you apart at the very core:

When you are in spiritual darkness, although you may feel your life is headed in the right direction, you are actually profoundly disoriented.

If anything but God is more important to you, you have a problem with direction. It's impossible to discern where you're going, let alone where you ought to be going. Money, career, love - for a period of time you may feel you have something to live for. But if you actually get the thing you have been seeking, you suddenly realize that it's not big enough for your soul. It doesn't produce its own light.

Also, if you centre on anything but God, you suffer a loss of identity. Your identity will be fragile and insecure, because it's based on the things you centre your life on. It's based on human approval. It's based on how well you perform. You don't really know who you are. In the darkness you can't see yourself.

Moreover, in spiritual darkness you are isolated. You are wrapped up in the things that you're living for, so you're always scared or angry or proud or driven or full of self-pity. As a result, you become isolated from other people. ...

Let me illustrate this personally .... If my preaching and ministry are my ultimate centre and I get criticism, then I'm overcome with insecurity. Or when I fail to perform up to my expectations, I'm devastated. Inordinate guilt churns inside me. In the end I begin to disintegrate. ...

Spiritual darkness - turning away from God, the true light, and making anything more important than him - leads invariably from disorientation to disintegration ... But that trajectory won't stop at the end of our lives ... Being out of the presence of God, who is all light and all truth, means utter darkness and eternal disintegration ...

Jesus' death happened in the dark ... Jesus, the Maker of the world, was being unmade. Jesus was experiencing our judgement day.

Tim Keller, King's Cross, pp. 200-205, bold print mine.

online meaderings

Caring for a sick wife - Beautiful words, wise thoughts, tears in my eyes.

5 notes on dating for the guys - A helpful post for young men.

Deadly, dull and boring - I learned a lot from this article on teaching the Bible.

One small tip to help you be more productive - Small, but effective.

How can single mothers raise godly young men - 4 helpful suggestions.

Book review: Glimpses of grace - If you're a homemaker, working outside the home or not, this book sounds brilliant.

Thoughts on some difficult passages about women in the Old Testament - Making a note of this one.

The sea of this world interrupts our course, even although we already see where we are headed … Therefore, cling to Christ … He became the one, on which the weak may be borne, and cross the sea of this world and reach their native country; where there will be no need of a ship, for no sea is crossed. – Augustine of Hippo (Tractate 2 on John 6)

When your sermon [or Bible study, or Sunday school lesson] isn't that great, stop allowing your identity to be wrapped up in your performance. So you hit a single. God is still God. You are still you. Philip Nation

To see more links and quotes, click here (Facebook) or here (Twitter).

God, I'll do anything, if...

"I'll do anything, Lord, if you just keep me from drowning. Tell me what to do."

That's the prayer of fear-based religion. For many people, that's their view of God. That's how they pray: "Lord, I'll do anything if...". Good people. People in church. Sincere people. "Lord, I'll do anything if you give me this career. Anything if you give me this relationship."

The trouble is that if you pray "Lord, I'll do anything if", you can't do the one thing God wants you to do, which is to love him without any "ifs".

You see, when you pray "Lord, I'll do anything if...", what's on the other side of that? It's your real God. It's what you really look to for security, for significance, for meaning, for hope, for joy. You're trying to use God as a means to that end.

But God will not a means to some other idol. Relationship with God is not a means, but the end we use our means to work towards. God himself is our end.

John Hudson, from his talk on Jonah 1 (you can find it here)

family catch-up

Steve turned 45 - or is that 46? - today. I think it's 46. Yup, definitely 46. My parents have given us a gift of a couple of nights away. Yay!

I am ... well, I'm not sure, to be honest! A bit worn out. Ready for a couple of days off. It's been a big week, with a few changes made (see Ben below).

Lizzy is cleaning up her school right now: it's community service day. Don't remember doing that when I was a teenager! But I went to a fancy schmancy school, and maybe we didn't have to do that stuff. ;)

Ben has been given a new policy by his paediatrician and his mum, to get him back into normal life: he goes to school every day, even with a really bad headache. He wasn't impressed. But he had a wonderful day at school yesterday. I'm praying for him today, because it looks like being a tough one. [Update: He's home, and it was a good day, so it looks like we're on the right track.]

Thomas didn't bring any show-and-tell to school this morning. He's "talking to the class" instead, telling them about his exciting weekend: Grandma! And Dad's birthday celebration coming up!

Andy is saving his reflections on Dad's birthday for journal writing next Monday. He told me he will write, "We didn't celebrate it last Friday because we were too busy (for which read: Mum and Dad selfishly went out on their own). But we will celebrate it today."

Gluten free sponge cake and all.

God’s gifts in suffering (4) Suffering deepens our knowledge of God

For I know that the Lord is great,
and that our Lord is above all gods.
Whatever the Lord pleases, he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps. (Psalm 135:5,6)

I write this post with a heavy heart, because we are neck-deep in this particular season of suffering. It’s not showing any signs of letting up, at least for now. It’s only bearable because God no longer seems like a stranger.

Of all the effects of suffering, this is one of the most disquieting: the God I meet in suffering is different from the God I thought I knew. It’s as if you turn to a friend and catch an expression on their face that you never expected to see there. Your wife of twenty years does something so completely out of character that you wonder if you really know her. Your father turns out to be fundamentally different to the man you loved and respected all these years.

The fault, of course, doesn’t lie with God. It never did. It’s that we live with unconscious assumptions about God and his dealings towards us, beliefs that would probably horrify us if we pulled them into the light (“I am exempt.” “God will do what I ask.” “That would never happen to me.”). So we leave our assumptions hidden and unquestioned, where they lend us a kind of empty comfort. The worst will never come, because… (here we fill in our own A, B and C).

This can happen even if we are well-prepared, our theology of suffering carefully laid down. In my early 20s, I read How Long O Lord, because we were told that those who read this book would be ready for suffering when it came. There was great truth in that. I still repeat this lesson to those younger than me. I don’t know how I would have weathered this storm without a strong doctrine of God’s sovereignty and goodness in suffering. But it doesn’t matter how prepared you are, suffering always comes as a surprise.

The storm front approaches, but you don’t see it coming. The world crumbles, the earth shakes, and you cry out in shock. Cracks appear in your theology. Suffering forces its way in and wedges them apart. They grow bigger and bigger, until your view of God threatens to collapse like a house on the sand. Suffering shows you the weak points. It enlarges them and says, “There!”.

I’m sure the weak points are different for everyone, but in my case, as I watch my son trudge through days of pain, it doesn’t take long to realise there’s something odd about my view of God’s providence. I can’t understand why medicine helps but God, it seems, doesn’t. Is it that he can’t? Or that he won’t? I know it’s not the first, but I can’t quite get my head around the second.

My son’s doctors, on the other hand, seem eager to help. They can’t do much, but what they can do, they do. It’s the same with the people around me. So why does God seem so unwilling? Why is he depending on medicine, when he could heal with a single thought? At some level, a level I barely dare to acknowledge, I ask, “Doesn’t he want to? Is he powerless? Does he care?”

So I turn to the same place I turned to all those years ago. I open How Long O Lord and struggle through those last, difficult chapters on God’s providence. I begin to read Joni Tada Eareckson and Stephen Estes’ When God Weeps, and Paul Grimmond’s Suffering Well. I search the Scriptures, and painstakingly rebuild my theology, brick by brick, starting with these words by Don Carson:

A miracle is not an instance of God doing something for a change; it is an instance of God doing something out of the ordinary. That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so ought to keep science humble.1

An odd paragraph to bring so much comfort; but comfort me it does. I begin to see that the God who made and sustains the universe works through medicine as well as what we call “miracles”: they are both gifts direct from his hands. Health slowly and painstakingly regained, or never regained at all, is as much an indication of his love as instant healing. What he wants to do in us may take time and hardship. His plans for us are bigger and better than the ones we make for ourselves.

The God I am getting to know is no cheap-and-easy vending machine: put in a dollar, get out a chocolate bar. He’s our Father, wise beyond knowing. His mercy is severe and his love relentless. He may never give us what we ask for, and we may never know why; but this God, who gave his only Son to die for us, who knows suffering from the inside out, can be trusted to be just and loving and good. As my knowledge of him deepens, he no longer seems like a stranger. I run into his arms and find comfort and strength and a secure refuge (Ps 46:1).

The God I meet in suffering isn’t the God I thought I knew. He’s better.


1. Don Carson, How Long O Lord, page 217.