One of the themes of my preaching in years past was the need for God to remove one by one from each of us the grounds on which we stood until we had nothing upon which to stand but the grace of God. Paul seemed to me to be the perfect example. In Philippians he listed the various grounds upon which he placed his confidence until the Damascus Road experience. In a blind stupor he found himself helpless before God, the perfect place for the discovery of grace. When preaching those thoughts I did not realize the depth of my own need. A recent reading of a book by Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, has reminded me of the truthfulness of those sermons and stirred in me a hope and reminder that my losses (many self-inflicted) are the means to great gain with God. The difficulty lies in allowing the pain and struggle of loss to bring us to God, rather than numbing the pain through various fixes which seem to give temporary relief. Crabb reminds us in his book that until we are willing to endure pain and suffering without the fixes we can never experience the presence of God. The pain and suffering of life and its shattered dreams may never fully abate, but the presence of God can become more powerful in us in the midst of these losses if we abandon ourselves to God rather than continually finding ways and means to alleviate the suffering. This seems to be the challenge: to endure until we find the reality of God.
It all reminds me of a story one of my seminary professors once told of a British pastor and writer named F. B. Meyer. A young minister came to see Meyer one day complaining of an unsupportive wife whom he planned to divorce so that he could continue in his plans for ministry. After listening as long as he could, Meyer suddenly stood up, pounded his desk, and said: "Young man, my sorrow has been my strength." What the young man had not known was that Meyer's wife had left him years ago because of her aversion to his ministry but that he had never divorced her, choosing rather to live with the constant pain of separation.
The message seems to be that the only path to a true relationship to God is through the sufferings of life, rather than around them. Much of my life, as I look back, has been composed of creative (and sinful) attempts to avoid pain. Pray that I may finally learn to embrace the pain in order to find the embrace of God.
posted by bill rosser @ 9:02 AM
6 Comments:
"Consider it all joy my brethern, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be pefect and complete, lacking in nothing." Much easier said than done, and I must confess that it can cause one to question a love that seemingly requires pain, but then I guess that is where faith comes in.
It helps me to see pain as an evidence of God's love, rather than a result of his absence. If I felt no pain, I would be confirmed and entrenched in my sin. I suppose our pain is one evidence of our sinful nature: pain of loss wouldn't be necessary if we always chose to follow God. Thank you for commenting.
Henri Nouwen once used an illustration I have found very helpful. If our pain is a deep pit, we must seek to live in the tension between the two extremes of 1) obsessing over it to the point where we fall in, and 2) ignoring it to the point where we forget it is there and fall in. Blessings to you this new year of the journey.
I have found the same kind of tension: how do I truly embrace the pain without obsessing? How does one find his way to God through the hurt? How can the sorrow become a strength? At least, hopefully, I'm now beginning to ask the right questions. Perhaps answers will come. Thanks, as always, for reading and responding.
I'm out in left field with respect to the idea of embracing pain. Maybe I'm just numb. I think I accept pain when it comes my way, and I don't try long to change what can't be undone, and I accept that God chastens those who are truly His---but I really can't say I embrace the pain. A linebacker on his way to to the ball carrier takes a lot of licks, but I don't know that he embraces or welcomes any of them. They are just things that happen as he pursues the tackle.
I think embracing is the opposite of denial, or avoidance, or pretense and indicates desire to face the reality of one's experience. In embracing , a person also refuses to seek solutions that give temporary relief and often lead to addictive behavior. Embracing one's pain allows God to make himself known; simply put, we learn to go to him for strength and consolation in the midst of the suffering. "For the joy set before him he endured the cross." I cannot have God until I am willing to endure what has come my way for whatever reasons. That is my understanding of embracing the pain, whether of shattered dreams, betrayals, guilt,or life's setbacks which often seem so unfair.
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