The age old question of whether we should pray for healing, or pray for healing if it's God's will, came up in Sunday School. The specific question was why God could will not to heal us.
It's always a tough question.
There are too many wounded people whom I love too much to answer that question lightly. The teacher was gracious enough to actually allow some silence after asking the question. I am often impressed by her, and this was one of those times. Anyway, in the silence I ran around the mulberry bush a few more times, but the way the question was asked brought me to a new place.
Could God will that we not be healed? It is actually His will that we die. There's a tree somewhere on this planet named the Tree of Life, and that tree has an angel standing in front of it with a flaming sword. That sword is there by the will of God, and it's there to make sure we die.
Genesis 3 is not really explicit about why we should not live forever, but it is explicit God will not allow it. It might be because He's too merciful to allow us to debauch ourselves and destroy ourselves for any longer than 70 years. It could be to preserve us from His wrath. It could be to preserve His glory. The one thing of which we're certain is our pain comes as an outflow from Adam's sin. God is handling the introduction of evil into our world in the most merciful and loving way possible. Maybe sometimes we underestimate the terrible power of the unholy, but Jesus paid a terrible price to cleanse us.
Yes, God might will us to remain wounded. If He does, He does so tenderly and with love, like a good mother helping a child to throw up so it can all be better in the morning.
Whatever might happen, our Heavenly Comforter stays with us all through the night.
Showing posts with label Brokenness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brokenness. Show all posts
05 October, 2009
03 October, 2009
Scarred for Life
I have no patience these days with the Nietzschean cliché, 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' I’ve found that the deepest pain holds no meaning. It is not purifying. It is not ennobling. It does not make you a better human being. It just is.
All the worst pain does is reduce us to our most primal animal. We want it to stop. We want to survive. It short-circuits any sense of self, diminishes us to a bundle of biological reflexes.
NYTimes blog by way of the Fibromyalgia Blog.
I'm ashamed to add words to such a statement, but I've felt pain too. I've felt pain just like that - not recently, but those feelings. Since those days I've said, "That which does not kill us scars us for life."
And I'm scared to say anything about these words because there are those I love who are in that place right now. How dare I speak words into their pain that they cannot feel now? But I do remember. Really, I do. I remember and I think I would have wanted to hear both the words I've quoted above and the words I add below.
You're alive.
Ecclesiastes says a living dog is better than a dead lion, and pain taught me how right Solomon was. I wanted to be a noble lion in noble pain, but I survived because I realized I was a humble little mongrel held in the hands of the Living Lord. He preserved me because He loved me, and I lived because I finally found that grain of trust in His love.
I bear scars I'll nurse until I die, but only that long. There is a glory of life and trust, a love of God and man, my pain taught me and by which I'll be carried through all eternity.
Surviving such pain cripples us. Finding God scarred exactly as we were scarred, exactly because He loves us, metamorphosizes us. Pain cripples, but love transforms. The work love does with pain is divine.
Cry out to God and believe. His love for you is stronger than your agony. It is.
Jesus is.
17 February, 2008
Aunt Jane's Hero
This is the introduction to Aunt Jane's Hero, by Elizabeth Prentiss. It seems I am quite taken with her writing, this being the third book of hers I've read.
They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, promises, and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and he slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner of silver," till they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them, it lacerated their hands. They had asked they knew not what, nor how; but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow on so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as of the apostles when they thought had seen a spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide his awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer - to do than to give up - to bear the cross than to hang upon it: but they cannot go back, for they have come to near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them his promise, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."
But now, at last, their turn is come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did on Mary and Peter, and they cannot but choose to follow. Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams the mystery of His cross shines upon them. They behold Him lifted up - they gaze on the glory which rays forth from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they gaze, they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for he dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own, and to be unlike all, so that they are only like him.
"Such are they in all ages who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere - if He had taken off His hand, and let them stray back - what would they not have lost? What forfeits in the morning of the resurrection? But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well-nigh slipped; but He, in mercy, held them up; now, even in this life, they know all he did was done well. It was good for them to suffer here, for they shall reign hereafter - to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them."
They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, promises, and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and he slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner of silver," till they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them, it lacerated their hands. They had asked they knew not what, nor how; but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow on so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as of the apostles when they thought had seen a spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide his awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer - to do than to give up - to bear the cross than to hang upon it: but they cannot go back, for they have come to near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them his promise, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."
But now, at last, their turn is come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did on Mary and Peter, and they cannot but choose to follow. Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams the mystery of His cross shines upon them. They behold Him lifted up - they gaze on the glory which rays forth from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they gaze, they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for he dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own, and to be unlike all, so that they are only like him.
"Such are they in all ages who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere - if He had taken off His hand, and let them stray back - what would they not have lost? What forfeits in the morning of the resurrection? But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well-nigh slipped; but He, in mercy, held them up; now, even in this life, they know all he did was done well. It was good for them to suffer here, for they shall reign hereafter - to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them."
26 May, 2007
Deliverance - The True and the True
I'm forced to a third post in this impromptu series. What a surprise and delight. :-)
I don't believe that God needs to "break" us to make us useful. But I also believe that God intends to allow the worst things in life to happen to us, and then not necessarily to deliver us from them. Given those two contradictions, then what do I do with the 150 songs of God's deliverance David, Solomon and others gave us in the Psalms? In them broken men cry out to God for deliverance - presumably expecting something to happen. :-)
And God did it for them!
And yet my few little decades here say He doesn't usually deliver us.
The Psalms, and indeed the whole scripture, testify to God's perfect record of delivering.
And yet none of us is in circumstances that one would just exactly call, "prosperous."
The answer I propose is not original. In fact, it's a repetition for me to say it here, but I will repeat myself, because it is a necessary tie-off to this series. One can never end with the false assertion that God does not deliver, even if from one narrow perspective it's completely true.
What's interesting about my answer is that it has completely gone out of style in our age of tight theologies. Those of you with a theological background will cringe when I give it, but I will stand by it fiercely nonetheless, because it is true.
My answer is that we can spiritualize the Psalms to understand God's way of delivering us from our enemies. The psalmists all had enemies. We have three enemies: 1) our own flesh, 2) the flesh of those around us, and 3) the devil. When we read how God deals with the enemies of His people, we learn how He deals with our three spiritual enemies, even though the Psalms are written about the psalmists' physical enemies.
Sometimes God delivers us from oppression. Sometimes He delivers us within it. He always delivers us - the question is how.
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
The people were captives on account of their own failure to obey God, but they were God's children, and they were miserable.
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
And they had every right and responsibility to be miserable. To sing joyfully of their God and their home at this moment, at the request of those who enslaved them would have been evil.
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
And the psalmist says directly that it would be a sin to rejoice. Jerusalem is his highest joy, and without Jerusalem he can only be cast down. If, in a moment of weakness, he forgets his pain at being separated from God, he prays that he might forget how to sing entirely.
7 Remember, LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy are those who repay you
according to what you have done to us.
But the psalmist reminds God of His perfect hatred for those who imprisoned His children.
9 Happy are those who seize your infants
and dash them against the rocks.
And finally, the money line. This has been the sentiment burning in the psalmist's heart all along. This horrible sentiment is not a scriptural oddity, or a one-off tossed into the psalm at the end to finish some kind of rhyme scheme. This is the prayer God put into the heart of His servant. This is the feeling of anger welling naturally up within the heart of one yearning to be free to praise and worship the one God of the world. Everything else was the justification, the provocation. This is the message.
This is the word of comfort for someone made to live apart from his Lord.
---
Note that I do not take away from the literal meaning of the Psalm. It does mean with the psalmist meant for it to mean. But, it is also a window into something more.
Reread the psalm as an allegory. Think about Romans 7, and see Babylon as my chief religious sin - pride. The armies of Babylon are the many impulses of the flesh within me that feed that sin, and that lust after it, imprisoning me within my own pride. The children of God are the weak impulses in me to praise the law of God and to live to His glory.
The backstory of the allegorical psalm is that I grew more and more proud of my Christian gifts, so God pulled the protective influence of His Spirit from me. He left me to defend myself against the flesh and pride warring against His law within me - and I lost.
Verses 1-4:
Now, the impulses of my pride expect me to be happy in God again. I remember how happy I once was, and my pride chides me to be happy again. But I throw down my harmonica. I will not sing.
Verses 5-6:
Jerusalem is the place where I depend upon God. Egypt is the place where I trust to the world for security and pleasure. Babylon is the place where I'm proud that I can earn my own salvation. But Jerusalem is the place where God chooses to come to me, and to meet me. Jerusalem is where I humbly quiet myself and enter into His temple - into His rest. God's Hand weighs heavily on me now, and I will not pretend that all is well. I want to get back to Jerusalem, and cannot get there yet. It is the time to wear black, and go in mourning. If I should forget that I wait on God to deliver me from my sin, may I forget how to sing entirely.
Verses 7-8:
In pride I lusted to raise myself up above others, and thereby to tear down to the foundations of what little humility God had granted me. In pride, I was glad the day the Spirit left off restraining me from trying to get my brothers and sisters to listen to everything I said. I remember how awful my sin was, and I long to see my own pride thrown down.
Verse 9:
Happy day when the Lord mortifies my flesh. Happy the day when he bashes the brains out of the little prideful impulses that would otherwise one day drag me back into that captivity.
May the Lord forgive us who spiritualize. :-)
---
Sometimes, when we are sick and grow weak, the enemies grow strong within us. Sometimes the voices of our flesh shout down the voice of Wisdom within us. It is then that we pray.
Pray the double prayer.
Pray with all your heart that the sickness be healed. Pray that your strength return. Pray against whatever the calamity is in your life, and in the lives of all the saints.
But pray, too, that God scatter the enemies in your flesh. Pray, too, that God put to death - mortify - the sin and death that reign in your mortal body, and that He release your spirit to praise. Pray that He return your heart to Jerusalem. Pray that your love might answer boldly to His, and triumph over the sin that so easily besets us.
He always delivers. His kingdom comes every time we pray the double prayer. Sometimes His kingdom comes in glorious deliverance from circumstance, and sometimes it comes in glorious love seeing us through circumstance. Either way, it is to His glory, and for the good of His kingdom.
He always delivers.
I don't believe that God needs to "break" us to make us useful. But I also believe that God intends to allow the worst things in life to happen to us, and then not necessarily to deliver us from them. Given those two contradictions, then what do I do with the 150 songs of God's deliverance David, Solomon and others gave us in the Psalms? In them broken men cry out to God for deliverance - presumably expecting something to happen. :-)
And God did it for them!
And yet my few little decades here say He doesn't usually deliver us.
The Psalms, and indeed the whole scripture, testify to God's perfect record of delivering.
And yet none of us is in circumstances that one would just exactly call, "prosperous."
The answer I propose is not original. In fact, it's a repetition for me to say it here, but I will repeat myself, because it is a necessary tie-off to this series. One can never end with the false assertion that God does not deliver, even if from one narrow perspective it's completely true.
What's interesting about my answer is that it has completely gone out of style in our age of tight theologies. Those of you with a theological background will cringe when I give it, but I will stand by it fiercely nonetheless, because it is true.
My answer is that we can spiritualize the Psalms to understand God's way of delivering us from our enemies. The psalmists all had enemies. We have three enemies: 1) our own flesh, 2) the flesh of those around us, and 3) the devil. When we read how God deals with the enemies of His people, we learn how He deals with our three spiritual enemies, even though the Psalms are written about the psalmists' physical enemies.
Sometimes God delivers us from oppression. Sometimes He delivers us within it. He always delivers us - the question is how.
Psalm 137
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
The people were captives on account of their own failure to obey God, but they were God's children, and they were miserable.
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
And they had every right and responsibility to be miserable. To sing joyfully of their God and their home at this moment, at the request of those who enslaved them would have been evil.
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
And the psalmist says directly that it would be a sin to rejoice. Jerusalem is his highest joy, and without Jerusalem he can only be cast down. If, in a moment of weakness, he forgets his pain at being separated from God, he prays that he might forget how to sing entirely.
7 Remember, LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
"Tear it down," they cried,
"tear it down to its foundations!"
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy are those who repay you
according to what you have done to us.
But the psalmist reminds God of His perfect hatred for those who imprisoned His children.
9 Happy are those who seize your infants
and dash them against the rocks.
And finally, the money line. This has been the sentiment burning in the psalmist's heart all along. This horrible sentiment is not a scriptural oddity, or a one-off tossed into the psalm at the end to finish some kind of rhyme scheme. This is the prayer God put into the heart of His servant. This is the feeling of anger welling naturally up within the heart of one yearning to be free to praise and worship the one God of the world. Everything else was the justification, the provocation. This is the message.
This is the word of comfort for someone made to live apart from his Lord.
---
Note that I do not take away from the literal meaning of the Psalm. It does mean with the psalmist meant for it to mean. But, it is also a window into something more.
Reread the psalm as an allegory. Think about Romans 7, and see Babylon as my chief religious sin - pride. The armies of Babylon are the many impulses of the flesh within me that feed that sin, and that lust after it, imprisoning me within my own pride. The children of God are the weak impulses in me to praise the law of God and to live to His glory.
The backstory of the allegorical psalm is that I grew more and more proud of my Christian gifts, so God pulled the protective influence of His Spirit from me. He left me to defend myself against the flesh and pride warring against His law within me - and I lost.
Verses 1-4:
Now, the impulses of my pride expect me to be happy in God again. I remember how happy I once was, and my pride chides me to be happy again. But I throw down my harmonica. I will not sing.
Verses 5-6:
Jerusalem is the place where I depend upon God. Egypt is the place where I trust to the world for security and pleasure. Babylon is the place where I'm proud that I can earn my own salvation. But Jerusalem is the place where God chooses to come to me, and to meet me. Jerusalem is where I humbly quiet myself and enter into His temple - into His rest. God's Hand weighs heavily on me now, and I will not pretend that all is well. I want to get back to Jerusalem, and cannot get there yet. It is the time to wear black, and go in mourning. If I should forget that I wait on God to deliver me from my sin, may I forget how to sing entirely.
Verses 7-8:
In pride I lusted to raise myself up above others, and thereby to tear down to the foundations of what little humility God had granted me. In pride, I was glad the day the Spirit left off restraining me from trying to get my brothers and sisters to listen to everything I said. I remember how awful my sin was, and I long to see my own pride thrown down.
Verse 9:
Happy day when the Lord mortifies my flesh. Happy the day when he bashes the brains out of the little prideful impulses that would otherwise one day drag me back into that captivity.
May the Lord forgive us who spiritualize. :-)
---
Sometimes, when we are sick and grow weak, the enemies grow strong within us. Sometimes the voices of our flesh shout down the voice of Wisdom within us. It is then that we pray.
Pray the double prayer.
Pray with all your heart that the sickness be healed. Pray that your strength return. Pray against whatever the calamity is in your life, and in the lives of all the saints.
But pray, too, that God scatter the enemies in your flesh. Pray, too, that God put to death - mortify - the sin and death that reign in your mortal body, and that He release your spirit to praise. Pray that He return your heart to Jerusalem. Pray that your love might answer boldly to His, and triumph over the sin that so easily besets us.
He always delivers. His kingdom comes every time we pray the double prayer. Sometimes His kingdom comes in glorious deliverance from circumstance, and sometimes it comes in glorious love seeing us through circumstance. Either way, it is to His glory, and for the good of His kingdom.
He always delivers.
21 May, 2007
Works Greater Than These
John 9:1-3
And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
I believe that I have come to understand something about God and about life. Or maybe I haven't.
Psychologists several decades ago discovered that if you tormented an animal long enough, it would not try to escape even when the opportunity arose. Maybe I'm just cowering in a corner, calling pain bearable because trying one more time to escape seems more frightening.
But, I think that I have discovered that God usually does not want to heal our pain.
In the verse above, Jesus explains why a certain man was blinded from birth. He was blinded/blind/allowed to be blind so that the works of God could be demonstrated by the Messiah. God allowed this man to spend decades blind for the sake of His kingdom. Someone, somewhere prayed, "Thy kingdom come," and this man was born blind. Jesus was the kingdom of God on earth, and the Father had decreed that His kingdom would be declared, so Jesus healed this man.
By this miracle some amazing truths about the essence of God were demonstrated to everyone who saw it, heard about, read about it, or even just heard sermons about it. By this miracle the kingdom was advanced on earth, and God's purpose was made yet more certain. God's character of kindness was revealed, and Jesus' power was certified.
What's more, every miracle ever performed was done with this same purpose in mind. No miracle is of private edification. God moves to advance His kingdom.
Now, though, the kingdom is different than it was 2,000 years ago.
In the first days of a tree's life, it shoots upward as a tender green sprout. Within a month, though, it begins to form bark and grow strong. When Jesus walked on earth, the church was still a seed beneath the ground, and it needed to burst out in a fit of miracles. When Jesus rose from the tomb, the sprout breached the ground and tasted its first real air. In that tender first generation, the miracles continued. But one day, just like the tree sprout grows bark, the church began to live more on love than miracles.
Miracles are fast, but love works slowly - very slowly. That's OK. Miracles burst forth, but love never fails.
Today, when I meet a man blind from birth, I will assume that he is blind for exactly the same reason as that man Jesus saw 2,000 years ago. The man is blind that the works of God should be made manifest in him. But today, the works of God are works of love, slow, patient, unfailing love. I don't believe that God's kingdom answers that man with sight any more, but now with adoption.
The upshot is that I doubt that the pains God has allowed into my life were brought merely so that He could remove them.
I think God has something better planned for me than a miracle. And I think if I drive myself crazy trying to find that miracle, trying to save my life, I will lose my life. But if I decide to lose my life to pain, it just may be that I will find a love in Him worth dying for.
I have seen miracles and heard of miracles that are clear markers of God breaking into time. I will pray for miracles for myself and others. I will ask for healing and deliverance wherever they are wanted. But maybe I won't despair if it turns out that the works God has planned for my situation are greater than any miracle.
And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
I believe that I have come to understand something about God and about life. Or maybe I haven't.
Psychologists several decades ago discovered that if you tormented an animal long enough, it would not try to escape even when the opportunity arose. Maybe I'm just cowering in a corner, calling pain bearable because trying one more time to escape seems more frightening.
But, I think that I have discovered that God usually does not want to heal our pain.
In the verse above, Jesus explains why a certain man was blinded from birth. He was blinded/blind/allowed to be blind so that the works of God could be demonstrated by the Messiah. God allowed this man to spend decades blind for the sake of His kingdom. Someone, somewhere prayed, "Thy kingdom come," and this man was born blind. Jesus was the kingdom of God on earth, and the Father had decreed that His kingdom would be declared, so Jesus healed this man.
By this miracle some amazing truths about the essence of God were demonstrated to everyone who saw it, heard about, read about it, or even just heard sermons about it. By this miracle the kingdom was advanced on earth, and God's purpose was made yet more certain. God's character of kindness was revealed, and Jesus' power was certified.
What's more, every miracle ever performed was done with this same purpose in mind. No miracle is of private edification. God moves to advance His kingdom.
Now, though, the kingdom is different than it was 2,000 years ago.
In the first days of a tree's life, it shoots upward as a tender green sprout. Within a month, though, it begins to form bark and grow strong. When Jesus walked on earth, the church was still a seed beneath the ground, and it needed to burst out in a fit of miracles. When Jesus rose from the tomb, the sprout breached the ground and tasted its first real air. In that tender first generation, the miracles continued. But one day, just like the tree sprout grows bark, the church began to live more on love than miracles.
Miracles are fast, but love works slowly - very slowly. That's OK. Miracles burst forth, but love never fails.
Today, when I meet a man blind from birth, I will assume that he is blind for exactly the same reason as that man Jesus saw 2,000 years ago. The man is blind that the works of God should be made manifest in him. But today, the works of God are works of love, slow, patient, unfailing love. I don't believe that God's kingdom answers that man with sight any more, but now with adoption.
The upshot is that I doubt that the pains God has allowed into my life were brought merely so that He could remove them.
I think God has something better planned for me than a miracle. And I think if I drive myself crazy trying to find that miracle, trying to save my life, I will lose my life. But if I decide to lose my life to pain, it just may be that I will find a love in Him worth dying for.
I have seen miracles and heard of miracles that are clear markers of God breaking into time. I will pray for miracles for myself and others. I will ask for healing and deliverance wherever they are wanted. But maybe I won't despair if it turns out that the works God has planned for my situation are greater than any miracle.
19 May, 2007
Cracking Brokenness
I'm sure I'm the only one who notices, but these silences are odd for me. Anyway, today I have a migraine and probably won't be as understandable as I'd wish, but I'm going to type this one out anyway. It's off topic, but very important to me.
I was once in a movement that emphasized "brokenness." Now, I'm sure there are groups that live this doctrine harmlessly, but I was in one that lived it brutally. They actually worked on breaking anyone who looked like he might have a drip of ambition for serving the Lord. And in their spare time from that, they homed in on anyone who showed warmth. They called it the "cross working in our lives." I'm sure I could describe it more colorfully and more accurately, both.
I was talking yesterday with a brother whom I met once a decade ago, and who had spent time under the same teaching. It was a very refreshing conversation, and I'm glad it happened. Somewhere toward the end, though, brokeness came up and I waxed eloquent against it. I want to capture some of the things that were rolling around in my head during that chat, because it was once so key to me. And now it's not.
That kind of change should be noted.
The classic example of brokenness, in my background, was King David. The Lord had Samuel annoint David to be king of Israel as a mere boy, then allowed this new king to be put through years of misfortune and missed opportunities. There are so many high points in David's youth. He killed Goliath, and ended up being surrounded by singing groupies. Then there's the high of being the one who kept King Saul sane during the dark days. He won a wife through martial skill, and led the armies of Israel to greater victories than Saul. The people under Saul were text messaging David's number in to Israelite Idol night after night, and he was da' bomb. No one wanted to see David voted off the island.
Then God allowed everything to go pear-shaped.
Instead of praise, David heard the hiss of a razor sharp spear launched at him by a man who stood head and shoulders above all Israel. He hid in a field while his dear friend Jonathon ascertained whether it was safe for him to show his face, and it wasn't. He was hunted by all Israel, while his groupies morphed into harpies singing their disdain for him and willingly turning him over to Saul's informers any chance they had. He hid out in caves and was tempted to kill the Lord's own annointed king. He feigned madness at one point, and probably was not sure what was acting and what was just letting the wild things out that had been screaming in his mind night after night.
The proposal I reject is that it was these times that shattered David for God's use. God allowed these things to break him, and to make him into a king after His own heart. It was during these times that David wrote most of the Psalms attributed to him, and during these times that he learned to praise God by faith, instead of by sight. David entered his first cave a young nobleman of God, and exited his last one a broken servant of God.
It's a pretty story. And it's got a lot of truth to it. A lot.
But it narrowly misses the point.
A little lady named Bathsheeba shows something about David that this brokenness fable overlooks. He was not broken by all those sufferings. Oh, it's not the adultery or the murder to which I refer, but to the 9+ months David schemed to finally get Bathsheeba under his roof. During all that time, he never felt repentance. He kept "fixing" things, and "pulling things off", and working subtle plans until she and their son were in his stable.
David was a great man, and one whom I hope to emulate in some little way, but if he was broken, brokenness doesn't mean much. David was delivered by God through the furnace of untold sufferings, and was changed in many ways and all for the better. He might have even believed he was broken. But when he looked back over his years of rising to the call of God, he could say he had been upright in all his ways. He had suffered, but he had done so in righteousness, and he had waited on God at all times.
I have known such men, and they are the hardest, saddest, most to be pitied men on earth.
David profited from his exile experiences. David was transformed by them, and God did refine his character through them. But he was not what Watchman Nee would call broken. I say this is because such a thing does not exist.
Nee proposed that the servant of God must be broken to serve well. He illustrated his point with a communion wafer. He would break the wafer in half, and then press it back together again. Once put back together, it looked whole and entirely as good as new, but at the slightest touch it would fall back apart again. He said the man of God must be like this toward his God. His will must be broken such that at the slightest whisper from his Lord, he would collapse into the Lord's will.
Nee was an amazing man, but he was wrong on this one.
I cannot find any evidence in my current addled state that this brokenness is a scriptural term, nor that it is a scriptural concept.
In place of brokenness, I would like to offer two qualities:
Gentleness: David was softened by his early trials, not broken. Had he been broken, he would have been of no use to God nor man, but God preserved him. Upon rising to the throne, David was a man who could be moved with the trials of others, because he had endured hardship of his own. His heart was furrowed with pain, and could easily find compassion for those whom the Lord placed in his path.
Humility: Had David been inhuman, he would have been humble from birth, but he learned humility just like the rest of us. He learned from the times he succeeded and he knew it was God Who was working through him. He learned from the times he succeeded, and his success was far less than it should have been. But mostly, David was humbled by his many failures. He learned from them that he was only a man, and that he needed to wait on the Lord. He learned not to trust in himself. He learned that he could steal a poor man's only ewe lamb and serve it to a stranger without remorse. And that only the Spirit could move repentance in his heart.
As a young man, I was told that David's usefulness to God ended with Bathsheeba. He never conquered mightily for the Lord again after that sin, and that is a powerful observation. I have often wondered over the years when my Bathsheeba moment would come, or whether it already has. I don't know. But as I look back at David, I wonder if maybe he grew more useful to the invisible kingdom, to the glory of God Himself, after he fell and rose again.
I would not be surprised to learn that David wrote his most arresting psalms after the death of that son by Bathsheeba.
It's no accident that God entrusted David with another baby, Solomon, only after he rose up again from his repentance. It was only to a humble man and a gentle one that God dared trust the child who would build His house. Apart from the labors of gentleness and humility the great works of the kingdom go unworked, but brokenness is an empty cloud that brings no rain.
May the Lord soften the hearts of his sheep.
I was once in a movement that emphasized "brokenness." Now, I'm sure there are groups that live this doctrine harmlessly, but I was in one that lived it brutally. They actually worked on breaking anyone who looked like he might have a drip of ambition for serving the Lord. And in their spare time from that, they homed in on anyone who showed warmth. They called it the "cross working in our lives." I'm sure I could describe it more colorfully and more accurately, both.
I was talking yesterday with a brother whom I met once a decade ago, and who had spent time under the same teaching. It was a very refreshing conversation, and I'm glad it happened. Somewhere toward the end, though, brokeness came up and I waxed eloquent against it. I want to capture some of the things that were rolling around in my head during that chat, because it was once so key to me. And now it's not.
That kind of change should be noted.
The classic example of brokenness, in my background, was King David. The Lord had Samuel annoint David to be king of Israel as a mere boy, then allowed this new king to be put through years of misfortune and missed opportunities. There are so many high points in David's youth. He killed Goliath, and ended up being surrounded by singing groupies. Then there's the high of being the one who kept King Saul sane during the dark days. He won a wife through martial skill, and led the armies of Israel to greater victories than Saul. The people under Saul were text messaging David's number in to Israelite Idol night after night, and he was da' bomb. No one wanted to see David voted off the island.
Then God allowed everything to go pear-shaped.
Instead of praise, David heard the hiss of a razor sharp spear launched at him by a man who stood head and shoulders above all Israel. He hid in a field while his dear friend Jonathon ascertained whether it was safe for him to show his face, and it wasn't. He was hunted by all Israel, while his groupies morphed into harpies singing their disdain for him and willingly turning him over to Saul's informers any chance they had. He hid out in caves and was tempted to kill the Lord's own annointed king. He feigned madness at one point, and probably was not sure what was acting and what was just letting the wild things out that had been screaming in his mind night after night.
The proposal I reject is that it was these times that shattered David for God's use. God allowed these things to break him, and to make him into a king after His own heart. It was during these times that David wrote most of the Psalms attributed to him, and during these times that he learned to praise God by faith, instead of by sight. David entered his first cave a young nobleman of God, and exited his last one a broken servant of God.
It's a pretty story. And it's got a lot of truth to it. A lot.
But it narrowly misses the point.
A little lady named Bathsheeba shows something about David that this brokenness fable overlooks. He was not broken by all those sufferings. Oh, it's not the adultery or the murder to which I refer, but to the 9+ months David schemed to finally get Bathsheeba under his roof. During all that time, he never felt repentance. He kept "fixing" things, and "pulling things off", and working subtle plans until she and their son were in his stable.
David was a great man, and one whom I hope to emulate in some little way, but if he was broken, brokenness doesn't mean much. David was delivered by God through the furnace of untold sufferings, and was changed in many ways and all for the better. He might have even believed he was broken. But when he looked back over his years of rising to the call of God, he could say he had been upright in all his ways. He had suffered, but he had done so in righteousness, and he had waited on God at all times.
I have known such men, and they are the hardest, saddest, most to be pitied men on earth.
David profited from his exile experiences. David was transformed by them, and God did refine his character through them. But he was not what Watchman Nee would call broken. I say this is because such a thing does not exist.
Nee proposed that the servant of God must be broken to serve well. He illustrated his point with a communion wafer. He would break the wafer in half, and then press it back together again. Once put back together, it looked whole and entirely as good as new, but at the slightest touch it would fall back apart again. He said the man of God must be like this toward his God. His will must be broken such that at the slightest whisper from his Lord, he would collapse into the Lord's will.
Nee was an amazing man, but he was wrong on this one.
I cannot find any evidence in my current addled state that this brokenness is a scriptural term, nor that it is a scriptural concept.
In place of brokenness, I would like to offer two qualities:
Gentleness: David was softened by his early trials, not broken. Had he been broken, he would have been of no use to God nor man, but God preserved him. Upon rising to the throne, David was a man who could be moved with the trials of others, because he had endured hardship of his own. His heart was furrowed with pain, and could easily find compassion for those whom the Lord placed in his path.
Humility: Had David been inhuman, he would have been humble from birth, but he learned humility just like the rest of us. He learned from the times he succeeded and he knew it was God Who was working through him. He learned from the times he succeeded, and his success was far less than it should have been. But mostly, David was humbled by his many failures. He learned from them that he was only a man, and that he needed to wait on the Lord. He learned not to trust in himself. He learned that he could steal a poor man's only ewe lamb and serve it to a stranger without remorse. And that only the Spirit could move repentance in his heart.
As a young man, I was told that David's usefulness to God ended with Bathsheeba. He never conquered mightily for the Lord again after that sin, and that is a powerful observation. I have often wondered over the years when my Bathsheeba moment would come, or whether it already has. I don't know. But as I look back at David, I wonder if maybe he grew more useful to the invisible kingdom, to the glory of God Himself, after he fell and rose again.
I would not be surprised to learn that David wrote his most arresting psalms after the death of that son by Bathsheeba.
It's no accident that God entrusted David with another baby, Solomon, only after he rose up again from his repentance. It was only to a humble man and a gentle one that God dared trust the child who would build His house. Apart from the labors of gentleness and humility the great works of the kingdom go unworked, but brokenness is an empty cloud that brings no rain.
May the Lord soften the hearts of his sheep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
