Amidst all the rules, regulations, doctrines, and religions there is only ONE thing that matters. Paul calls our attention to it in his letter to the Galatians. Paul is writing to people who are coming to faith and in chapter 5:6 he writes THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS FAITH EXPRESSED IN LOVE. That’s it. The best definition of love I have encountered is ‘acting intentionally for the well-being of another’ That’s it. Any questions?
MY FAVORITE PRAYER
THIS PRAYER OF THOMAS MERTON IS MY FAVORITE. IT TOUCHES MY HEART AND SPEAKS HONESTLY AND FAITHFULLY ABOUT DOING GOD’S WILL. PLEASE ENJOY AND PRAY.
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
“The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude Copyright © 1956, 1958 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Used by permission of Farrar Straus Giroux.
Thomas Merton OCSO (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and given the name “Father Louis”.
GOD HAS FEELINGS TOO.
The old dead theologians like Calvin said God was impassible, meaning God does not have emotions. ‘Impassibility is the notion that God does not suffer and cannot be acted upon or moved by any other source. This is because, as the Westminster Confession puts it, God is “a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions.”’- from Ligonier Ministries
But many many people disagree; even people in the Reformed Tradition disagree.
We know that the essence of God, which is love, never changes. God’s love lasts forever.
When we look at Jesus we see the fulness of God. “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ..” Colossians 1:19
Jesus shows us the Father. Jesus had feelings of sorrow, joy, and compassion. Jesus cried…at the tomb of Lazarus; over the city of Jerusalem. In Isaiah 53 it says that Jesus would take on our pain and that he was a man of sorrows.
And what Jesus experiences is experienced by the whole Trinity. We can’t separate them. The Bible even tells us that we can make the Holy Spirit sad. ‘And do not make the Holy Spirit sad. The Spirit is God’s proof that you belong to him. God gave you the Spirit to show that God will make you free when the final day comes’.-Ephesians 4:30
Listen, we are children of God. Don’t parents have feelings for their children? Of course, they do. I can remember when my children were hurt in some kind of accident or were ill. I could feel the pain within me. I remember sending one of our sons to his room as a punishment saying, ‘This hurts me more than it hurts you.’ We are created in the image of God and if we can feel, we know that our God can feel. God even feels the pain of our sins.
In the Prodigal Son parable, we see the joyous father hugging his son after the son returns from a wayward life. That’s God hugging us. No scolding, no judgment. Just love. In that same chapter, Jesus tells of the JOY in heaven when a soul is reconciled with God.
There is no sorrow that is not known to our loving heavenly father. God lives in us and with us and feels everything. While God is not overwhelmed by our hurt, nevertheless God experiences it.
As we get closer to Lent let us remember these words: “he (Jesus) began to be deeply distressed and troubled. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch.’” Mark 14:33-34
Whatever you may be going through God is going through it with you. And remember the joyful times. God is sharing those with you too. Blessings.
Jesus said, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6:43-45)
Perhaps I am about to ask a rhetorical question but one worth considering. “How can an immoral person make moral decisions as the leader of this country?”
NOT COMPLICATED OR MYSTERIOUS
That’s right. God is not complicated or mysterious. When suffering occurs we often default to the mystery of God or say that God’s will is complicated. No.
Consider this. Jesus represents the essence of God and God’s purpose. Everything about God is disclosed in Jesus. All the fullness of God is in Jesus. Colossians 2:9.
Or as the MSG puts it, “Everything of God is expressed in Christ.”
If we see Jesus we see the Father. Jesus only does what he sees the Father doing. See John 5:19. God’s will for us is to flourish, to live abundantly and eternally. And all that is wrapped up in the sentence, ‘God is love’. 1John 4:16.
And just what is love that characterizes God and Jesus? Take a look at 1 Cor. 13. “4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. 8 Love never fails”. NIV
That’s not complicated. That God loves us so much that he gave his son as atonement for our sin is mysterious and to be accepted and understood by faith.
HERE’S WHAT’S COMPLICATED AND MYSTERIOUS.
The cosmos, free will, and the warfare of the powers of darkness.
And we know that Jesus fought against Satan. Jesus’ purpose was to defeat the powers of death.
Colossians 1:13-15, ‘ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.’
If you haven’t read the book of Job it makes for a fascinating understanding of the complicated world with which God has to work.
For a clue as to how complicated this cosmos is, I share a lengthy quote from author, pastor, and theologian Greg Boyd. (worth the read)
“Science has demonstrated that the slightest variation in a sufficiently complex process at one point may cause remarkable variations in that process at another point. It’s called chaos theory. The flap of a butterfly wing in one part of the globe can be, under the right conditions, the deciding variable that brings about a hurricane in another part of the globe several months later. (This has been called “the butterfly effect.”) To exhaustively explain why a hurricane (or any weather pattern, for that matter) occurs when and where it does, we’d have to know every detail about the past history of the earth—including every flap of every butterfly wing. Of course, we can’t ever approximate this kind of knowledge, which is why weather forecasting will always involve a significant degree of guesswork.
By analogy, this insight may be applied to free decisions. Because love requires choice, humans and angels have the power to affect others for better or worse. Indeed, every decision we make affects other agents in some measure. Sometimes the short-term effects of our choices are apparent, as in the way the decisions of parents immediately affect their children or the way decisions of leaders immediately affect their subjects. The long-term effects of our decisions are not always obvious, however. They are like ripples created by a rock thrown into a pond. Ripples endure long after the initial splash, and they interact with other ripples (the consequences of other decisions) in ways we could never have anticipated. And in certain circumstances, they may have a “butterfly effect.” They may be the decisive variable that produces significant changes in the pond.
Each person influences history by using his or her morally responsible say-so, creating ripples that affect other agents. And, as the originators and ultimate explanations for their own decisions, individuals bear primary responsibility for the ripples they create. Yet each individual is also influenced by the whole. Decisions others have made affect their lives, and these people were themselves influenced by decisions others made. In this sense, every event is an interference pattern of converging ripples extending back to Adam, and each decision we make influences the overall interference pattern that affects subsequent individuals.
From this, it should be clear that to explain in any exhaustive sense why a particular event took place just the way it did, we would have to know the entire history of the universe. Had any agent, angelic or human, made a different decision, the world would be a slightly different—or perhaps significantly different—place. But we, of course, can never know more than an infinitesimally small fraction of these previous decisions, let alone why these agents chose the way they did. Add to this our massive ignorance of most natural events in history—which also create their own ripples—combined with our ignorance of foundational physical and spiritual laws of the cosmos, and we begin to see why we experience life as mostly ambiguous and highly arbitrary. We are the heirs to an incomprehensibly vast array of human, angelic, and natural ripples throughout history about which we know next to nothing but which nevertheless significantly affect our lives.
When all is said and done, the mystery of why any particular misfortune befalls one person rather than another is not different than the mystery of why any particular event happens the way it does. Every particular thing we think we understand in creation is engulfed in an infinite sea of mystery we can’t understand. The mystery of the particularity of evil is simply one manifestation of the mystery of every particular thing.”
—Adapted from Is God to Blame? pages 97-99
God is love, pure and simple. And, according to the Bible, God enlists our help to bring love and life to all people and this world. When trouble comes, keep looking to Jesus.
GOD APPOINTS LEADERS
After the election of the last president, many evangelical leaders said that God put that man in the place of leadership, citing Romans 12. According to that same logic, the current president was also chosen by God to lead this nation.
Some say that President Biden is too old to be president but if God chose him then age need not be the factor for God can do what he wants, give the ability to whom he wants, and even make a way should something go wrong with a president in office.
This brings me to a question for all of us. How should we pray concerning the leadership of our nation? For whom should people vote to be in agreement with the will of God?
I am not suggesting who I think should be the next leader of our nation. Rather I’m asking how best to conform to the will of God.
While there are many issues to consider I will pray that our leader is one who is concerned for the people that Jesus was concerned with: the poor, the marginalized, the homeless, the unborn, the aged, the hungry, and those in need of justice. Just to name a few.
Let’s see where the urgings of God lead, and what God’s will is for a nation that, if it follows Jesus, will be the light for the world. Maybe it’s a Republican, Democrat, or Independent.
Whoever wins will be God’s choice, according to some of my more evangelical colleagues.
As Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.’
COVID AND ME
Finally, I got the bug, the disease, the germ. It was a couple of days ago and it wasn’t pretty. But I’m better, thankfully.
I don’t think God had anything to do with my getting Covid. It’s about a lot of complicated stuff in the world contributing to the original outbreak, and subsequent deaths, but none of that is God’s doing. God wants what’s best for us, not suffering or evil. God doesn’t do Covid or Cancer. Look at Jesus. Jesus did what the Father was doing… loving, forgiving, and giving health and wholeness.
God does everything God can do through his influence, love, wisdom, and grace to effect change and bring about goodness. Last Sunday I was preaching about Romans 8:28 where Paul writes that God is working all things to the good with those who are called according to his purpose. That means that God is partnering with his creation to bring healing.
Good doctors, good medicines, loving people, and wise scientists all are helping in this endeavor and in every situation of ill health, evil, and sufferings too numerous to name. There might be blame for Covid but none of it rests with God.
Here’s what helped me on my path toward better health. First, my wife. I came home from an errand during which I had masked because I thought I had the flu and wanted to be kind and not infect others. But when I walked in the door of my house that day I started to cry. I felt so poorly. I sat down with Gigi and she prayed for me. She asked God to help me leave my burdens with God so as not to be weighed down and feel so down. She prayed for healing. And I felt the love. God’s love in her was now connecting with my soul and my spirit was lifted. And then I started hearing from my children and even one of my grandchildren called me to wish me well.
Then she went and got me Paxlovid from my good pharmacist. She forbade me to do any chores, and I heartily agreed. And then people from my church wrote saying they hurt with me and were praying for me. That’s love, the greatest power on earth. And it comes from God. And even if I didn’t feel better I am more than grateful for the love and partnering with God, church folks, my wife, and family. And I am thankful for advances in medicines and vaccines influenced by God’s grace in this world.
One more thing. I have learned that when I hurt, God hurts with me. God is in me as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To them belongs the glory. Amen
My Architect Friend
A good friend died recently. He was an architect. He helped my wife and I design a new home at one time in our lives. He was good at what he did, drawing up plans and attending town meetings to get them approved. He considered alternative ideas and was willing to change his blueprints according to our wishes. Bob was kind, sensitive, and hardworking. And he accommodated us at every turn.
Bob reminds me of God. God is like an architect creating for us a life, a blueprint, if you will. And here’s the thing. That blueprint changes from time to time because our architect is relational, kind, loving, and can change to meet our needs.
No, God isn’t our errand boy or girl. But here’s what God wants for our lives- to flourish, to live abundantly, and to live eternally. God is not pleased with the suffering of his people. He doesn’t want his project broken down or destroyed; but sometimes when bad things happen, God goes out of his way to change plans for us. In Romans 8 Paul writes that God is working in our lives to bring the best out of bad situations and circumstances, some of which we ourselves create. God has a big eraser called “forgiveness” that he can use to remedy the mistakes we have made.
C.S. Lewis liked to use the house analogy to illustrate how some of the plans and improvements are not always to our liking because God is making a house in which he can live and through which God can love the rest of the world. That house, our home, will be a light for the dark places of the world.
My friend Bob wanted a nice place for us. He knew what we could afford and how to make our house a home. But we never did build that house. See, God sometimes has other plans for us. And even if what we did wasn’t according to the original blueprint, God has, in his loving way, accommodated and led us within his will to a place where his love dwells richly.
And Bob? Well, The GREAT ARCHITECT has made a new home for Bob. You can read about it in 2 Corinthians 5, here in the Message Version.
1-5 ‘For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.’
WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SUCH TERROR AND SUFFERING AND DEATH?
I’m writing this in response to a question on many minds these days. As my friend reminds me, it is the perennial question of humanity affected by suffering. I am thinking of Israelis and Palestinians whose worlds have been devastated. And children who are dying every day.
Why does God allow this, permit this, ‘will’ this suffering? Many who have suffered ask this question. Some have even given up their faith.
This is what I want to suggest. GOD DID NOT WILL THIS. GOD DOES NOT WILL SUCH SUFFERING. GOD DOESN’T EVEN ALLOW IT.
We see God clearly in Jesus Christ. God as we see in Christ is love, self-sacrificing love. Healing love. There is no hatred in Christ. Christ was against suffering. He healed people. He cast out demons. He worked against evil.
God cannot stop this suffering because of God’s own being and design of this world and the creatures who inhabit it. God did not want Hamas to kill Israelis and terrorize a nation. God doesn’t want bombs to rain down on the Palestinians. God is against such horror, always has been.
God is moving in the hearts and minds of all people through his powerful love and it will be when people open themselves to such a God that God will be able to stop this madness. God cannot singlehandedly affect what is going on.
There are evil powers at work in this world. There is chaos. Read the book of Job. This world is complicated as Job found out.
God wants us to live, to love, to flourish and God is moving to make that happen. But evil and free will are at work to oppose God, who chooses to work by the essence of his being which is love.
Every day I think and pray about this question of suffering. And the closest I come to any comfort at all is to believe this: GOD IS EXPERIENCING THIS PAIN THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.
Christ knows terror, abandonment, torture, and death. Through Christ, God is in his creation, enduring by love everything that causes pain and agony in the humanity of this world. God feels it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote from his prison cell in Germany, “Only a suffering God can help us now.”
God wants it to end. Yes, we know that one day there will be a new heaven and earth. But God wants his will to be done on this earth as it is in God’s Kingdom. Now. God wants us to live. Every life is made in the image of God and matters deeply to God.
According to what I know in Christ and read in God’s word, God is doing all he can to work good out of this mess, this unspeakable horror on all sides. It’s not happening soon enough for us or for God. Keep the faith. Work hard against evil and suffering. Pray. Love one another.
FREEDOM COMES HARD TO ME
To live in a space and time
Without regret,
shame,
guilt,
second guesses
To think without expectations
To be in wonder of each moment
detached,
unchained,
for today
Knowing, trusting
Love
Known, embraced, welcomed, restored, forgiven
and good
All by the choice of the
One
Who is love
There is where
I want to live.
Grace Matters 