Truth and Everlasting Joy

Yesterday was awful. Physical movement was difficult. Mentally, my thoughts were jumbled. It was not some sort of illness, more like a spiritual war in which the enemy had me in the dirt with his foot on my neck.

I wrote of despair and could not escape it. The words were true but so true also was human helplessness. Whatever God wanted me to learn also escaped me. I wanted to leave this place and go to the promised land of no more sorrow. When night fell, I took two Tylenol and fell asleep instantly. No crazy dreams. No trips to the bathroom. This morning, Monday seemed far away.

Today’s devotions are about enduring pain. It refers to the pain of a flawed marriage and how that endurance helped in other areas of life. But there are other kinds of pain. Loss of abilities. Loss of friends. Loved ones dying. Physical aches. Dementia. Feeling unwanted. A long list.
To His OT people who were barren in the fruit of their calling, God compares them to a widow who lost her partner. He says:

“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:4–8)

When despair hits, regardless of the reason or cause, God assured His people that His compassion would win over the horrid sense they had of being abandoned. He promised to “gather them” and this is affirmed even in the NT. God is not done with Israel, no matter how it seems in history and in current news.

In this, I can take comfort. Truth and trust does that. Truth gives me where to put my hope and in whom to put my trust. God has always kept His Word, so no despair can change that. It might knock me to the floor now and then, but the bottom line truth is this:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:32–39)

My body still feels ‘not good’ but the truth lifts my spirits and tells me that my Maker can remake it. But if it stays like this, He can fill me with His joy anyway. My friends at church are proof of that!

PRAY: God, I thank You for examples of faith that give me hope when the enemy thinks he is winning, friends like BT, JM, L & A, and DD who ignore what their body yells at them and instead listen to the truth You have put deep into their hearts. That ‘surgery’ is not without pain, but it does the job of releasing Your everlasting joy.

Dealing with despair?

Piper begins today’s meditation with a comment that words do not always reveal the heart. He points to a verse spoken by Job whose ‘friends’ have rebuked him for what he has spoken during the despair he feels about the great losses in his life and about his perplexity that God is silent.

Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind? (Job 6:26)

Then Piper writes: “When in grief and pain and despair, people often say things they would not otherwise say. . . .  such as “Where is God?” Or, “There is no use in going on.” Or, “Nothing makes any sense.” Or, “There’s no hope for me.” Or, “If God were good, this couldn’t have happened.” He asks, “What shall we do with these words?”

While my experiences of despair are not like Job’s, it seems that if I am thinking or saying these words, it is because my flesh is talking. The Holy Spirit is not behind them for He would be supportive and encouraging. As soon as I recognize that, I need to confess it to God and seek His thoughts so my words are true rather than filled with dark thoughts.

Yesterday was a full, busy day, almost normal, but by suppertime, and for no reason I began feeling as if all was over, that I might die any minute. My body was yelling and my mind picked up that sense of despair. I had not felt tired, but dropped on the sofa during a loud hockey game on TV and fell sound asleep. A bit later, still thinking dark thoughts, I woke up and complained with mutterings, but not yelling, and then went to bed.

All this was gone in the morning. Was my speech from the night before like the wind that Job said? Piper says, “Let us not spend our time and energy reproving such words. They will be blown away of themselves, on the wind.” In other words, these words do not reveal truth about the state of my heart. Instead of being rooted in me, they were colored by temporary feelings.
In my view, they were tempered by self-pity. Instead of thinking of the power of God, and the triumph that comes when He takes me home (or even at the thought of it), I was thinking more about life undone, and not getting more of it so I could do what I want to do. Simply put, this is lack of trust in the wisdom and love of God. It is an attitude promoted by the world, the flesh, and the devil, and should be recognized as such.

As for Job, what else could he say? The flesh is not great at words like, “God will take care of me” or even, “Oh don’t pay any attention to me, I’m just having a pity-party.” I’m fully aware that many times I just need a sharp rebuke, not for my words but maybe a prompt like, “What is making you think that way?” to get my focus off things that I don’t really believe and turned to something like:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 1:8–2:1)

The words are just wind for they are not real or true, but they are serious enough to reflect that I’m saying stuff that counters what God says. In other words, I am true and God is lying? Since that is close to blasphemy, then praying for a strong wind is called for.

Jesus is just that. He takes the selfish thoughts and words to the Father seeking forgiveness for me, not based on “She is just ignorant and thoughtless” but on “I died for that outburst and cover those dark thoughts with My blood.”

Job was not being flippant. He was not saying his words were not worth worrying about but that his mind was tripped up by his losses and that reproving him for his complaints was like telling the wind to stop blowing. He needed the words of the Holy Spirit and truth, not a reproof. Nothing less than the Word of God would help him in his situation. The same is true for me.

PRAY: Lord, this is a lesson for me. I know to seek You when I feel terrible about life, but how do I treat others when their words reveal the same feelings? A downcast person needs truth spoken in love, not a rebuke for their self-pity. A rebuke is like a hurricane when what is needed is the gentle breeze of Your wisdom and grace. Help me to stop blowing gale-force and be more considerate of how to deal with those who speak despairing words.

 

God’s Word on despair

If I had to choose the three saddest words, it would be a toss-up between “I should have . . .” and “It’s too late.” Failures produce regrets and dwelling on regrets is far too easy.

Just before the crucifixion, Jesus asked the disciples to watch and pray with Him. But they fell asleep. In the moment, and certainly later, they must have experienced incredible despair. They failed Him at the time of His greatest stress.  

Chambers points out that this is a very ordinary human experience; not doing what we had opportunity to do. Sometimes I feel like my whole life is made up of missed opportunities. I should have said this. I should have done that. Certainly I cannot go back and change my responses, no matter how much I would like to. However, what Jesus said to His disciples gives me a strong word of encouragement.

Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Matthew 26:45–46)

In other words, ‘sleep on now . . . that opportunity is lost forever, you cannot alter it, but arise and go to the next thing.’ Let the past go. Share it with Jesus and then go into the future with Him. He did not berate His disciples for their failure. Instead, He took them forward.

Right now I cannot think of one specific example from my life, maybe because there are so many. I feel an ache in my heart from the memories of all of them. Like Chambers says, this is an ache that comes from actual events and I cannot lift myself out of it.

The disciples must have felt that their failure was unforgivable. Going to sleep instead of praying with Him? How terrible, yet He said—‘Arise and do the next thing.’

This reminds me of Elizabeth Elliot. She was asked how she managed her busy schedule. She said, “I always do the next thing and as a Christian, I always know what it is.”

Sometimes God is silent on that next thing. In that case, we wait for direction but even waiting on Him is a ‘next thing’ and such waiting is just as important as doing something.

Jesus wants His people to know that the horrid sense of failure after missing an opportunity is not supposed to ruin our lives. Chambers says not to let the sense of failure corrupt my next action. God’s Word says:

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13–14)

This is another reason, among many, why I love Him so much.