Tag: presence of God

Learning to Love Life

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Quite a lot of my posts are about suffering and pain, and for a good reason. Life is full of suffering, it is inescapable, and we all need to be continuously reminded that suffering is one of the primary ways in which God uses to grow you and transform you into something genuinely human – Jesus Christ. However, I can get bogged down in the tragedy of life a bit too much. It’s easy to be overcome by it and to always be suffering in unnecessary ways. Some of the pain and suffering we experience can be brought upon ourselves. To combat the unnecessary suffering we can create, I think we need to learn to love and appreciate the beautiful parts of life God has given us. Paul says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philip 4:8).

Paul experienced a lot of suffering (2 Cor 11:25), yet remarkably it seems to me that he didn’t lose perspective of the bigger picture. Remember, Paul was a first-century Pharisee that loved Jesus. He knew his Bible very well. So he would’ve known that the world was created for humanity to flourish in, rule over, and enjoy (Gen 1-2). Paul was fully aware that God’s good world was given to humanity as a gift to responsibly indulge in as opposed to being taken advantage of for a profit and gain. Paul knows that man and woman were made for each other, to enjoy one another, to love and to multiply rather than to abuse and use. Every bird and beast, every tree and shrub, every stream and beachside, every fig and pear (except apples), every person was made good for us to partake of, enjoy and love. Paul knew that despite our fallen and broken condition (Gen 3) God still wants this. Paul knows that his God has a plan to restore the entire created order to the state in which once again, humanity can be at one with the world and one another (Rom 8:22-24). So for Paul, every time he caught a glimpse of this anticipated hope, every time he saw people loving one another as themselves, every time he saw the God of Israel among His people the Church he would consider it lovey and excellent and worth meditating upon. God wants humans to enjoy the world they’ve been given. Suffering might be unavoidable, but so is the beauty of life, and there is a lot of it. You just need to do a bit of looking.

For me, learning to love life starts in three places:

  1. Understanding, appreciating, and experiencing the majesty of God in Christ: Nothing moves me more, makes me tear up more, causes me to tremble more than the love of God in Christ. Admittedly, there are days and even seasons of my life where the Gospel and God can become quite dull or old hat. It is in those seasons I need to work through the hardness of my own heart, and the darkness blanketing it. However, when I move past my flesh, and I remember the stark truths of the Gospel, that’s where my motivation for flourishing, for loving others and to embrace God’s good gifts comes from.
  2. Seeing the beauty in your family and loving them fiercely as a result: For the men, there is no greater task (if God has given you the gift) to love your wife as Christ does the Church and to father your kids in the ways of the Lord (Eph 5). Nothing screams godly more than a man who takes family seriously to the point of willing to die for it. A beautiful life starts in the family.
  3. Being moved by the beauty and magnificence of friendship – loving others as yourself. Friendship – real friendship – is more than a simple catch up with your mates. Real friendship is laying your body upon the altar of sacrifice for the sake of the other. It is weeping when they weep, it is laughing when they laugh, it is bearing their burdens so that they too may enjoy the beauty God has to offer. Real friendship in Christ facilities human flourishing on a level that the world cannot hope to experience in and of themselves.

Dear friend, you suffer, you hurt, I know these things. I experience them almost on the daily. While we all experience these things, there is hope. Jesus Christ, our Lord, has defeated satan, sin, and death. Already you can taste and see that the Lord is good and that life is to be enjoyed not just suffered through. Don’t lose perspective of the bigger picture. Hold fast to the hope we have in Christ. Be in awe of His greatness. Love your family and friends well and just go to the beach, or the mountains or down to the park and have a good drink and food and give thanks to the Lord. You’ll be better for it.

All Things

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It has taken years to continue to live into the truth that if I believe we are from God and for God, then we are from Goodness and for Goodness. To greet sorrow today does not mean that sorrow will be there tomorrow. Happiness comes too, and grief, and tiredness, disappointment, surprise and energy. Chaos and fulfilment will be named as well as delight and despair. This is the truth of being here, wherever here is today. It may not be permanent but it is here. I will probably leave here, and I will probably return. To deny here is to harrow the heart. Hello to here. ― Pádraig Ó Tuama

One of my favourite verses in the Bible is; “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” – Romans 8:28. What a crazy beautiful verse. Amen, we yell. We post on Facebook and hang it up on our calendars and fridges. What. An. Encouragement. Yet, as I sit back and meditate over the depth of this verse, a sort of anxiety starts to creep over me. Anxiety? Fear? An uncomfortableness? I begin to realise that what God is saying is not a promise to spirit us away from trials, but rather to thrust us into it, guide us through it, and to make us more human as a result of it. That. Is. Scary. Wouldn’t you agree? Think about it. Now everything you do in life has meaning. There’s a point to everything. When you wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, love your family, fight with others, watch television, read books, go to church. It all has meaning. Every trial and tribulation, every breath you take is now being worked out towards a single goal, your good which is terrifying. Because now you can’t just ignore that fight you had with your wife, there’s meaning in the fight. You can’t just go to work, come home and forget about the day because there’s meaning in your work. You can’t just pick up a book, or watch a show and switch off because there’s meaning to what you’re taking in. Because when God says all things, He means all things, even your doubt. As the Teacher says:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Life is now to be embraced rather than simply tolerated. Meditated on rather than dismissed. Lived rather than spectated. We now all walk towards the end goal which the Apostle Paul says here is our good. Like the theological poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama says in the quote above, ” I believe we are from God and for God, then we are from Goodness and for Goodness.” We mustn’t forget, however, that goodness comes in all shapes and sizes, and often in ways, we don’t expect. In fact, in my experience, it is through the most suffering that the most amount of good has come about for me. The complete and perfect human Jesus Christ suffered and died, and in that is something very human that God longs to pass on to us. As I’ve argued elsewhere, suffering is an unavoidable and an integral part of the Christian life.

So, if you want to be like Christ, then learn to suffer. Learn to love. Learn to anger well. Learn to find meaning in all things. In all things, ask yourself the question “what is God doing here for my good, what is He teaching me?”

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” – Annie Dillard

Friendship

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Friendship is hard. Really hard. I’m talking about real friendship, not the kind where you float into a room laugh, smile, shake hands, talk about movies and books, and then leave. That’s just social convention. That’s being friendly. Friendship is something, I think, a lot of us don’t really have. Real friendship, at least the kind I believe we all long for, the kind God wants us to have is exhausting, challenging, and painful. Yet, it’s addicting, beautiful, fun, and sanctifying. True friendship requires a lot of sacrifices. It requires a sacrifice of the ego, of your own desires. Humility is essential to intimacy. Why?

Throughout the 29 years of my life on this earth, I can only count three, maybe four real friendships that I’ve ever had. Two I see every week, one lives half a world away, and the other had fallen apart long before I even realised there was anything wrong. There is a fifth. Each of these relationships has been really different, complex, fun, and exhausting in different ways. The two I see every week requires constant engagement, attention, communication, love, service, sacrifice and humility. The problem though is that I suck at all these things. Despite being bullied my whole life, I continuously put one down (under the guise of Aussie humour) to make me feel better about myself. The other (and my best friend) I almost have nothing in common with outside of Jesus. Often when we meet, I have to feign interest in what he likes because I’m afraid that if I don’t listen to him, he won’t listen to my more important stories and mind-blowing (sarcasm) thoughts on theology and the universe. This is the problem with the ego (at least with mine). It sees my friends as a commodity, something to be used to form an identity, to achieve validation and as things to serve me rather than image-bearing people to love and serve. Real intimacy and friendship are scary because if I don’t lay aside my sinful and broken desires for the sake of those around me, I will end up losing the very people that God uses to make me holy in the first place.

So, there are a few things I need to get my head around and maybe they’ll help you as well.

  1. I’m actually not that smart. My apparently amazing insights into all things spiritual are pretty lame. Even as I write this line, every part of me wants to delete it because I still think I’m pretty wise. I’m not. Stop it.
  2. Despite the prevailing cultural narrative, I’m not special. I’m incredibly average. My blogs aren’t going to change the world. God hasn’t called me to be an Avenger for the Gospel, just to earnestly love my friends and then even my enemies. If I can’t get the former right, what hope do I have for the latter?
  3. My friends are just as broken and messed up as I am, only in different ways. They need love, validation and real friendship as much as I do. They’re broken but still retain something of the image of God. This passage comes to mind when Paul says:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honour. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. – Romans 12:9-13

So here’s my point. Let’s be better friends. See friendships as a God-given gift to heal the broken, to sanctify the sinner and for the flourishing of our souls. Lay aside “self” and honour the image of God that is the human you’re having intimacy with. Let God use them to soften you, to transform you into the likeness of His Son. At the end of the day, just get over yourself and love others as you want to be loved, right?

Should Christians Be Activists?

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Activism is fast becoming a regular part of Western society. No matter where you turn, someone is advocating for the rights of women, people of colour, and refugees. There are climate change activists, those who fight against poverty, and there are those who fight for all-around equality in the hope that political and social reform will make the world a better place. I believe much of this activism is well-meaning. People genuinely have a vision for a good world and desire to be a part of that positive change. However, what are Christians to make of all this? Should we be activist ourselves? Or should we retreat into churches and monasteries and pray that the Kingdom would come?

In a previous post, I argue that politics are unavoidable because:

  1. Christians live in a kingdom ruled by a king (Jesus).
  2. As a result, Christians are inherently monarchists who bow the knee to King Jesus.
  3. Therefore, when we vote for specific policies and work towards political reform, we do so with our King in mind.
  4. Our choices in the political world display God’s character.
  5. That influencing the political world happens first in and through the Church.

So with this in mind, should Christians be activists? Yes, but not in the way you might think.

Activism, at its most basic level, is fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves. It’s protecting that which can’t defend itself. It’s giving a voice to those who can’t speak for themselves. Furthermore, it is equipping the marginalised and oppressed so that they do have a voice, so they can receive rights and work towards change themselves. Christians, however, need to work towards these things within the Church first before they work towards it in the world. Unless we can get things right in the Church, unless we begin to confess our own sins and participation in this stuff, unless we love one another as we love ourselves and find our God-ordained unity in the person and work of Jesus Christ, we cannot hope to be effective in the world around us.

The Church needs to understand and work through a few fundamental theological ideas so that we can work towards this goal:

  1. The doctrine of the imago Dei. Everybody, regardless of colour, gender, or creed, is created in the image of God. While humanity has largely failed at living this out as God intended, in Genesis 1, there is an ontological dimension that endows humanity with something unique that connects them to the Creator. If the image of God is something we do (that is to protect and keep the Garden, i.e. the world), you can see how the embers of the image still remain in those who advocate for social and political change even today. However, this is something the Church is to now take up yet, unfortunately, the Church has mostly been silent on the issue of environmental protection. No matter where you sit on the topic of climate change, one thing is abundantly clear, Christians are to do their part in keeping the world and guarding it.
  2. Unity in Christ. Every person who has placed their faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and who has given their allegiance to Jesus as king has been united to God through Christ by the Spirit. As the Apostle Paul says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:12-13). When the Church is compared to any other religion, organisation, movement or group, it is the Church that should have an eminent sense of racial and gender equality as it united in the person of Jesus, as they gather to worship their God who shows no favouritism (Romans 2:11).
  3. The Gospel. If the Church truly understood, and I mean really understood the life-giving, heart-changing, mind-boggling, awe-inspiring message of the Gospel, it would produce in us such humility and passion to love others that we could have such an impact on the world that the Church would be that city on a hill (Matt 5:14-16) a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), reconciling the world to God (2 Cor 5:11-21). We would be a Church that the world would struggle to criticise for doing wrong.

Finally, with these three ideas in mind, as the Church unites, heals, and preaches the Gospel; this will organically flow out into every other area of life both politically and socially. The Church should be the group that every other person looks to for guidance in these matters. Activism, change and reform happen in our hearts before it happens in our laws and the only thing that can make that change is Jesus Himself. So if you’re a Christian, can you be an activist? Yes. But fight for equality in the Church first. Fight for human rights in the Church first. Fight for environmental protection in the Church first. How? By advocating for the image of God, our unity in Christ, and the Gospel that saves.

Six Months In: The Journey so Far

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It’s been six months since my wife and I separated. Six months of battling depression. Six months of battling anxiety. Six months of battling doubts about God. Six months doubting my future and what it has to bring. Six months of some amazing highs. Six months of a lot of struggle and lows. Almost every day it feels like a challenge to get out of bed, shower and even drink coffee (the thing I love more than anything else). Almost every day there’s something new and overwhelming to face and I’m never really sure if I’m able to face it until all of a sudden I realise it’s midnight and I’ve got to do it all over again the next day. I want to cry. I want to run away. I want to scream. I want to punch something. I feel like the Psalmist who says:

For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.

Psalm 88:3–5

Many days can only be described biblically as despair, the yoke is heavy, and I feel like I’ve gotten more than I can bear.

This isn’t a cry for help or attention. This isn’t me putting on a depressing show so I can get a pat on the back or a hug from you. This. Is. Life. I’ve been a Christian for over ten years now I can tell you right now that I’m learning more in this season than I have perhaps in the entire ten years of ever being Christian. Pain, trials, and tribulations refine the Christian and God is teaching me things I’m barely even beginning to grasp.

There are two types of people in this world. There are those who try to escape the pain and brokenness of life through encouragement, positive thinking and relying on the positive aspects of God’s promises. This is completely understandable. God wants us to believe that He has good things for us and that He wants to give us good gifts. Then there’s those who embrace the trials and pain and see it as a good thing in light of God’s promises to sanctify them and to grow them in wisdom. The former unfortunately seem to overlook the promises and sobering reality of life. Jesus never promised to take us out of this sinful, broken world, only to forgive us and free us from it while still being in it. Jesus never promises to take us away from pain and suffering, rather, He promised to walk with us through it. If anything is true of Christianity, it is this: pain and suffering have now become my friends. They’re a heightened, necessary experience for us in which God uses to transform the Christian into a sage and a saint for the time and place they live in.

Herein lies the rub. Pain and suffering is, quite literally the crux of the Gospel. I wonder, how many times when the Gospel is presented to someone do we offer suffering as a drawcard for conversion? Imagine “hey man! Give your life to Jesus. You’ll have forgiveness of sin, new life in Jesus… Which will probably suck. You’ll lose friends, family, jobs, money, and maybe your life. Pretty sick huh?” Not very appealing. However, this is exactly what Jesus was getting at when He said to take up your cross to follow me (Matt 16: 24-26), that one must hate all else to follow Him (Luke 14:26). Jesus knew what it would take to be His disciple. It is not easy, and one who has never experienced true suffering will never understand the importance of becoming its friend and letting it move you. Suffering takes the one who befriends it to greater heights and greater wisdom. That saint and sage glorifies his God more than he ever would have otherwise. Therefore, it is imperative to walk the same path as Christ our King. Remember, no servant is greater than their master.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
― Kahlil Gibran