I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.

Henry Moore (1898-1986) Sculptor

Gates, lift up your heads! Stand erect, ancient doors, and let in the King of glory. The appointed time has come; the Father has sent His Son into the world to redeem it from sin and death.

May your Christmas and new year be filled with an increased awareness of His presence and love. May the Holy Spirit motivate and empower you to do great things.

Gratitude

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.'' Thornton Wilder

I’ve been working with several kids that have lost a loved one. One in fact regained her father after 15 min. of death. Completely restored, he was. She tells of cleaning up his blood while he was taken to the hospital. She suffers as if he really died because now she knows someday he will. Another lost her cousin/best friend in a car accident – yesterday was the two week anniversary of her death. So much death. It mocks us as we cling to life. Adam had no idea what God was talking about. He learned of trauma and flashbacks and grief as he stumbled onto his dead son. I wonder if he cleaned up the blood. We all die, this is for certain.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

It’s God way of justice. Not, “I told you so” justice. But a heart wrenching desire to protect from the heart of a loving Father who understands everything has consequences. So much suffering. He provided the way for healing. Jesus is the solution. It is not always clean or noble or choreographed but death is not the end. It is not the end for those who have died nor is it for those who continue on but are left with a head of memories and a heart of gratitude.

What are you giving Jesus for His birthday?

The Suffering God

It’s possible that the reason for suffering in the world is to reveal the heart of God. We complain about what we have faced but isn’t it only a small measure of what He experiences every day? Is He not the Father of us all? How His heart must ache with the rejection of His creation. He must weep daily when He sees the injustice and suffering of people across the planet. I doubt he has grown accustomed to it because of familiarity and just excuses it. But we are too self-absorbed to see. Only our own heart-ache in view of another’s suffering has the power to deliver us from this to see the heart of God.

Consider the girl taken captive (II Kings 5). Her family most likely dead, she is taken from her familiar place, her secure place, and placed with people not her own. Think of her father’s last thoughts as he was being slain. Being a father myself, I’m sure he was not thinking of his own life. What senseless ruin. For what purpose could a person’s God allow such atrocity? I wonder if in those last seconds he cursed his God? And worse yet, what if he lived? Every day would be a reminder of what he lost.

We may try to console ourselves by reasoning that this man had it coming. He must have rejected God and therefore received his just compensation. But what about the girl, what did she do? The sins of the father are indeed passed on to the children. They suffer for our hard heartedness. We must slay our dragons lest they have to face them. However, the story doesn’t give us those details so we are left to speculate and rationalize.

How did God view the occurrence as it took place? God’s obvious purpose in this tragedy was to glorify Himself. He is outside of creation and His purposes are perfect beyond our understanding. Who are we to question the Creator? Especially since it doesn’t appear that this little girl did. She expressed faith in spite of her trauma and maybe because of it. A faith extended on behalf of her abductors. “I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.” A faith her master honored with the culmination, “Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel.” How this little girl must have been esteemed more than she would have received in her father’s house. God has a way of taking care of His own even in the midst of tragedy if we’ll receive what He is doing in us.

But how does this show our suffering God? Recently, my youngest son was sick – the same sickness that I had several days before. I must likely gave him his sickness. There is a certain helplessness one feels when they look at their sick child. The aching in the pit of my stomach prompts me to consider how Father must experience similar feelings when His children suffer – when I suffer. While doing a group with adolescents the topic turned to religion and one girl commented that what kind of God gives his child and not himself. Her implied point was that He was not committed so He sent someone else. I simply responded, “You don’t have any children, do you?” Based on my experience as a father, I believe that the Father suffered more than Jesus.

We don’t always see the culmination of our faith. Sometimes it is so slow in coming we think it won’t come at all. However, He is faithful. And He hurts with us. We must live today in dependence upon Him and leave the results with Him.

It seems that our suffering culminates with an awareness of God’s presence. Only He can walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death. Only He can identify with us. God alone can know our innermost hurts. He experiences them with us. The only true purpose for suffering is so we can experience what God experiences. Why is the gate narrow and the way hard? Who made up these rules? What purpose can they possibly serve except to reveal the heart of God.