Tag: Timothy Keller

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Finding Meaning in Suffering

As a participant in my church’s intercessory prayer ministry I am reminded regularly of the sufferings of fellow Christians. The church has a prayer room with cards that record the needs of the congregation. Members of the prayer team come to the room during the week to pray for the sick, for the church and its leaders, and for our community and nation.

There seem to be many people who battle cancer and its effects. Words like chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and remission show up quite often on those prayer cards. For some, it seems to be a life and death struggle. They depend on the church for emotional support and for prayers for their physical healing.

Several years ago I was counseling a woman who was angry at God because her husband had died of cancer. She refused to let go of her bitterness. She would not trust in any God who would allow suffering to continue.

Like some who argue for atheism, the problem of human suffering was, for her, an obstacle to belief in a God who is kind and good. This was an intensely personal issue. The suffering and death of her husband seemed pointless and without justification.

I’m not sure how my words may have influenced her thinking. It takes faith to believe that human suffering may accomplish a God-given purpose. Romans 8:28 is not a panacea, but a promise that for those who love the Lord, even bad things, like cancer, can, in God’s providence “work together for good.”

Earlier this year I read a book entitled God Meant it for Good, by R.T. Kendall. It is a retelling and interpretation of the story of Joseph the son of Jacob (Genesis 37-50). In his youth he was hated by his brothers. They sold him into slavery and he was transported to Egypt where he was subject to years of unjust treatment and imprisonment. Kendall makes the point again and again that God had a purpose for the trials Joseph had to endure.

Joseph’s character was refined and developed by his sufferings. The Lord was with him in his in his difficulties. In God’s time he was released from prison. In God’s plan he found himself in the presence of the Pharaoh who promoted him to second in command in Egypt! In that position he was able to save many lives, including those of his own family. He forgave his brothers saying, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

This is not to imply that suffering is good. Of course not. But it is a recognition that God is able to turn suffering inside out and use it to accomplish a good purpose. As a pastor I have heard people say things like, “I would never have wished this upon myself, but I wouldn’t trade anything for the spiritual growth I have experienced through these circumstances.”

In his book The Reason for God, Tim Keller wrote, “If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways.”

The God of the Bible entered our world of suffering in the person of Jesus Christ. He experienced the worst depths of cruelty and pain. He identifies with us in our sufferings. He promised, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). He knows how we feel.

Keller added, “Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection in pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceed ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and god-forsaken. Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us.”

Is it enough to know that God has an unseen purpose in our sufferings? Is it enough to know that he understands our present sorrows and pain? Perhaps not as we see things now. Christianity does not provide an easy explanation for our sufferings. But faith in Jesus promises resurrection unto eternal life. It promises a new creation and the restoration of all things. Then there will be no more death when he makes all things new. Surely that will be enough.

Pastor Randy Faulkner

 

 

 

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Que Sera,Sera…So Why Pray?

The question is sometimes framed like this: “If God already knows what will happen, if he has a plan and he is in charge, then why pray at all? Whatever will be, will be.” This expresses the age-old tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Thinking about this for too long makes my brain tired.

Tired, or just plain lazy? Is my sinful self just looking for an excuse not to pray? In a startling confession, C.S. Lewis admitted, “Well, let’s now at least come clean. Prayer is irksome. An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome. When it is over, this casts a feeling of relief and holiday over the rest of the day. We are reluctant to begin. We are delighted to finish. While we are at prayer, but not while reading a novel or solving a crossword puzzle, any trifle is enough to distract us” (Letters to Malcomb: Chiefly on Prayer).

He wrote these words while contemplating human selfishness and spiritual weakness. He said, “The truth is, I haven’t any language weak enough to depict the weakness of my spiritual life.” This brazen acknowledgment of his sinfulness seemed shocking until I came around to admitting my own sinful inadequacy in prayer.

The stark truth is that prayer is a battleground and the enemy doesn’t readily yield territory to us mortals. This gets me back to my opening question: why pray? One reason is, in the words of Timothy Keller, prayer is “rebellion against the world’s status quo. Indeed, it is listed as a weapon in spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness (Ephesians 6:12).” We live in a world that is organized against the will of God. Prayer, then, brings our orientation back where it belongs: to God himself.

We pray because of who God is. Prayer forces our minds, and yes, even the posture of our bodies, to come before our Creator in praise, humble confession, thanks and asking for what we need. E.P. Clowney put it this way, “The Bible does not present an art of prayer, it presents the God of prayer.” The more we see and know God for who he is, the more prayer will follow. Our understanding of God shapes our praying.

Then there is the way prayer changes us. Prayer positions us as persons who act as those who are known by and have value to God. Lewis wrote, “The passive changes to active. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view. To thus put ourselves on a personal footing with God … we assume the high rank of persons before him.” And by the agency of the Holy Spirit, we are permitted to call God “Abba, Father,” in the most intimate way.

Such awareness, of God, of ourselves, of the world, of the powers of evil and of the nature of prayer itself, all prompt us to pray, and to pray boldly. Jesus illustrated this in a parable. He asked his hearers to imagine a man banging on the door of his neighbor at midnight. He has unexpected guests and no food to offer them.

The neighbor tells him to stop bothering him or he’ll wake up the whole household. He tells him to go away. Then Jesus asks, “Is that really how the neighbor is going to react?” His implied answer is no.

Because the man at the door is bold and persistent, he will indeed get up and give him the bread that he asked for, as much as he needs (Luke 11:5-10). Jesus says this illustrates how we should pray with “shameless audacity.” It is not that God is reluctant to hear and to help. It is that he values the kind of bold desperation described in the story. That is a lesson for me when my prayers are tentative and my faith is weak.

“Ask,” Jesus said. Asking implies a need and a recognition of God’s willingness to meet the need. Ask with audacious persistence. Ask, expecting an answer.

“Seek,” Jesus went on to say. Seek the Father’s will above all else, as Jesus taught us to pray. “Your will be done on earth” is a way of praying as the Lord Jesus prayed. Seeking also means pursuing the will of God in everything else we do.

“Knock,” implies persistence. It is not wrong to keep knocking on the door of heaven. In the language of the New Testament, the present tense of these three verbs implies continuous asking, seeking and knocking. The first verse of Luke 18 says, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”

Why pray? If we pray for no other reason, the fact that Jesus said it is normal behavior for his followers, makes it a priority. We may not understand fully how our praying fits into the accomplishment of the sovereign will of God. But the fact that he commands us to pray says that it does. Reason enough.

    –  Pastor Randy Faulkner

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