Category Archives: Faith

12. When Life Doesn’t Make Sense

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In my last post I expressed my belief that circumstances that seem hellish and horrible are sometimes part of God’s perfect plan.

Is this just wishful thinking?

As a certain Science Guy would say, consider the following.

The Bible is basically a story, an epic narrative woven of history and prophecy and poetry and one or two love songs. In the story of Scripture there are powerful examples of events that seemed utterly tragic, sickeningly futile and completely meaningless, but were used by God for good.

Job was a righteous and prosperous man who lost everything. His property was all stolen or burned to cinders. His children were killed. His body was racked with painful sores. His wife told him to curse God and die, his friends attacked him with false accusations—and God was silent. No matter how Job cried out in pain and confusion, his Maker did not answer.

The kingdom of Israel, God’s chosen people, built him a beautiful temple in the holy city of Jerusalem. They believed Israel, Jerusalem and the temple would last forever because God was with them. Then Israel split into two kingdoms, which bickered for centuries before suffering total defeat by the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Jerusalem was ruined. The temple was destroyed. God’s chosen people were scattered across the world, and his promises of a coming king and an everlasting kingdom seemed to have been broken.

The ragged descendants of Israel believed Jesus was going to fulfill ancient prophecies, break the power of Rome and establish a kingdom that would never end. Then Jesus was betrayed, condemned, humiliated, flogged and executed. The one whom they believed to be God’s own Son, in whom they had invested their lives, their hopes, their dreams, was dead.

It’s easy to look at these situations and see only the happy endings we know are coming. But the people who lived through these situations couldn’t see those happy endings. All they saw was hellish, painful, meaningless tragedy, and a God who seemed to have abandoned them.

What happened to them?

Job was finally answered by God, who restored Job’s family, fortune, health and happiness.

Many of the descendants of the Israelites became part of a greater kingdom, the Church, and watched as God’s promises began to be fulfilled in ways that surpassed their wildest dreams.

Jesus didn’t stay dead.

These tragedies, which seemed beyond even the remotest chance of redemption, were used by God to bring about comfort, peace, grace, salvation and hope.

If God could redeem those tragedies, he can certainly redeem mine. I don’t know why I had to suffer through my Thursday Afternoon of the Soul, but God knows. I see only a few scattered pieces; God sees the whole puzzle. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

11. My Thursday Afternoon of the Soul

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I hate it when life doesn’t make sense.

My life seems pretty reasonable most of the time. Sure, there are moments when I feel a little discouraged. But if I have a cup of tea and devote half an hour to a good novel or video game, I usually recover my cheerfulness and sense of humor.

Then there are times of darkness. Times when I’m suffocated by anxiety. Times when I’m too depressed to do anything but breathe. Times when the world seems broken, twisted and corrupted beyond all hope of redemption, recovery and repair. Times when life just doesn’t make sense.

Times of darkness are sometimes called Nights of the Soul. I personally don’t mind nights. If I’m depressed at night, I can go to bed and awake to a new day. When I was younger, however, I couldn’t stand Thursday afternoons. I was usually tired and discouraged on Thursday afternoons, when the week’s work had worn me out and the weekend seemed far away.

Although I’ve never had a Night of the Soul, I once suffered a horrible period of depression that lasted about a year and a half.

I call it my long, dark Thursday Afternoon of the Soul.

The worst thing about my Thursday Afternoon of the Soul was that nothing seemed to make sense. All I had to sustain me through anxiety and despair were a few dim memories of happier times. People around me were joyful and I couldn’t understand why. People around me were passionate about Jesus, and I was at a loss to understand how they could be so dashed cheerful about a God who seemed so far away and a faith that seemed so impossibly hard. Although I felt utterly unmotivated, I tried to justify myself by serving God in various ways—and failed. I failed over and over and over. And since it didn’t seem right to blame God for bad things, I blamed myself.

To wit, my Thursday Afternoon of the Soul was deuced awful.

(I was tempted to use much stronger language than deuced, but decided against it because my parents will probably read this post.)

I’m so thankful to God for bringing my Thursday Afternoon of the Soul to an end. I don’t know why he put me through it, but I know he had a good reason.

Is that naïve? Is it foolish to look for hope and meaning in circumstances that seem hopeless and meaningless?

I don’t think so.

Why not?

The answer is a little on the longish side, so it will have to wait until the next post.

9. I Can Do Everything through Him Who Gives Me Strength? Seriously?

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Just a few days ago two of my housemates discussed over lunch what sort of psychological breakdown I might have. One of them thinks I would ramble incoherently and gesticulate wildly for about ten minutes, then slip into a catatonic state while clutching a cup of tea. The other thinks I would focus all of my concentration on a Legend of Zelda game, emerging from my video game-induced stupor only to sip tea.

I was gratified that both of my housemates recognize my passion for tea, and sincerely hope I never have to find out which of their theories is correct.

The truth is that I felt uncomfortably close to breaking down yesterday. There was never any danger of a genuine psychological breakdown, but I felt more than once as though I’d reached the end of my strength. It’s not a nice feeling.

I’m student teaching at a local high school, teaching two regular classes and assisting in a classroom with at-risk kids. Teaching can be wonderfully fun and rewarding. It can also be terribly exhausting and stressful. I sometimes find myself thinking wistfully of becoming a manuscript editor or pursuing some other career that doesn’t involve classroom management.

I was walking to a classroom today when a familiar quotation came to mind: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” That’s dear old Paul, of course. It’s one of those verses from the New Testament I’ve heard so many times that I no longer think about it.

Today, however, I paused and thought about it. Paul lived a stressful life. He faced excruciating hardships: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.”

My student teaching suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.

Paul suffered so much pain and discomfort and stress. What did he have to say for himself?

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

Paul is writing about the Lord Jesus, of course.

It finally hit me today that I’ve been trying to do this thing on my own. I’ve been worrying about how I must survive the next six weeks and how I must teach these kids and how I must show them God’s love.

I don’t have to worry about the weeks and months and years ahead. I’m not alone. There is a secret to being content in any and every situation: I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. It’s not some sort of trite religious propaganda or esoteric spiritual mystery. I need to stop trying to handle everything on my own, and trust that God will help me when I can’t help myself.

That’s an obvious lesson, right? The problem with obvious lessons is that they’re so easy to forget.

The Lord told Joshua, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

It’s just as true for me today.

Do you know what else? It’s just as true for you today.

4. The Awful Problem of Pain

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It’s Friday, and one of my students began singing Rebecca Black’s “Friday” in class today, and it made me think of the problem of pain.

The existence of pain is probably my biggest doubt about Christianity.

If I weren’t a Christian, I think I’d be an atheist with the existence of pain as my chief weapon against crazy religious people. “How can you claim,” I would thunder, “that God loves everyone and is all-powerful if he lets thousands of innocent children starve to death every day? Your God lets religious hypocrites hurt people in his name. Your God just watches instead of doing something as men and women kill each other. How can you say he’s good and almighty? You can’t have it both ways, you crazy religious person!”

(I’m actually really glad I’m not an atheist, because I’m pretty sure I’d also be kind of a jerk.)

It would be awesome if every Christian received The Complete Compendium of Answers to Every Moral and Theological Question Ever. That way, when perplexed by the problem of pain, I could just turn to page 374 and read God’s authoritative answer to the question of why bad things happen.

However, Christians don’t have The Complete Compendium of Answers to Every Moral and Theological Question Ever. (The Bible is God’s Word, but—as many dissenting theologians can testify—it doesn’t answer certain questions.) We’ve had to study the Bible and reflect upon our own experience in order to come up some possible answers.

One possible answer has to do with free will. If God gives us free will, the ability to do whatever the deuce we want, we can choose to ignore his good instructions and wreak havoc on his creation. Another possible answer has to do with personal growth. We do tend to shine our brightest when we’re dealing with our tragedies—or helping others deal with theirs.

Whatever God’s reason for allowing pain in the world, one thing is clear. It’s a good enough reason that he didn’t hesitate to suffer because of it. Jesus Christ came into the world and endured not only an excruciating death but every other pain, humiliation and discomfort known to humankind, from the pain of rejection and betrayal among his friends to the minor nuisances of blisters and bad breath. The problem of pain didn’t deter Jesus.

These reflections are abstract, but I still find them comforting—most of the time. The real problem comes when someone else is suffering and wants to know why God lets it happen. What answers can be given to someone in pain?

“I know you’re hurting, but God loves you.”

“Where’s the proof of that?”

“I know you’re hurting, but this tragedy is making you a better person.”

“So God’s punishing me because I’m not good enough, is that it?”

“I know you’re hurting, but Jesus suffered too.”

“Why the heck should I care?”

“I know you’re hurting, but you can’t blame God for human error.”

“Just shut up.”

What’s the conclusion of the matter? Why does God allow pain and brokenness and Rebecca Black’s “Friday” to exist in the world?

I wish I knew.

2. Confessions of a Literary Snob

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I have a confession to make: I’m a literary snob. This wouldn’t be so bad if my literary judgments were confined to the Twilight books, but my snobbishness goes where even angels fear to tread.

Yes, I’m talking about modern worship music.

It’s Sunday morning. Having quaffed my morning coffee and dressed less shabbily than usual, I’ve come to church to worship God and learn from Scripture. But I look at the bulletin and feel a pang of annoyance.

The first song on the list: “How He Loves Us.”

I stifle a groan. Not “How He Loves Us.” Not again.

The song begins.

“He is jealous for me, love’s like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.”

Bending beneath the weight of his wind? What is that even supposed to mean?

“When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me.”

Dash it all, that’s got to be the worst poetry I’ve ever heard.

“So we are his portion and he is our prize, drawn to redemption by the grace in his eyes.”

That’s bad writing, but at least it’s coherent.

“If grace is an ocean we’re all sinking.”

That is not coherent. Drowning in an ocean doesn’t even come close to being an appropriate metaphor for divine grace.

“So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest.”

Something is turning violently inside me, but it’s not my heart. How exactly is heaven like a sloppy wet kiss? I haven’t seen such bad writing since Eoin Colfer likened sparks of magic to “mystical beavers repairing storm damage.”

Then, in a blinding instant, I realize I’m being a literary snob when I ought to be worshiping the Lord God Almighty.

Am I the only Pharisee guilty of literary snobbishness? Does anyone else have something to confess? Let us know in the comments!