On the Other Side

It was a sad day. The thick, dreary clouds felt heavy and my soul languished. The sky longed to weep, but it could not find the tears to shed. My eyes stared into the distance, wondering when—no, wondering if God would make the pain go away. It had been too long; I was convinced of it, but apparently God had other plans. Plans that I did not favor. Plans against which I wanted to retaliate.

I jumped at the sound of my alarm. 3:00 a.m. I had a plane to catch. Rolling out of bed and forcing myself to eat a bowl of Cheerios, I could barely swallow the thought of the dreadful mysteries that would await me as I stepped off of that plane. Grabbing my luggage and glancing one last time at the peace and normalcy I was leaving behind, I let out a deep sigh and walked mechanically out the front door to embrace the overcast day. My journey had begun.

The plane was on schedule. There was no delaying the inevitable. Like cattle we boarded the small craft. One after another. All with individual stories. All with a hidden thorn in the flesh. I wondered if I wore mine on my sleeve.

I took my first row, first class seat near the window. Before we even took off, my eyes were drawn to the view outside like a magnet is drawn to its polar pair. The sky understood me. The blissful chatter and ignorant laughter echoing from the voices filling the seats in the plane mocked my sorrow. But not the sky. The sky mourned with me. We connected that morning, and I listened to it as if it were speaking directly to me.

I hardly noticed the movement as the plane began its course down the runway. Or perhaps I simply did not care. Either way, we began to ascend rapidly and I was thrust forward towards my sorrowful, sympathetic sky. At the peak, we kissed each other, and then I passed through her. Closing my eyes as I drank in the sorrow of this moment, it was not until the plane leveled that my eyelids slowly lifted to take in the scene of darkness once more.

Light. Glorious light as far as my eyes could see. I blinked one, twice, three times to confirm whether it was a mocking mirage or if Morning had dawned. The more my eyes gazed into the blinding brilliance, the more I never wanted to look away from the breathtaking beauty that enveloped me. What had become of the bleak scene of darkness?

I glanced down from my small window view, and noticed that the storm clouds were still there. But their appearance had changed. They were much thinner now. And lighter too. They lost their ominous power as I noticed that they were beneath my feet. Only the Light surrounded me, and my desire was to fix my eyes upon it.

Too soon the captain’s voice would come over the speaker system once more. “Ladies and Gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts as we prepare for our descent.” We would kiss the sky, pass through her, and land on the rain-soaked ground. Exiting the airplane, I would look back up at my sky and notice that she was thick and dark and threatening once more. But this time I knew what was on the other side. And I smiled.

Lessons in the Waiting Room: Tangoing with Suffering

I am in the waiting room—that ominous place of mystery where the severe storms strike violently, and in their viciousness, conceal untold secrets. They threaten to steal my love, kill my joy, destroy my hope. Battered and broken. Torn and tattered. Whipped and weary. The storm cloud continuously morphs to mock my sorrowful soul.

My human nature is averse to suffering. I am weak. I am tired. I am fearful. I was not created to love suffering. Suffering was not a part of God’s perfect plan of creation. It informs me that there is something wrong in this world. There is something so terribly wrong that I experience pain, disease, and death. There is something so horrific that the sinless Lamb of God was nailed to two pieces of wood. Scripture labels the undefined “something” as sin. All of the pain and suffering that God has called me to endure serves as proof that the seemingly insignificant first sin in the Garden of Eden was not so insignificant after all. One sin set into motion every drop from the ocean of suffering that engulfs me. The depths and horror of suffering reveals the depths and horror of sin. I have a righteous hatred of suffering because I have a righteous hatred of sin.

And yet, suffering is inevitable. I cannot will my current suffering to disappear or any future suffering to pass any more than I can will myself to live without oxygen or food or water.

The issue is not whether we will suffer; the issue is whether Jesus Christ will be made to look great through our suffering. Prosperity theology, which teaches that our faith in God will result in physical health, material wealth, and personal success, robs us of seeing the goodness of God because it is an unbalanced view. Yes, all blessings come from God and they are to be celebrated with hearts overflowing with abundant thanksgiving! And all suffering that we endure has no power to touch us unless God allows it; He is sovereign! Moments of intense trial and hardship have the potential to reveal the goodness of God because it is in the school of suffering that God chooses to refine our character. In the midst of the storm, I enjoy a new level of intimacy with God. He reveals Himself as my Comforter, my Sustainer, my Strength, my Defender, my Fortress, my Deliverer, my Joy, my Hope, my Friend, my Redeemer, and my Abba Father. Cradling me in the palm of His hands, He invites me to savor the sweetness of His tender touch and loving embrace. He walks through the fire with me; it is not foreign to Him. I do not enter the flames alone. He is here. And He is not silent.

This is a dichotomy of universal proportions. For within me, I find a righteous hatred of suffering and a holy embracement of suffering. I serve a God who detests sin and has won the victory, and I serve a God who uses suffering—a consequence of sin—to draw me closer to Himself. God has the power to silence my suffering by uttering a single word or entertaining a brief thought. If my suffering still persists, it is not because God lacks the power. It is because He has chosen to bring me through it for His glory. And the very act that feels painful as He willingly prolongs my time in the fire is the very proof of His great love.

My circumstances change, but God remains constant. Therefore, my hope, joy, and peace are rooted in the faithfulness of my Father. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:17-18).

Chemical Pride

Staring at the mirror into the eyes of sin's deceitfulness, the bleak image pierces my flesh and blinds my soul's eyes. Shrinking back from the sordid sight, my soul wallows, then withers in the waves of chemical pride. The reflected image inverts and distorts until Power appears placid and person appears powerful. Chemical pride pulsates through the veins, cutting and carving its vain portrait into the soul's caverns.

O, wretched beast, once beautiful and blessing! What has become of your blessed estate?

Chemical choked cries for deliverance from death; kingdom of self disintegrates and crumbles. Beauty beheld is a balm to brokenness. The reflected image inverts and clarifies until servant submits and Righteousness reigns.

This is the Resurrection Power of the Risen Lord, saving and satisfying the repentant soul!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

He stopped what he was doing, gazed at me out of his intensely blue eyes, and in all seriousness asked, “Does he worship God or Satan?” Apparently my six year old nephew had overheard me speaking about someone who had not yet surrendered his life to Christ. Concerned for the soul of this man, my nephew wanted to know where he stood spiritually. There was a sense of urgency and concern in his little vocal articulation. He must know: Did this man worship Jesus Christ or did he worship Satan?

Completely unaware that his attentive ears had been eavesdropping on my conversation with his mom, I began to backpedal in my mind. How do I explain such intellectual, theological matters to a six year old? Certainly the man about whom we were speaking did not worship God; he had never responded to Christ’s call to repentance or received His grace. But worship Satan? That description seemed so…harsh. Surely this unregenerate man must be somewhere on the journey between the two.

I peered back into my nephew’s piercing, intelligent eyes, and in that moment, I realized that a child with little more than a kindergarten education had a more profound theology than his aunt, twenty years his senior with a Masters degree in ministry. Luke was correct; either we worship, fear, and serve Jesus Christ; or we worship, fear, and serve Satan—the very Enemy of our souls. There is no intermediary state or tertiary option, regardless of culture’s insistence to the contrary.

I wrote in my previous post, “Let us not cling to any patronizing notion that tells us that we can obtain or achieve autonomous freedom. Both the Enemy and the Almighty require of us our lives. But the former takes our life in order to destroy it, and the latter takes our life to give us abundant life. With the former, our death is an end. With the latter, our death is a means to an end. And that end is the fullness of life in Christ!” Satan masquerades under many names and titles. We “complexify” distortions of truth in our society. There is the worship of man (humanism), the worship of material objects and consumer goods (materialism and consumerism), the worship of pleasure (hedonism), the worship of self (egocentrism), the worship of tolerance (tolerationism), the worship of feelings (emotionalism), the worship of the individual (individualism), etc. The list could continue indefinitely because an utterly depraved heart persistently seeks after false objects for worship. It did not take long before the Israelites formed a golden calf upon which to outpour the worship that was arising within their hearts. It does not take long before we locate some feeling or idea or person or object of worship and outpour deep expressions of love and adoration upon it/him/her, even though these expressions were created within us to be outpoured upon Jesus Christ exclusively and exhaustively.

As I reflected even more deeply on my nephew’s question, I also found it fascinating that he did not ask me whether my friend was going to heaven or hell. Rather, Luke wanted to know whether my friend worshipped God or Satan. His question was theologically sound. Salvation is not a matter of whether one wants heaven or hell: paradise or fire and brimstone. When given the choice, which mentally sound and rationally sensible person would not choose eternal paradise over eternal damnation? But as my six-year-old nephew can articulate, salvation is a matter of whether one wants God or Satan; there is no spiritual “purgatory” of choice. To choose anything other than Jesus Christ and His glory is to choose Satan. The natural consequence of either decision is heaven or hell. But heaven is no more of an end than hell is an end. They are both means to an end: one end results in the worship of Jesus Christ in His presence for all eternity; the other end results in separation from the love of God and the intimate experience of His wrath and displeasure.

Would you be content in Heaven if God were not there? The question is hardly original, yet absolutely essential to evaluating true salvation. In Altogether Lovely, Jonathan Edwards asks, “What is it which chiefly makes you desire to go to heaven when you die? Indeed some have no great desire to go to heaven. They do not care to go to hell, but if they could be safe from that they would not much concern themselves about heaven. If it is not so with you, but you find that you have a desire after heaven, then inquire what it is for. Is the main reason that you may be with God, have communion with Him, and be conformed to Him? That you may see God and enjoy Him there? Is this the consideration which keeps your hearts, your desires, and your expectations towards heaven?” (10).

Or take Asaph. Can you honestly echo the cry of Asaph’s heart in Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but You? Besides You I desire nothing on earth.” Seeking after heaven in order to avoid eternal damnation is a search for safety, not for salvation. Salvation is nothing less than the desire for God Himself, which is expressed through obedient submission and humble worship. Edwards writes, “Now the main reason why the godly man has his heart thus to heaven is because God is there; that is the palace of the Most High. It is the place where God is gloriously present, where His love is gloriously manifested, where the godly may be with Him, see Him as He is, and love, serve, praise, and enjoy Him perfectly. If God and Christ were not in heaven, he would not be so earnest in seeking it, nor would he take so much pains in a laborious travel through this wilderness, nor would the consideration that he is going to heaven when he dies be such a comfort to him under toils and afflictions. The martyrs would not undergo cruel sufferings from their persecutors with a cheerful prospect of going to heaven did they not expect to be with Christ and to enjoy God there. They would not with cheerfulness forsake all their earthly possessions, and all their earthly friends, as many thousands of them have done, and wander about in poverty and banishment, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented, in hopes of exchanging their earthly for a heavenly inheritance, were it not that they hope to be with their glorious Redeemer and heavenly Father. The believer’s heart is in heaven because his treasure is there” (3-4).

So who do you worship, God or Satan? Where does the treasure of your heart reside?

Freedom in Christ

Today we celebrate our nation’s freedom. In the midst of listening to patriotic music, enjoying a cookout with my family, and watching fireworks light up the night sky, I am taking a moment to reflect on the freedom that is found in Christ. I have met many sincere, godly individuals who grapple with the concept of Christian freedom. Wrestling with the rules and regulation with which they have been raised, they question what activities, actions, and behaviors are appropriate for the one who worships Jesus Christ. To more fully understand the meaning of freedom in Christ, I turn to Paul’s exhortation recorded in the sixth chapter of Romans.

Dead to Sin

In the first verse of chapter six, Paul asks the same question as many well-meaning Christians. Because we have been given the grace of God, should we exercise our Christian freedom by engaging in sinful behaviors? It is an interesting question. But Paul’s answer is an emphatic, “By no means!” He masterfully uses the imagery of slavery, explaining that the follower of Christ is no longer a slave to sin; it has been mortified in the life of the believer. As long as we have a sin nature, we will have sinful tendencies. For the believer, however, freedom in Christ is the freedom to sever all allegiances to our old nature and to pledge our allegiances to Jesus Christ. We must exercise our freedom by moving away from the downward spiral of sin that results in death and moving onto the upward trajectory towards holiness—a journey called sanctification—that results in eternal life.

Slaves to Righteousness

Paul continues with his chosen slavery motif and labels the follower of Christ as a slave to righteousness. Your freedom in Christ necessitates your slavery to righteousness. Herein lies the great paradox. Your bondage and your freedom are both forms of slavery. Let us not cling to any patronizing notion that tells us that we can obtain or achieve autonomous freedom. Both the Enemy and the Almighty require of us our lives. But the former takes our life in order to destroy it, and the latter takes our life to give us abundant life. With the former, our death is an end. With the latter, our death is a means to an end. And that end is the fullness of life in Christ! Paul summarizes it this way: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:22-23, ESV).

As you rejoice today in your political freedom, rejoice all the more in your spiritual freedom. Friends, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, we have been set free from slavery to sin which results in death! Just as our political freedom required the shedding of blood, so our spiritual freedom required the shedding of Christ’s blood on our behalf. Let us take a moment today to offer up thanksgiving to God for offering to us the greatest Freedom of all time—that which transcends geographical boundaries and transforms the hearts of humankind!

The Source and Object of My Love

I am in love with love. The most exquisite notion of all that is beautiful and wondrous, it culminates in knowing and being known. It drives the affections and titillates the intellect, creating relentless, passionate pursuit. Deep desire burns and bubbles and bursts forth like the water in a cauldron under a hot flame.

There is a Source of my love, for I have neither the creative power nor the purity of heart to will it into being. A heart that is “deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9) cannot produce anything as exquisitely beautiful as love; out of its depravity, it can only twist and distort and defile the purity and essence of Divine Love. The Source of my love, then, is You, O my Lord and Savior. For I did not love first, but You first loved me (I Jn. 4:19).

If You are the Source of my love, then I am one conduit of Your love. It flows into me from the Source, passes through me, and is outwardly expressed from me. Therefore there is also an object of my love—that which receives the exquisite and beautiful affection created within me from You, the Source. And in measure of the love that I have been given, there must be a Primary Object which is the recipient of my deepest love and greatest affection.

My life, O Lord, is a quest to identify the rightful Object of my deepest love. At times, I find its fulfillment in an object called Matter—that which is tangible, but transient. There are fixed objects all around me that vie for my attention and affection. I can manipulate them, acquire more of them, and mold them into my liking for my use. But Matter has an elusive and mysterious power over me and turns me into a Materialist. I find that it does not pour love into me, but requires all of my love from me. And as I am required to pour out without being poured into, this finite creature who cannot create love any more than she can create the universe, is left feeling empty.

Another object calls out to me with the name of Power—that which is intangible, but also transient. The desire for it pulsates through my veins, moving to the rhythm that man is the measure of all things. Its friend, Knowledge, holds its hand, and together they dance through my mind, enticing me to join in the rhythm of their beat. They call me to move one foot forward, then another, faster and faster, until I am spinning and swirling and twirling at a dizzying rate. And when I arise victorious, they call me Humanist. But that which is intangible and transient also beckons me to love it, and it says that I must deny You, Lord, in the process. In taking up my crown and discarding the cross that You call me to bear, I am left with only a distorted, twisted, depraved love of self. And once again, I am empty.

A much more attractive object comes along and its name is Man—that which is tangible and intransient—for while he was not pre-existent, he is an eternal being. This object of love finds its attractiveness in the very truth that it has been created in Your very image. And perhaps that is what makes it the most desirous and dangerous of all. It is not content to ask for my love as a means to an End, but it desires to become my End. I pay tribute to it and it becomes an object of worship. It labels me Idolater and Adulterer, for it robs me of the love and affection that I have already given to Another. And because the love it gives to me is a mockery of the Love that I am intended to receive, I am still left utterly empty.

Upon the darkness of my condition breaks forth the Voice of Truth, the Light of light. It is the Source of Love Himself—He who is intangible and intransient. It is You, my Lord and Savior! You whisper into my soul, “The Source of Love is the Object of love.” While all else that surrounds me desires to be the recipient of my love, only the Source of Love deserves to be the recipient of my love. You, my Source, pour into this conduit so Your love might flow through her back to You. The Object is both the Giver and the Receiver. You label me Chosen and Beloved, for You called me out before the establishment of the foundations of the earth. In You, my identity is secure. And I am left feeling satisfied and fulfilled, for there is a constant flow of pouring into so that I may pour out Your Love to You.

O, to know and to love You more! How my heart longs to be in constant and continual communication with You, and thereby to receive unending joy and assured hope. Might You impart to me a greater passion and root within me a deeper adoration for my Savior. Become the Object of my love just as You are the Source of my love. Envelop me in Your Love so that I may see You; and in seeing You, know You; and in knowing You, love You; and in loving You, savor You; and in savoring You, worship You.

May the things that break Your heart shake me to the core. Grant to me a supreme dissatisfaction with the folly of this life, and make my heart loathe the idolatrous affections that woo my spirit. Become the Great Iconoclast at work within my soul. Destroy any desire within me to rob You of Your glory and replace my foolish pursuit of self with a grounded, firm, and unshakable pursuit of You. May my cries of desperation call to You as the Object of fulfillment. Cause my heart to echo the Psalmist’s, until my “soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord.” Make my “heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Ps. 84:2). When my soul is drowning and gasps for air, fill my lungs with the sweet oxygen of Your presence. Dwell in my heart, Christ Jesus my Lord, rooting and grounding me in Love. Only then will I have the “strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” And only then will I “be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19), the Source and Object of my Love!

Sacrifice of Praise

This post is dedicated to a dear friend, whose praise to God will be uttered through deep pain tonight. May you cling to Jesus, and in His abundant grace and mercy, find the healing for which your soul aches.

Throughout my life, whenever I faced a trial, my mom would quote Hebrews 13:15 to me. It reads, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise....” While she lavished her love and compassion on me, identifying with my pain, she would not allow me to wallow in self-pity for too long. Though I always expected it, I did not always enjoy hearing her gentle rebuke from Scripture. But she was always right, and those words renewed life in my weary soul. Real, genuine praise always requires a sacrifice. Praise is God’s antidote to the pain.

As the years have passed, I have learned detrimental mechanisms to cope with any painful situations that arise. These usually involve society’s distractions. When I need to drown out my own sorrow, I turn to noise. If praise is God’s antidote to pain, then noise is society’s tranquilizer. Give me an injection with the serum of comedy or drama on television, music on an iPod, products in the shopping mall, mindless surfing on the Internet, the newest application on Facebook, worlds of escape in a book, excessive exercise regiments at the gym, superficial conversations over dinner with friends, work that “must get done” before tomorrow…and the list continues. Give me anything. Anything but Jesus.

We turn to noise because it is temporarily effective at drowning out our sorrow. But then the sedative wears off and we the feel the pain once again in full force. Not knowing where to turn, we repeat this vicious cycle, desperately longing for healing and release the second time around. But once again we are left feeling empty and alone, grasping for anything that offers us a glimmer of hope.

In His beautiful, divine, mysterious plan, God has designed everything in this life other than Himself to cause our hearts to ache for something Deeper and Higher and Greater than anything this world has to offer. We can eat of the world, but we cannot savor its flavor for very long. It is distasteful and dissatisfying. The more we eat of it, the more our hunger grows because it was never intended to nourish our spirits or nurture our souls.

There is only One who can satisfy, and His name is Jesus Christ. Right when our souls cry, “Give me anything but Jesus,” we need to run all the more quickly to Him. We must continually offer praise to Him, and it is precisely the sacrifice that makes our praise so pleasing to His ears and penetrating to our inner beings.

Larnelle Harris penned the following song lyrics,

When praise demands a sacrifice

I’ll worship even then

Surrendering the dearest things in life

And if devotion costs me all

He’ll find me faithful to His call

When praise demands a sacrifice

Through God’s enabling power, we must make a conscious decision to be faithful to His call, surrendering all in life that we hold dear, because we clearly perceive that Christ is supremely more beautiful and infinitely more worthy than anything that this life has to offer. We must not be afraid to dwell in the midst of our pain, stare it in the face, and at the top of our lungs scream that God is good at all times regardless of our circumstances! It is only here—in the place of paradox, dwelling in our pain while clinging to the goodness of God—that our hearts will find the rest, contentment, hope, assurance, and peace that Christ has intended for us.