I have a unique position as a pastor. I am invited into people’s lives in all kinds of situations and circumstances. In the past couple of weeks alone I have talked with people loosing jobs; struggling with pornography, anger, lying; marriages under high stress; confused kids; folks overwhelmed with needs about the environment, hungry children, gangs, and the scourge of child prostitution in Atlanta; life and death health issues; and people truly “ticked” at God. I usually get some form of question regarding God’s will (either as a longing or a curse). It’s all some form of, “What’s going on?” At the risk of people thinking that I have some form of blanket prescription about such a huge and diverse set of issues, I do see common threads in many of these situations. One thread in particular these days.
Jonathan Edwards is one of (if not THE) greatest American theologians. One of his great issues was talking about the role of passion (he called it “religious affections”). He wrote, “Nothing is more apparent than this: our religion takes root within us only as deep as our affections attract it. There are thousands who hear the Word of God, who hear great and exceedingly important truths about themselves and their lives; and yet all they hear has no effect on them, makes no change in the way they live.” (italics added) He goes on to write, “The Holy Scriptures clearly see religion as a result of affections, namely, the affections of fear, hope, desire, joy, sorrow, gratitude, compassion, and zeal.”
Read the list again: fear, hope, desire, joy, sorrow, gratitude, compassion, and zeal
Some are positive, there are some that we really like to have. Others are negative, there are some we avoid at all costs. None of them are passive. All of them are responsive. All of them are ordained and prescribed by God as important aspects of the way of discipleship.
The one thread I see as we talk and pray is that there is no neutrality, no passivity. Even the hard things like struggles with habitual sin are being used by God to get people out of the mundane death of mindless routine and rote religion. One of the enduring images I have of discipleship is Jacob wrestling with the Lord. In the NT we read about wrestling, running, striving, and great exertion as metaphors for discipleship. None of these things conveniently fit into a 20 minute quiet time and 5 minutes of throwing out a wish-list (what some people call prayer). So in grace the Lord does in our lives just what he promises to do – bring glory to himself and transform us into Christlikeness through all manner of circumstances and situations by arousing our passion (affections) through hard time, trial, blessing, and joy. The one common denominator I see in so many of our lives is that the Lord is bringing us fully into the vision he has given by not leaving us unaffected or unchanged by the great things he is showing us and letting us be a part of.
I wish it was always through good, happy, satisfying, and affirming means and methods; but it isn’t. It is also about failure, suffering, confusion, doubt, loss, and sorrow. But in all things there is an overwhelming sense of dependence and striving to be close to him, to need him, to talk with him, to wait on him IF WE DON’T ABANDON GRACE. If we don’t abandon the ground of our right relationship in our trials, then we can see them as instruments in the Lord’s hand of our transformtion into the image and likeness of Jesus. We are maturing. We are living.
If we abandon grace then the trials are a curse, a failure. In grace, Christ is the curse (Gal 3:13) and so we are not condemned in our failures and pain. The trial (in the case of sin) reveals the limits of our love and our need to mature and get help in our devotion (good things). In the case of painful trials not related to sin (waiting for a job, leaving one because what the company does is contrary to God’s way, etc.) grace directs us to prayer and patience as we wait for our Deliverer to act. But we are not fooled about God’s love or devotion because things are hard. In fact, sometimes these happen because the Lord wants to take us to a deeper joy of interdependence with others in the community who can help us out of their abundance in the face of our need. This is particularly difficult joy to attain in a culture of rugged individualism and prideful self-reliance.
For some of the trials we are in I have no answer. We can only pray, watch, and wait. But with faith, hope, and love. Until the defeat of sin and death is finalized (it’s already begun) with Christ’s return to reign, we suffer in a corrupted creation. There is no getting around it. But we are not defined by the world around us. We are defined by our union with Christ, in grace through faith alone.
Peace
