Sunday, December 16, 2007

Eyes to See, Patience to Wait

Tonight I've been contemplating Psalms (probably triggered by a friend mentioning that frolicking is used in at least on Psalm). Two quick thoughts after listening to the first thirty-some of them.

First, many of them deal with waiting for God to act to relieve some dire circumstance. It occurs to me how different this theme is than the "We have victory in Christ" theme I often perceive Christians as having. I don't necessarily think that they are opposite themes (Paul, after all, talks a lot about his earthly sufferings), but I do wonder if in America we are so accustomed to instant gratification that the idea of extended suffering before God acts is anathema. It seems cruel or inhumane for God to wait to respond to the righteous in need.

The second thought relates to Psalm 37 where it says:
I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.
My first reaction is "Wow, that's certainly not true today." (Yes, I know, that's not pious of me.) My second is "That can't possibly be true." And my third reaction "Wow, I have no idea if that is true or not." Here's the why behind my third thought:
  • Most of our awareness of suffering comes from the media. Television and print usually capture a moment of great need, but rarely trace the suffering over an extended period. Given that God can be somewhat...slower...to act that we might like, it's hard to evaluate from a momentary picture the faithfulness of God to feed the righteous.
  • While there are plenty who claim to be righteous (including Christians), God probably isn't deciding righteousness by personal declaration. So when the media reports about Joe or Jane or Susie Q in need, not only is it a momentary snapshot, but we don't know anything about their spiritual condition.
  • Paul tells us that the sins of some men are obvious, while the sins of others trail behind them: It takes time to learn about a person. How many people in my life do I really know well enough to know if they have sins trailing behind them? And of those, how many have been forsaken or have children begging for food?

Saturday, December 01, 2007

The Promise of Hope

So my church just wrapped up a series talking about the Bible & secrets. Toward the end of the series, we invited people to anonymously share three areas that most affected them. We have them a list of suggestions (e.g. various types of guilt, hopelessness, jealousy, financial pressure, boredom, etc.) as well as blanks for free hand responses. The church is hoping to use the feedback to help know how to better minister to people.

Lately I've looking over the responses trying to figure out how to turn hundreds of tear offs into meaningful information. It's really sobering and overwhelming to read page after page after page of the deep hurts that people are suffering.

I don't know how to sort out all of my thoughts, but here are a few:
  • The last couple nights have really impressed on me how tempting it is to use wealth to buy distractions rather than facing the hurts of those around us. Facing the hurts of the multitude around us is heart breaking, and it deeply challenges my faith that the gospel is the solution. There's no good answer to the question "What if Jesus isn't enough for the hurts around me?" Perhaps giants of the faith can face the hurt without doubt, but for me with my mustard seed sized faith, it's not that easy. And rather than grieve and weep and grow, it's easier to bury my head in the sand with entertainment, or perhaps picking a less daunting goal like defeating evolution, stopping global warming, or campaign finance reform.

  • We feel so alone and vulnerable, and so we don't share, and so we feel more alone and more vulnerable. Because we feel alone, we don't realize that others are also feeling alone and vulnerable, so we aren't kind and gentle with them, and so they feel more alone and more vulnerable and aren't kind or gentle with others either.

  • "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." I've been reflecting on this comment from Peter over the last week.

  • I finally figured out why overseas travel doesn't strongly appeal to me: It reminds me how weak and fragile I am in the world, and I'm reminded enough of that as I try and get through my life.