Just One Step Despite The Struggle

"Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it."

Proverbs 13:11
 

This is such an odd verse to start out with considering what I am about to talk about; never the less, this is where I must begin. I was reading my devotion this morning on the subject of hope which took me to Proverbs 13 where verse 11 happen to catch my eye. The breakdown of this verse is very simple, that which is easily obtained is most often easily let go of, while that which we are forced to work hard for we tend to treat more responsibly. As a child I wanted everything I saw and would get mad when I could not have it. Money meant nothing to a five year old boy with no job. Turning sixteen however and wanting a car required me to go and find a job. After working my tail off for minimum wage and gaining a deeper comprehension of a hard day’s work, what I bought required a much bigger thought process than, "I want that!"
 

Now I am standing in a different situation, but the principle behind this proverb seems to be able to be applied here also. If you do not know me, I have spent the last 3 years fighting cancer. I am currently in remission, but I have to deal with the aftermath of having had a bone marrow transplant. This has caused a lot of my plans and dreams to change or shatter all together as I have spoken of in previous post. It can be very difficult at times to know how great of a God I serve, a God I know is all powerful and with no effort could restore my body. The question of "why am I still going through this?" consistently crosses my mind. Often times it teems with bitterness and resentment! I mean seriously, what the crap God! But then I look at the flip side of having had to walk this journey out little by little, step by step. I see the good that has come from being forced to remain in this circumstance. Sure I want and would love to be able to wake up tomorrow with all this behind me, but I am (though with great struggle) also joyful to be able to wake up tomorrow and take one more step on this path as little by little my victory is slowing drawing near. A victory that being forced so hard to fight for, I cannot imagine I would ever so easily let go of.
 

When you are in the midst of your own struggle, to read this seems stupid and dumb. It makes you want to say, "That’s great for you, but you don't know me and what I'm going through." You are right I do not! But here is what I do know. I know what it is like to walk in to my room and sit on my bed and cry until there is nothing left. I know what it feels like to look at tomorrow with no hope of anything better waiting there for me. I know what it is like to want to quit and give up. I know what it is like to sink so desperately low that everything just feels numb and dead inside. I know what it is like to hurt so deeply physically and emotionally that death looks like relief and salvation. I know what it is like to hear someone say "God has a plan for all this" and just want to scream, yell and hit them in the face. I know the anger and the bitterness that has filled my heart as other people's dreams come to life and prosper around me. We are not all walking through the same things, but many of us are feeling the same consequences of the struggle we are in.
 

I battle these feelings to this day, more than I care to admit, but I press on one step at a time. I do not know how long I will struggle down this road and if it ends in healing or in death. I can worry about whether I will ever make it through all this until I end up making myself sick (and many times I have done just that) but this serves no good purpose! Whether I must walk ten more feet or a thousand more miles, I must first take this next step. That is what is so amazing about having faith in God. Faith does not require me to gather up the strength to finish this journey; faith only requires that I find that little bit of strength to take one step, just one single step. Psalms 37:23 says the steps of a righteous man are ordered by God. Each step you take in overcoming your current circumstance is a step God is ordering, a step God is blessing, a step God is using to get you closer. Isaiah 43:2 shows that God is not always going to teleport us to the other side of the journey; but that if we trust Him, He will protect us as we walk through our struggles. Even though each step we take is hard, nothing changes the simple fact that the second step down this road can never be reached until the first one is taken.

It is a crazy way of thinking, focusing on just one step or one moment at a time when circumstances can be so huge. I am by no means an artsy person, but I can appreciate the talent and skill of being able to take a piece of stone or a few colors and create such beautiful masterpieces that are showcased all over the world. Works of art that are so inspiring and beautiful that people travel thousands of miles and pay money and wait in lines just to be able to look at Michelangelo's David or Di Vinci's Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's Starry Night or Alexandros' Venus de Milo. Despite the intricate and delicate process in creating these masterpieces, they all started the same way: just a single brush stroke or chisel and then another and another. Stroke after stroke, chisel after chisel, beauty began to emerge until finally the artist stepped back and saw that the work was complete. Little by little wealth is built, little by little beauty is created, and little by little life changes and struggles do end!

 

I told you earlier I got so mad at someone when they would tell me, "God has a plan for all this." Well now let me give you that same opportunity to hate me and want to hit me in the face. I have seen the good has been brought out in other people as I have walked this  struggle out. The only reason I can stand here now is because of the people that surrounded me, prayed over me, encouraged me and reminded me I still have purpose and meaning despite everything cancer has taken. How insane that without even trying to do anything other than survive, I was helping to strengthen and grow the very people who are helping encourage and strengthen me. I was in no way trying to do anything for them. I looked at my life in those dark moments as being insignificant and pointless; and yet all the while, God was using what I thought to be a mundane meaningless life to help encourage people to hang on and take one more step through their own struggles.
 

See, it is not that we win the war, it is that we fight the battle! It does not even matter at the end of the day if I have stumbled again as long as I get back up! That is what changes the world, that is what pulls others up out of darkness. Do not fool yourself into believing people do not see or know your struggle, hurting people recognize hurting people. And when they see you hurt and fall, it shows them they are not alone in the struggle! And when they see you get up despite the pain and take one more step, it shows them that it is not impossible! And when they see you get back up again and again and again, it reminds them that what they are fighting to overcome is worth it! And when you look up and reach back out to God, it shows them they have not fallen beyond the reach of grace and redemption. Your struggle not only grows your faith but it gives hope to others to go on! You are not alone! Jesus himself asked God for another way before being arrested and beaten and crucified. The road ahead of him in the garden was going to be long and painful, but Jesus knew that with each step His Father was creating something so beautiful that 2000 years later, it is still changing the world!
 

Remember, just because we aren't all dealing with the same problems, we still share a lot of the same feelings they create. I do not need financial advice from someone who has won the lottery; I need it from someone who has built a life upon principals and experience. It is the same thing with dealing with my heartbreak and sorrow. When someone can see you have went or are going through all the hurt and trails and tribulations they are going through, your testimony carries so much more depth and power. Socrates advised mankind to "Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writing so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for." Life is happening all around us; sometimes it is good and beautiful and sometimes it sucks with every breath we take! But life is also moving forward little by little, step by step in your life and the lives of people all around you. So today begin to change your outlook. Do not become overwhelmed by how far you may think this road is, but seek and trust God to give you that little bit of strength so that you may once again take just one more step. Little by little this battle will end and a lasting victory will be obtained!

Is God Really All We Need?

Yes, I realize that this is some what of a semantic argument. Get over it and read it anyways!

     Often, when going through struggles we hear people tells us, "Just trust in God, He is all you need!" Really? I mean seriously?!? My life is falling apart and this crap is what you tell me! I fear that people actually believe this is good advise. I fear it because far to many times I have witnessed people take this advise only to crash and burn. I hate to pop bubbles, but this is simply not a good motto to live your life by!
     Christianity is based on the reality that man cannot do it on his own; man is unable to live a life void of sin. Sin, that which scars all of humanity, has but one consequence and that is death (Romans 6:23 Ephesians 2:1). So God sent his only son Jesus who stepped out of Heaven and became a man to do what we could not, live a blameless life without sin (John 3:16). Jesus shows his love for us by taking upon himself the sins of the world, by becoming the atoning sacrifice for our sins through death, and by freeing us from the bondage of sin through his resurrection (Romans 5:8 2 Corinthians 5:21 Ephesians 2:4-6). So yes, it goes without saying that as a Christian Jesus is all we need for salvation because salvation only comes through him (John 14:6 Romans 10:9).
     But what about life? What about the day to day struggles of this world? What about the unexpected hardships that knock us down? I am sure it does not come as a shock to anyone that life is hard and full of surprises, both good and bad. Jesus himself acknowledged this and said that we can take comfort during these times because He has overcome the world (John 16:33).  In addition to this, the bible tells us that no matter what happens God will never abandon us and so we should be content in our life (Heb 13:5). Now do not misunderstand me, for there to be any hope for us getting through this life we have to trust God, but trusting God means that we trust all of what He says.
     I do not know whether it is pride, insecurity, a desire not to be a burden, shame or countless other things the result in this motto becoming twisted into meaning that we need God and nothing else. When this happens, this motto becomes the justification for us to start shutting out everyone and everything else and keeping our struggles and hardships to ourselves. We turn to fasting and reading our bibles and praying to God for help, yet often we still seem to find ourselves becoming exhausted and worn out all the while wondering why God is ignoring us. We become discouraged because even though we are doing what we think we are suppose to, we still find ourselves sinking! There is merit and power in fasting and scripture and praying to God, but guys God is not all we need! I can hear you all thinking it, "Heresy! Heresy, I say!" Well calm down and give me a chance to explain.
     God did not just give us himself, He gave us each other! WE are the body of Christ: each of us is a different and unique part, but each of us is still dependent upon the other parts in order to succeed (1 Corinthians 12: 12-27). From beginning to end the bible speaks of our need of other believers. Adam who walked with God had a need for companionship and thus God created Eve. The trend continues on throughout the bible from Moses who had Arron and Hur to Joshua who had Caleb or to David with his "Mighty Men" and Jesus with his inner circle of disciples. God speaks to our need for one another in Proverbs telling us that friends sharpen us through love, support, council and sometimes even harsh rebukes . Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 God tells us that friendships not only bless us, but that together we become stronger. Jesus tells us the second greatest command is to love each and that this love should be the very thing that marks us as believers (John 13:34-35). Galatians 6:2 tells us we are to help bear the burdens of life for one another. To make it through this life, we need each other.
     If our only hope is in God through Jesus, how can God not be all that we need? The answer is because God, being the author and perfecter of our lives, has created us with an inherent need for one another. The bible not only reinforces this need, but it instructs us how to meet it in each other. In all his infinite wisdom, God uses this need to allow us to see and feel a tangible glimpse of His unending love for us. This is why the very idea that it is weak to need or accept help spits in the very nature of God. It was never God's plan for us to be in this world alone, to walk in our faith alone, or to go through the difficulties and hardships of this world alone.

What does it mean to follow Christ?

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

(Mark 8:34-38 ESV)

These words echo in my mind constantly, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Jesus straight up says what we must do, yet I often wonder if I am really living it out. I mean, what does it mean to deny myself? How does one take up their cross? As with all things I guess we just have to pick a place and start digging in to the Word and pray that God will reveal to us the answers we seek.

Let’s separate this verse and take it apart step by step starting with “let him deny himself” Deny means to restrain (oneself) from gratification of desires according to Webster’s.   So to deny myself means I have to put not just the things I desire aside, but also the gratification of seeing those desires fulfilled.  I then suspend the longing of going after AND the joy of getting what I want in order to follow Jesus.  That is by no means an easy task for someone to commit to. There are things in this world I want to do and pursue. I want to see the Northern Lights in the midst of the Alaskan Wilderness, I want to dive the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and walk the back roads of Scotland. I want to go to college and get my Degree in Missions, I want to be a Missionary to Africa, I want to get my Doctorate in Apologetics and retire to pastor a local church near a University I can teach at. But to see every desire and goal fulfiled and have missed following Jesus would make it all mean nothing. There is a sacrifice involved in obedience, and Jesus wants everyone to be clear that follow Him means denying you!

Next comes the phrase “take up his cross.” First,  I think we need to define what the cross is. The cross was first used in Israel during the Hellenistic times. It was here upon the cross that the Greeks hung the Jews that would not conform to the “Greek way of life.”(Myers) Thus the cross becomes a symbol of a person’s refusal to depart from their values and beliefs.  When hung on a cross, one first was flogged and then forced to carry their own cross to the place of execution. When Jesus says you must take up your cross, he is making two things clear. First, that following him will be evident to everyone around you. When I person is walking down a street with a big ole cross on his back, people notice. Second, He is letting you know that there is a price, a burden that is to come when you follow Him. John 3:19-21 tells us that Christ is the light that exposes darkness and evil men hate the light because it shows who they really are. If you then follow after Christ you become a reflection of that light that exposes the sin of man. When faced with truth we are forced to either accept it or reject it. Thus is the price of following Christ often becomes the rejection of the world.

                So to follow Christ I must lay down my desires, my life becomes public, and many will reject me. Where do I sign up? The cost seems high, but that is only because it is. The last verse of our orginal passage is filled with both a harsh reality and a joyous celebration. Jesus puts it as simple and clear as he possible can. He says deny me before man and I will deny you before my father. If Christ is our hope of salvation, then to be denied by Christ would mean to be denied of our salvation. Wow, that is kind of a big deal! The reality of it is you aren’t going to sneak in to Heaven, you aren't going to tip toe around the hard decisions. A choice will always have to be made, but the joy in that statement is the other side. Deny Christ and Christ will deny you, but live for Christ unashamedly and enter in to the “Glory of the His Father and the holy Angels.

He Works All Things to Our Good!

Romans 8:28
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

So here I am, I have been saved through my declaration of faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 10:9); I have been justified by the blood of Christ (Rom 5:9); and therefore I have been chosen by God and called out of darkness(1 Peter 2:9). Because of this, when I read Romans 8:28 I think, "Ok, life is hard and it even kinda sucks right now, but God has good for me somewhere in the midst of all this." When my wife was sick and no one could tell us what was wrong with her, God had good in this for me. When my wife walked out on me, God still has good in this for me. When I got diagnosed with cancer, God...He has good in this for me. When I am left in financial ruin from hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, God...He has to have something good in this for me. When I am left isolated and cut off from the world trapped in a hospital room, God...He does have something good in this for me...right? When my dream of having kids is stripped from me through radiation and chemo...God where is there anything good in this?" It was all so easy at first to believe, but as thing got worse it all made less and less sense this...this "good" that God is supposedly working for me.

I have spent the last few weeks hurting and discouraged, wrestling with the purpose and the meaning of everything that has happened over the past few years. Constantly asking God why? I have become so sick of hearing, "God works all things to the good of those who love him." What does that even mean? What are you saying because my life goes from bad to worse I don't love God? Of course I do, that is why I am here! That is why I keep fighting, because of the hope that there might be good at the end of all this. But it all seems to have gotten so frustrating and so confusing. Nothing seems to make sense any more. I break down and cry most every night just wanting something to change. Just wanting to know that God hasn't forsaken me in all this.

In my life, I have found that most of the time, I am my own biggest obstacle in getting to the truth. See I keep waiting for God to do something good for me; it is like I am looking for some reward for having endured through these past few years. And then like a mack truck it hits me. I have been defining "good" by my terms and not by God's. So how does God define "good"? I began reading the New Testament to see what Jesus constantly describe as being good. I looked through the Gospels and I was amazed at how many times Jesus talks about how "good" trees bear "good" fruit. If good is bearing fruit, then would not part of what God is "working for my good" be that I bear fruit. But how can I bear good fruit with a testimony of such pain and hardship? What do I say, "Hey you should become a christian so the world can take a giant crap on you!"

I mean if we are going to be realistic, my life isn't a good selling point for the christian life. Sure look at Joseph and everything he went through: he was abused by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely charged with rape, and forgotten for years in the prison system but in the end, he became 2nd in command over the entire Egyptian Empire. Or Job, a man God had blessed with a large family and much wealth, he watched as his family, friends and servants die all around him, he lost everthing, he was physically afflicted with sickness but in the end, the Lord blesses the latter half of Job's life even more that before. There hardships lead to a blessed life, while mine has me in the hospital yet again, watching as my life continuing to spiral downwards. In truth, I guess what I have been waiting for is that turning point where things finally go from radically bad to radically good.

And there it is. I said I was often my own obstacle to getting to the the truth. Well the truth is that I have been looking so hard for something good to happen to me, that I missed all the good happening around me. I missed my C24 students using my story to witness and comfort their friends; I missed them growing as they dug in to pray for my recovery and healing. I missed people that I haven't even met finding joy and hope in my story. I missed a 12 year old boy who ask his mother what fasting was and after she told him that it is a practice often done to ask God to meet a specific need, that young man spent then next week fasting lunch for me. You see I got so wrapped up in my self and in "my good" that I forgot it that it was never about me. Joseph got it and after everything he went through, when he met his brothers who had so brutally betrayed him for the first time in years, the brothers thought it was the end, that he would exact his revenge on them. But Joseph upon seeing them says, “Don’t be afraid...You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Gen 50:20)

Without any help from me, my testimony has been producing "good" fruit and now I see that what the world and sin intended to harm me, that God has been working it all to good. In the mist of my affliction and despair, I remember Gods love and compassion for me and therefore I have hope (Lam 3:21-22). God has not ended my life, but has carried me through troubled waters and the good is not fame, fortune or power, but a testimony of His love, a testimony of faith, a testimony of hope, a testimony of endurance. Maybe tomorrow will be better, maybe tomorrow will be worse; either way, I know that tomorrow will bring new opportunities to tell of how I did not die, but I lived and because of that I will proclaim all that the Lord has done and is doing in me. For truly in the darkest of times, God is working all things to my good!

Mad as hell instead of mad at Hell!

Last Friday night I had dinner with a couple from my church. After some amazing fish, we sat down and started talking about some difficult things that have been going on in my life recently. It amazes me how one thinking one thing can immediately take to a completely different realization. God never ceases to astound me in the rabbit trails He uses to reveal Himself to me.

So we are sitting there talking about my pending divorce and the effect it has had on me. While I will bypass most of that talk, there came a point when I was asked what was making me angry towards God. Even as I gave my answer, it shook me; I said, "That I have to face the consequences of someone else's mistake." And with the most deafening whisper God said, "Now do you understand?" Needless to say, I slept rough that night.

You see most of us can understand the grace involved in our salvation. We can appreciate what Christ did upon the cross for us, taking our sin and our shame. It is humbling and heart wrenching that all our sins were cast on Him and because of that Christ was beaten and Christ was crucified. But for the first time I saw it from the other side. I saw it from the side of the one actually carrying the cross and it burned me up inside. I became angry and bitter that God allowed this to happen; that God would allow me to be hurt so badly and not do anything to stop it. That I would have to endure such hurt and sadness as a result of someone else's actions. Why God! Why?

And as I spoke my heart to my friends, all I could hear was Jesus saying, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." You see it was never God's will for the Crucifixion to take place. It was never God's will to watch His Son be beaten and murdered! But if it wasn't God's will, then why did it happen? Because the Crucifixion was the means in which God showed His will, that man would know and see His love for them! See the Crucifixion was not about God and it wasn't about Christ! It was about you and me and every other person individually. It was about hope and possibility for us to have life and have it more abundantly! It was about Love coming in to something unclean and sinful, something evil and hateful, something monstrous and disturbing and saying, "Give that to me and I will carry it for you. Give that to me and I will restore you. Give that to me and I will make you new again. Give that to me and I will give you a hope and a future." So here I am having been trampled on, and I can lay down and cry and say I quit, or I can get it up and say, "Here God, I don't want want this anymore. Here God, would you take these ashes for Your beauty, this heaviness for Your praise?"