Suffering

Forgiveness That Isn’t?

Standard

Keith had seen Franklin Fastener, his great-great-great-grandfather’s company, through many trials in his tenure since taking over from his dad at the tender age of 30. The company made the best nuts and bolts in America. Which is why it pained Keith to think that he might have to close it down on his watch. Too little business coupled with too much competition from China. So when ConHugeCo asked for a bid on a massive project that would keep Franklin rolling in dough for another decade or more, Keith was ecstatic. He spent three months working hand in hand with ConHugeCo’s people to ensure the bidding went smoothly and the multinational got everything it asked for—both immediately and in spades. So it came as a terrible shock when the winning bid went to Shin Dao Manufacturing. Keith went home an hour later and cried for the first time in as long as he could remember.

Kendra first spotted Zach when he prayed for an elderly couple after the service. She was new to the church then, but it was impossible for her not to notice the tall, handsome, young man. Something clicked inside her when their eyes first met. It took Zach almost a year to ask her out, but when he did, she was convinced that this was finally The One. Zach was loved by many and could not be more respected. He had a job in banking and seemed to do no wrong. After a couple months of “by the book Christian dating,” Kendra thought she might finally hear the three words every gal longs for, but instead, Zach said he didn’t think that the relationship was working for him, and he walked away.

Rebecca had the house, the means, and the love of children to start a daycare in her home. Her husband, Rick, encouraged her to go for it, especially since many in their neighborhood were struggling to find good daycare. Though Rick has a solid job as a security specialist for a large computer company, he and Rebecca were planning to give her daycare income to some friends who were missionaries working in an orphanage in Uganda. But Rebecca’s elation and godly hope soon turned to despair. There would be no daycare in her home because the state would not license her. Why? Because in Rick’s youth he had been convicted of felony computer hacking before he turned his life around, and the state would not issue a daycare license if a convicted felon lived in the home.

Keith, Kendra, and Rebecca. Three burned people.

'Parable of the Wicked Servant' by Domenico FettiThen Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
—Matthew 18:21-35 ESV

We know well this passage about the unjust steward who received forgiveness for his massive debt but would not forgive another for a much smaller one. My pastor preached on it yesterday and talked about forgiving those who sin against you as a bedrock discipline for true disciples.

I wondered about those cases when no sin is involved, though. That comes up often enough to merit some discussion. In fact, I discussed these same cases with three friends after the service.

In the examples above, ConHugeCo simply chose another winner for their bid, while Zach decided that his relationship with Kelly was not going to lead to marriage. Keith and Kelly felt the brunt of those decisions, and ultimately felt terrible and suffered for the decisions, but again, no one sinned, so by the Bible’s standard, there was nothing or no one to forgive. In Rebecca’s situation, Rick had been forgiven years ago. And the state was just abiding by its own laws in an attempt to protect children.

In these three cases, each person feels wronged. But is forgiveness merited? And to whom?

What do you think? Why?

The End of the Cult of Suffering?

Standard

One of the strangest phenomena I’ve witnessed in contemporary Christianity has been the rise of what I call the Cult of Suffering. Young Christians (under 40), usually with allegiances to the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement, glamorize suffering without relief as some sort of spiritual badge of honor, something they want to hold in high regard as a means to be more godly.

I first noticed this “cult” more than a decade years ago. What struck me as most bizarre is that most self-proclaimed members had never truly suffered even once in their lives, yet they wrote online missives proclaiming the joys of suffering.

Here’s the thing: Suffering isn’t wonderful. In fact, suffering because of the human condition sucks. The depths to which such suffering can go are nearly limitless in some cases. No one should wish that on themselves.

Fast forward a few years. Now many of those most entrenched in the Cult of Suffering are experiencing something new.

What? Genuine suffering. Some from becoming pastors and getting involved in the messier side of ministry. Some from having true suffering finally hit closer to home.

There’s something about getting older that changes the tint of rose-colored glasses. Those pro-suffering folks have now added a few years. They’ve buried parents who died after excruciating battles with cancer or some other pain-filled, debilitating disease. They’ve seen young children cut down. They’ve had to counsel people with serious mental illness. They’ve had to plunge into the septic tank of life. Suffering no longer affects someone else. It has come home to roost.

The result? Many of those in the Cult of Suffering have backed off their previous adoration of human suffering.

I think part of the problem is that too many of those folks conflated suffering for Christ with general human suffering due to sin.

I don’t see those sufferings as the same.

Jesus routinely praised people who came to Him because they were not content to suffer. Jesus regularly called those people faithful because they sought Him out as a way out of their suffering.

The hemorrhaging women who spent 12 years looking for a cure.

Bind Bartimaeus, who would not stop shouting for Jesus to heal him even when others told him to shut up.

The Samaritan woman with the possessed daughter who would not take Jesus’ rebuff for an answer.

And on and on.

FAITHFUL because they were NOT content to suffer or see those they loved suffer.

The Bible says this about Jesus:

That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”
—Matthew 8:16-17 ESV

What did Jesus say about His reason for coming?

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
—Luke 4:17-21 ESV

And John writes this about Jesus’ purpose:

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
—1 John 3:8b ESV

The Kingdom of God does not have a place for such suffering. Jesus came to deal with it.

So why does Jesus say his followers will suffer? Because they seek to be like Him.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…
—2 Timothy 3:12 ESV

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
—Matthew 5:10-12 ESV

There’s the difference between types of suffering.

Jesus wasn’t of two minds on this issue because He understood the distinction between leprosy, barrenness, and demon possession and being persecuted for faith in Him.

The Cult of Suffering never made that distinction. Now they have come face to face with disease, misery, and death, and it doesn’t seem so wonderful. Sadly, some are even questioning their faith or the goodness of God because of their mistaken notions about suffering. I know, because I keep stumbling across their recent confessions online.

It didn’t have to come to that.

Suffering because of the human condition outright sucks. Jesus came to address it.

Never make peace with the kind of suffering the Enemy brings. Never. The Bible tells us how we should respond:

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
—Luke 18:1-8 ESV

“Give me justice against my adversary” indeed.

I find it interesting that Jesus concludes that story by asking if He will find faith when He returns. What kind of faith is He referring to? The kind that never gives up and is never content to suffer from the human condition. The kind of faith displayed by the hemorrhaging woman who would not be content with sickness, even after 12 years with no relief. The kind of faith displayed by a Samaritan woman who would not take no for an answer, even when it was from the lips of her Maker. And the kind of faith displayed by a man who did not want to continue to suffer from blindness, so he would not let anyone quiet him when he saw his opportunity to be free from suffering. The kind that relentlessly demands vindication against an enemy who sows suffering—the Enemy.

THAT kind of faithful.

“But Dan, what about Paul’s thorn in the flesh?”

This is the the typical response from people who simply don’t want to deal with a Biblical response to suffering, who somehow want to make peace with misery.

Never give upIf God comes to you and explicitly says that your suffering has a purpose to keep your pride from possibly disqualifying you from His glory, then yes, be content. Otherwise, don’t be. And I can tell you right now that God is not using suffering in most people to keep them from being disqualified from His glory, or else He would have said the same thing to that hemorrhaging woman, that blind man, and that Samaritan woman, and all those other great men and women of the faith who were called faithful because they weren’t content to suffer.

In other words, never stop seeking God for relief from suffering unless you get a clear revelation from Him that explicitly states otherwise.

Never give up seeking God for relief from suffering. Never!

And to those former members of the Cult of Suffering who are questioning everything now that genuine suffering is theirs, I say the same.

Wimps & Whackos

Standard

Winter is scaryThe old farmers and their Almanac got it right this year: Looks to be a cold, nasty winter.

They called off school for my son—again. It’s just December, folks. Anytime school is off during December and it’s NOT the Christmas break, something is wrong. I know the state of Ohio mandates that schools close when 10 percent of the roads in a district are considered “impassable.” I know we live in a rural area where everyone seems to have a snowplow on his truck, yet the county is always behind in thoroughfare cleanup.

I know.

But when did a little frozen water become some kind of Kryptonite with a healthy dose of flesh-eating bacteria added for extra toxicity and gruesomeness? I mean, do people really melt into a gelatinous ooze should they venture outside and some tiny, six-pointed daggers of cold death rip them to shreds, slicing them down to the very cellular level?

It sure seems that way.

This weekend, I was out doing the most deadly job any 51-year-old male of suspect physical conditioning can do: shoveling snow. Peers, you know what I mean. Anyway, I somehow avoided a cardiopulmonary event, though there is a stitch in my side now and a troubling cough. I guess I better run for the bottle of NSAIDs and the Mucinex.

OK, so I’m tougher than some couch pilots, but I don’t feel like it. I feel like something vital has gone out of the American psyche when a gentle snowfall causes despair, and everyone is downing rainbow-colored handfuls of Advil, Aleve, and that stuff left over from that last kidney stone (you know, the GOOD stuff) just to make it through another day.

Meanwhile, our political helicopter parents on Capitol Hill are mandating ways to grant workman’s comp to the gal who got a paper cut while sorting files, or to the guy who accidentally ran a staple into his pinkie because the office bombshell walked by in THAT OUTFIT and he was too “distracted” to concentrate on connecting two sheets of paper together safely.

We pout when the grocery store is out of our favorite K-cup.

We whine when the Internet goes down.

We buy $1,000 North Face Everest Expedition parkas so we can endure a trip to the mall.

And yet we’ve never had more superheros in the cineplex or grittier protagonists in our TV programming, people who seem less and less like us even as we spend more and more time and money watching them fight The System, The Unseen Evil, The Alien Threat, The Future Scourge of Humanity, or whatever The Opposition of the Moment might be.

Here’s the spiritual takeaway: a coddled Church is useless. When it comes down to comfort or Christianity, we’re choosing the former while we talk up the latter.

Worse, the peer pressure is so strong that we can’t even support those who eschew comfort and choose to step out and be the Church, even if in being the Church those people take some serious lumps. Such stepper-outers are weirdos to the majority. Sincere, yes. Earnest, sure. But whackos nonetheless. And whacko is a good word when you want to label someone as a deviant outlier. Labeling people is an easy way to dismiss them and to feel better about ourselves.

Let’s give it up it for the whackos, though, because the wimps aren’t accomplishing anything other than complaining online to FOX about the new judges on American Idol. One of these days, Jesus is going to come back, and it won’t be the wimps who hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”