Humility

On Contentment

Standard

Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
—1 Timothy 6:6-8

At a time of the year when we celebrate Christ coming in the flesh to dwell among us and rescue us from sin and death, why is it that so many people are sad?

Some people recall loved ones that didn’t live to see another Christmas. For them, I can understand how Christmas can feel gray. I went through that feeling in 2001. Didn’t feel all that great, but I moved on.

Some people will be alone again this Christmas. Can’t say that I ever experienced that reality, but not having anyone to share Christmas can be a tough time. I understand that one, too.

When you push aside those two very human and understandable reasons to be sad at Christmastime, not too many other good reasons exist.

I read v. 8 out of that 1st Timothy passage above and it knocks me out. Food and clothes. That’s it. Well, perhaps not all of it. Paul writes in many other places about the cheer that fellow believers gave him whenever he had a chance to fellowship with them, so he definitely saw how loneliness and the loss of dear ones chipped away at his resolve.

When you get to the meat of Paul’s words, though, it’s hard to escape the reality that beyond Jesus, all the Christian truly needs is food and clothing.

Wow.

I sit in my office now and type this on a six-year-old PC. My ten-year-old Mac’s gotten too slow to handle most Web sites anymore, what with the million Javascripts, cookies, Flash animations, AJAX, and whatever loads in your average Web site today.

But I’ve got two computers in my house. Two.

Here in my office, I sit in front of a phone and a Brother duplexing fax/scanner/laserprinter while a satellite dish pours out binary to the heavens. I’ve got a bookshelf full of books like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Complete Grimm Fairy Tales, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Winnie the Pooh, The Classic Collection of E.M. Bounds on Prayer, Revival by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and I’m Just Here for the Food by Alton Brown.

I’ve got a couple of brandy snifters I don’t think I’ve ever used sitting in the glasses cabinet. Two desks. Two. Another bookshelf filled with the complete series of The Interpreter’s Bible. Three filing cabinets. Three.

But all I need is Jesus, food, and clothing to be content.

I read a book recently that said that contentment is complete satisfaction with the will of God. Can most of us say we’re content with the will of God for our lives? Don’t we sometimes look around and wonder how that guy over there got all the good stuff and I didn’t? Don’t we entertain fantasies of what we’d do differently in our lives if we had access to a genuine time machine?

I haven’t seen it in years, but the old Charlie Brown Halloween special has a scene where the kids compare the treats they receive at every house they visit, Chuck, learn to love the rock...and poor ol’ Charlie Brown is always forced to admit, “I got a rock.”

I don’t know about you, but I can’t bring myself to say, “I got a rock,” anymore. That’s a lie. No matter what life brings, none of us has the right to say, “I got a rock.” Jesus didn’t die so that you could have a rock—unless that rock’s what rolled away from the empty tomb. (That rock and what it means…well, that I’ll take.)

So for all those people sad at Christmas because the neighbor got a snow blower while you got a cheap shovel from Walgreens, I say two words: “Get real.”

Because I don’t see in my Bible that I need a snow blower to be content. In fact, Paul doesn’t even me mention a roof over his head as part of his contentment.

Think on that for a couple minutes. This post will wait….

So for all those folks out there with long faces at Christmastime, I offer no greater words of wisdom than to say, “Snap out of it!” Who are we to grouse about this thing or that? When Jesus asked Peter whether he and the rest of the twelve wanted to take off like some fairweather followers had, Peter replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” And by “Lord” he wasn’t talking about Lord & Taylor.

Who are we to moan at Christmastime—or any time? Do we have food? Do we have clothes? Most of all, do we have Jesus?

Sounds like contentment to me.

The Fellowship of His Sufferings

Standard

PainMonday morning, I was considering Christ’s agony on the cross. The unrelenting pain intensified by His rejection by a world filled with the souls He created. The weight of sin. The blood-stained ground.

This side of heaven, the world is filled with pain. Some people suffer emotional pain. Others twist in torment from bodily pains.

My father experienced unremitting pain for years after falling down a flight of stairs in his early thirties. This led to several spinal surgeries, some of which did not turn out well, leaving him in constant pain. That experience changed him. The medicines he took to combat the pain were later implicated in a number of psychoses that users experienced. The pain changed my father in many ways and probably resulted in a shortened life.

Years later, I realize that I didn’t understand his pain. In fact, I brushed it off. Kids are like that. All I knew was that my father didn’t want to wrestle anymore. We always had to watch out whenever we did an activity together lest it somehow result in more pain.

People in pain dwell at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Everyone else stands in the light at the entrance, far, far away. The people in pain can see those others, but they don’t feel those others near. Pain separates.

People in pain turn inward. Their pain becomes who they are. I know that folks who suffer from little-understood sources of pain such as Epstein-Barr and fibromyalgia find their pain threatens to overwhelm their personae. People start identifying sufferers by their pain, not by their God-given identity. In time, people in pain can lose themselves amidst their suffering.

People in pain identify with each other. “You, too?” they ask. Then the heads start nodding. “Yeah.” Someone else sits at the end of that dark tunnel and for a time, the loneliness, separation, and even the pain lessens.

From this one truth shines forth hope for people in pain: they know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. For the Christian, to suffer pain is to lose oneself in the agony of the cross, to identify with the Savior, and to be more like Him.

Wisdom comes in pain for the believer who seeks it. It may seem a perverse wisdom, but few of us understand the ways of God enough to know how He molds us in the midst of pain.

For me, pain teaches about the human condition. It reminds me that we are all dust, that we dwell in a fallen world, and that people in pain need relationship desperately.

Some cultures handle pain better than ours does. We have much to learn from them.

A few things I’ve learned from pain:

1. Prayer makes a difference in pain, whether physical pain or mental. Our God is a healer and tapping into His healing comes through prayer. I don’t believe that God will it that pains goes on throughout a lifetime. He can heal. Sometimes He heals through our pain.

2. The caring love of others goes far in reducing pain. Because our culture deals poorly with pain, we tend to shove people in pain into an attic and hope they stay there. Their pain reminds us of our own frailty. And a culture based on youth and vitality has no place for the frail. We Christians need to be counterculture and begin to seek out those in pain because they need the word of Christ more than anyone else.

3. People will not understand pain until they experience it themselves. A woman will never adequately convince a man of the pain of childbirth. A person who’s never suffered through a kidney stone cannot transmit the depths of that pain to someone who has never experienced one. A couple with a quiver full of children will not understand the pain of a couple who loses their only child. But the very act of suffering transforms us into better people if we let God be the God of our pain and let others into it. We will all experience pain in this sin-stained world. Better that we take time to associate with it rather than flee from it every chance we get.

If you are in pain, whether from grief or physical torment, drop me an e-mail at the address in the top of the sidebar, and let me pray for you. Christ dwells with those who share in the fellowship of His sufferings. No reason exists to suffer alone.

In the Bedroom

Standard

Ssshhhh! It's happenin' behind that door!Ah, that special someone!

You receive a letter, read it, and you’re smitten. The words. The passion. It’s love!

Your heart knows no limits when it comes to that special someone. Discovering little details about that unique person. It’s a thrill, a preoccupation. You can’t go even five minutes without thinking about that one who makes your heart leap.

Every day that passes you dedicate to making yourself the right person for your special someone. You get buff, become your best.You throw yourself into doing nice things for the one you love and for any friend associated with that perfect person.

And isn’t that dull ache of longing rapturous? Just to catch sight of that radiant face from far across the other side of your church! It’s delicious, isn’t it?

So the years go by, and the dull ache lingers. At some point, all that longing keeps going unmet. You catch glimpses of that special someone, and you read all the love letters, but frustration sets in. Talking about your frustration…well, most people don’t talk about it at all. Sure, a whole lot of others are in your same shoes. They have that perfect person in mind, too. They’re achey, and maybe even breaky for it. But the whole lot of you keeps a stiff upper lip while each talks about that special someone glimpsed once from across a crowded room. Some enchanted evening. A long time ago.

And the hope chest gets bigger—but emptier at the same time.

I’ve been married now for eleven years. First met my wife a little more than twelve years ago. If you asked me what it would be like to still be engaged after twelve years, never having made it to the bedroom, I’d say it would be a sort of living hell, actually. (Or something like this.)

I know too many Christians who have never made it to the bedroom with the Lord. They may very well love Him with a passionate love, but when you get right down to it, they’re missing out. They may be able to talk for hours about the Lord, but you can almost tell that something’s missing. They’re a lot like that poor fellow in the link. Hyped up, seemingly aware, but ultimately clueless.

And Adam knew Eve his wife….
—Genesis 4:1a

Now it doesn’t take a genius to comprehend the kind of knowing Adam and Eve engaged in.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me….
—Jeremiah 31:34a

Yep, same root Hebrew word for know in both those cases. But then, you already knew that. 😉

All kidding aside, getting to the bedroom is vital:

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
—John 17:3

Eternal life is knowing the Lord. Not knowing about Him, but knowing Him intimately. Yet how few people ever get to that intimate place! They go years and decades and it’s a life filled with frustrated longing that eventually turns to numbness and duty. The truly sad truth is that many Christians drown in that numbness and duty. They put on their game face every Sunday, but go home feeling like Charlie Brown trapped in an endless string of losses, back to the cold ground, naked save for boxers, staring at the sky from the pitcher’s mound after another line drive up the middle tore the clothes off again, all the time wondering, Why do I do this?

But who wants to admit to that kind of perpetual defeat? So the fake smile comes out until five minutes into the drive home. Then it’s packed away until the next Christian encounter.

So how do we end the frustration and make it to the bedroom?

We’ve got to want it. More specifically, we’ve got to want Him. No lukewarmness. No pretenses. We need a burning desire, and…

We need to drop the fear. I think the world is probably filled with nervous brides and grooms who while trying to find an outlet for their ardor on their wedding night are practically eaten alive by butterflies. Sure, it may be a bit nerve-racking that first time in the bedroom, but if we let fear consume us, we’ll never know consummation. Nor can fear be mitigated by controlling the circumstance of getting to the bedroom. Instead…

We need to allow the Lord to lead. He knows His way around the bedroom. He made the bedroom! In fact, He created what goes on in the bedroom. We simply can’t be like the bride who locks herself in the closet and then proceeds to tell her groom exactly how this thing is going to proceed. No, if we’re going to make it to the bedroom, we need to abandon the idea that we’re in charge. We need to relax our hold on our sobriety because the bedroom overflows with wine, the drink of gladness and joy, not duty and rules. We’re not to dictate to God what we will and will not accept. Nor do we need to be in control because…

No shame exists in the bedroom. One of the blessings of being married for several years years comes from the total freedom experienced in the bedroom. Freedom exists where shame vanishes. Each of us can be carefree in the presence of a spouse who has no agenda, who willingly and continuously says, “Yes, love.” In the same way, in Christ there is no shame for the one who trusts Him unconditionally. And this is a necessary understanding for us because…

Only in the bedroom is life created. The circle completes. We must want Him if we desire life. Rivers of living water flow out of even the dryest eunuch who finally enters the bedroom. Life is there—and life is birthed through the ones who dwell there. We must desire that life flow through us as if our very next breath depends upon it. Because it does.

I don’t know many people who make it to the Lord’s bedroom, but they’re unmistakable when I encounter them. The smell of the Lover’s cologne lingers on them. Their faces shine with the warm anointing oil of the Spirit. And their words drip with life and healing.

That person God uses for His glory.

You?

Time for us all to forsake the question, “So what’s it like?” and take the Lover’s hand.

You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all choice spices—a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its spices flow. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.
—Song of Solomon 4:7-16