glenna marshall

Church, You Must Do Better.

I had the privilege of speaking to a group of over one hundred pastors’ wives this week at a conference. In the weeks preceding the event, I had prayed much about what to share with this group of women.

I’ve been a ministry wife for over fifteen years, specifically a pastor’s wife for more than thirteen of those years. For a lot of reasons, it has been a difficult path. Rather than give a peppy message that glossed over the real trials of ministry, I spoke from James 5 and encouraged the women in patience and perseverance in difficult church ministry.

From the moment I began speaking about suffering in ministry, I could tell I’d struck a chord. Nodding heads, tears running down cheeks, vocal responses—this was a group of hurting women. Afterwards, I stood for nearly an hour and listened to woman after woman share what a difficult time she was having.

It’s with tears in my eyes that I share some of their responses with you. I share them anonymously because they can’t share them without recrimination.

  • “We’ve been at our church for six years. Every Sunday my husband preaches his heart out, but he’s so discouraged on Mondays he can barely get out of bed.” When I asked if he took off on Monday as many pastors do to rest and recuperate, she shook her head no and replied, “No, he had to take another job. We’ve never gotten a raise and in fact, they’ve lowered our salary over the years.” I scrambled for encouraging words while trying to digest this. She interjected, “But, we know the rewards are eternal, so we keep going. God will take care of us.”
  • “I’ve tried for four years to minister to the women in our church. We moved to this small community where they all know each other and are related. It’s like they don’t want to know me, and they don’t want me to know them. I feel like giving up.”
  • “We’ve been at our church for two years. We moved hours away from our families. We have no friends, no support, no growth, and no encouragement.” The tears on this woman’s face could not be stemmed. I gripped her hands and prayed right then with her for the Lord to provide some co-laborers to come along side them to support them and be for them in their ministry.
  • “I don’t know how to encourage my husband who is so discouraged when I am so discouraged myself. We can’t both be discouraged at the same time or we won’t make it.”
  • “I have teenagers. I can’t protect them from some of the horrible things that have happened to us in ministry. I’m afraid they’ll resent the church.”
  • “We’ve been at our church for thirty-four years. It’s constantly up and down. Things will go well for a while, and then it all falls apart. Then things get better and you think you’re past the worst of it. And then a time of suffering comes again, and you think, ‘Wait, I thought we were done with that.’ But the Lord perseveres us. We’re still here.” I commended this woman for her tenacity.
  • “I can’t go into what our ministry is like or I won’t be able to hold it together.” Her eyes were brimming with tears, and I could tell she was working hard to keep them at bay.

On and on it went. The conversations I had began to blend together. But the grief of betrayal, financial strain, and loneliness leaked down face after face until I reached the end of the line and hugged the last woman before leaving. I thought of them as I drove home to Missouri. As tired as I was from speaking and traveling, I laid awake in bed that night and worked through each conversation. I woke up at 3 a.m. and began praying for each woman I’d spoken to.

Church, we must do better with our pastors and their families.

I love being a pastor’s wife. I haven’t always felt that way, and sometimes trying to find equilibrium in ministry has felt impossible. Don’t misunderstand me–we gladly signed on to minister to the local church. It is a privilege to carry the burdens of our people and to walk next to them through their suffering, their joys, their sorrows, their fight with sin. There is no joy like witnessing someone come to saving faith in Christ and then watching their sanctification right before your eyes. We get to see miracles that others don’t.

But there are other parts of ministry that crush the pastor and his family. And they cannot tell you about it. They can’t post on Facebook about the couple they’ve met with for weeks who are on the cusp of divorce. Your pastor can’t announce from the pulpit that someone called him last week and raked him over the coals for something he forgot to do. Your pastor’s wife can’t share at Bible study about how budget cuts at church have made it impossible for her family to pay their bills.

In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel. 1 Corinthians 9:14

Your pastor and his wife struggle to carry the burdens and sins of the congregation because beneath it all are their own personal burdens and sins. Most of the time the burdens and sins are so tangled up and intertwined it’s impossible to separate the personal life from the church life. And if I’m honest, I wouldn’t want it any other way. It is an honor to be tangled up with the Body of Christ because that means that we’re knitted together as a family should be, even if the threads are messily knotted together.

That said, you’ll never know the full weight of discouragement your pastor and his family carry. To protect the sheep, they just can’t tell you. I can assure you, you have no idea the secret sorrows they struggle with every day.

So what’s to be done? As I looked into the weary faces of ministry wives this week, I was discouraged to discover that what should be an exception is too often the rule: your pastor’s family is struggling. I encouraged the ministry wives to love their people, to pray for them daily, and to saturate their own hearts with Scripture. I exhorted them to count the wins as often as possible. I told them to fix their gaze on the constancy of Christ, in the faithfulness of God who never changes—no matter how unpredictable church ministry is. Jesus is worth it. Ultimately, we serve the church for the sake of Christ and His gospel.

What should be an exception is too often the rule: your pastor’s family is struggling. Share on X

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.   1 Thessalonians 5:13-14

But, what I wanted to do was send a message to the home church of each woman in the room. I wanted to say this: Church, you must do better. Don’t make your pastor’s life harder than it has to be. Don’t double their burdens by forcing them to live below poverty level. Make sure they’re not just scraping by. Speak up for them—don’t assume that silent support is enough. It isn’t. Be a vocal co-laborer with them. Come alongside them and work with them so they know they’re not alone. Many of them have left all family and support to live in your community. You’re their family now. Don’t fight them at every turn. Extend grace for they are as imperfect and flawed as you are. See them as God’s gift to you, not your enemy. Encourage them often. Pray for them daily.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Hebrews 13:17

Your pastor will give an account for your soul one day, and not just yours but that of each of your fellow congregants. Understand the weightiness of that calling and seek to encourage your pastor in it rather than dragging him down with a list of his failures and imperfections.

This morning I received a private message from a retired pastor’s wife who said that when they finally left the ministry after decades of service, she felt like it was mostly a failure. Please encourage your pastor and his wife in the value of their work. God sees their labor, and it matters to Him. It should matter to all of us as it is for the good of our souls.

Therefore, my brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58

As I’ve reflected on the tumultuous years of our own ministry, I am grateful for my church. It hasn’t been easy, but the Lord has taught me to count the wins and to see the Body of Christ as His gift to me.

  • I’m thankful for the church member who sold some possessions and showed up on our doorstep with the proceeds because she wanted to help us pay for some hefty medical bills for one of our children.
  • I’m thankful for the church member who volunteered to keep our kids while my husband and I led worship at a local ministry endeavor. She showed up at 7:15 on a Saturday morning (her one and only day to sleep in), fed my children breakfast and lunch, washed my dishes, and folded three loads of laundry.
  • I’m thankful for the church members who take the time to text my husband after his sermon to share the ways the Scriptures encouraged, challenged, and convicted them.
  • I’m grateful for the couple who checks in every month to see how we’re doing, takes us out to eat (not something we can often afford), who asks thoughtful questions, and sees it as their job to be for us.
  • I’m thankful for the folks who use their gifts quietly and thoughtfully without adding to my husband’s responsibilities or mine.
  • I’m thankful for nursery volunteers that free me to use my gifts of music during corporate worship.
  • I’m grateful for the members who stay behind each week after our potluck and wash dishes while I have to rush home to put my toddler down for a nap.
  • I’m grateful for the growth of new believers as they sit under my husband’s preaching and learn to study the Word themselves.

We don’t serve for accolades or wealth or notoriety. In many ways, we expect ministry to be a hard calling and we are committed to it. But we sure are grateful for the members who treat us with grace and extend family affection to us. I hope you’ll consider if that’s how you’re treating your own pastor and his family.

For a larger cross-section of the ministry family’s struggles, please visit Thom Rainer’s site, and be sure to read the comments on posts regarding pastors and their wives.

Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash

Your Limping Matters

Fall has finally arrived here in rural Missouri where I live. The temperatures are dipping down near freezing at night, the leaves are beginning to blush with red and orange, and the sky is full of that autumnal blue that hurts your eyes with its clarity. The cotton fields behind our church building are ready to be harvested of their southern snow, and we are feeling the closeness of shorter days and longer nights.

Like most folks who live in climates where summer feels endless with its oppressive heat, humidity, and mosquitoes, I long for fall and the changes it brings. The changing of seasons is a gift from God, and the knowledge that man can’t change the earth’s orbit around the sun comforts me. I am not a fan of summer, and I love that no matter what–fall will come. The dependability of the created order reminds me that God is always in control.

As the leaves have begun to dry and crackle, I’ve struggled to pull myself out of a particularly dry spiritual season. The Scriptures are always rich, and while I’ve filled myself with them personally, in a study group setting, and in corporate worship, my heart has struggled to find the accompanying emotions I desire.

Life as a believer is like that sometimes, isn’t it? You’re doing all the “right” things, but you can’t seem to make your emotions catch up with the cerebral part of it. Loving the Lord with all your heart and soul feels as far-fetched as making the seasons change on a whim. What do we do when our hearts crackle with the dryness of the October leaves beneath our feet?

Don’t Abandon Your Disciplines

When you feel bored with your spiritual disciplines and church attendance, it’s tempting to throw in the towel or take a break. Surely something new will help, right?  Spiritual dry spells are difficult to explain, but the cure is never found in abandoning the daily expressions of faith in Christ like Bible intake, prayer, and gathering with other believers. You don’t need something new; you need to keep persevering in the old stuff. The Scriptures will always be what we need to nourish our faith and to hold fast to the Word. Regular investment in your local body of believers will always be one of the ways God sanctifies, encourages, corrects, and edifies you.

Paul writes in 1 Timothy that we should be nourished by the words of the faith and to train ourselves in godliness for the eternal benefit it brings (1 Tim. 4). Our hope is in God who has provided salvation in Christ. There isn’t another option for growing in holiness. We become what we behold, and in order to become more like Christ, we must continually fix our gaze on Him even (and especially) when we don’t want to. The author of Hebrews encourages us similarly to hold fast to our confession of hope by committing to the body of Christ so that we endure and do not draw back (see Heb. 10).

Don’t let your emotions or lack thereof dictate whether or not you’ll continue to fix your gaze on Christ. Love the Lord with your mind so that you can eventually love Him with your heart. If you wait to pray and read the Bible or attend church when your emotions tell you to, you might not come at all. When you feel dry and ready for a kind of spiritual hibernation to escape your lack of love, flip that inner monologue on its head and let Scripture inform your emotions, not the other way around. Here’s the thing about seasons: they’re seasons. And seasons change. You won’t be here forever. Take heart that another season will come along, but until it does, keep feeding your faithfulness with God’s Word and the encouragement of God’s people.

Know that Your Limping Matters

While I love fall, the bleakness of winter in the flat plains of southeast Missouri harbors very little beauty. We don’t get much snow, and there’s not a hill in sight. It’s a vast expanse of leafless trees and fields emptied of their crops. In winter, everything looks dead. But I know if I wait until spring, those stark, empty trees will carry a whisper of green that speaks of the life that’s been running through their limbs all winter. The miles of farmland will mist with the beginnings of next fall’s harvest, and we’ll know that what seemed dead was really just waiting for spring.

Perseverance and waiting are written into the natural order, and I think we can draw encouragement from the act of waiting. We might feel we’re limping through difficult seasons of suffering or the emotionless periods of apathy, but your limping really matters because the Lord is wringing perseverance out of you while you struggle through the obstacles to growth. It’s discouraging to feel like you’re fighting for growth you can’t see. But, one day, maybe ten years from now or thirty, you’ll look back at the gritty pressing forward you did during this season, and you’ll see how the Lord cultivated perseverance when you couldn’t see it. Keep pressing forward doing what you know and take confidence in the unseen work of God. Soak your dry heart in the Scriptures, pray with all your heart when you don’t want to, and find your place in the pew every time your church’s doors are open. One day the rain will come, the ice will thaw, and you’ll know the Lord was with you while you waited for the seasons to change.

Maybe ten years from now or thirty, you’ll look back at the gritty pressing forward you did during this season, and you’ll see how the Lord cultivated perseverance when you couldn’t see it. Share on X

John Calvin wrote “Indeed, most of us are so oppressed with weakness that we make little progress–staggering, limping, and crawling on the ground. But let us move forward according to the measure of our resources and pursue the path we have begun to walk. None of us will move forward with so little success that we will not make some daily progress in the way. Therefore, let us keep trying so that we might continually make some gains in the way of the Lord, and neither let us despair over how small our successes are.1”

Small successes are still successes. Growth is hard to measure up close, but over time you can see it. Jesus’ brother James said that “endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing” (1:4). Maturity in Christ might be born of the perseverance you learn when your heart resists but you obey anyway.

Know that God is Invested in Your Perseverance

When it comes to perseverance, you’re not left completely to your own devices. While we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, God is the One working in us (see Phil. 2:12-13) One day the Lord will “personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little (1 Peter 5:10).” We have been given everything we need in Christ, and the Lord will complete His work in you.

Keep stepping forward in the things that will feed your faith. Read your Bible. Pray. Meet with believers. Press on with your hope anchored in the One in whom all things hold together. Every changing season hinges upon His faithfulness.

1John Calvin. A Little Book on the Christian Life. p.16

 

Photo by Steven HWG on Unsplash

A Long, Short Walk

Ordinarily I wouldn’t take a walk in the heat of July through the neighborhood with my two-year-old. But yesterday that’s what I did as we practiced hand-holding no matter what and not running into the street. What began as a short three-block walk to donate books to the Little Free Library was in actuality a lesson in obedience. My son chattered the whole way, exclaiming over every bird, plant, and car we saw. His sweaty little hand stayed firmly clasped in mine, a miracle at this stage of his childhood and my parenting. I was teaching him to walk next to me, to stay close, to remain by my side at all times, hands clasped. There are too many cars, not enough stop signs, no “children-playing” warnings posted, and too much willful two-year-old determination. With continual reminders to keep holding my hand, my son did about as well as you might expect. Even when he wasn’t holding on to me, I was holding on to him. It was a long, short walk.

About halfway to the library, I noticed an elderly gentleman hunched down over one of those four-footed walkers with the tennis balls on the bottom of the legs. He was standing in his driveway while a caretaker, his son perhaps, looked on. In the span of time it took us to walk an entire block, the man took one step. One step. I watched as he worked repeatedly to lift his foot, put it down, lift his foot, put it down. In all that time, he only managed one small step. I could tell it was taking every ounce of concentration and strength to conquer the length of his short driveway. I’d never seen someone struggle so much with one step. He’ll be exhausted after this, I thought. I paused and watched from across the street. I know it was rude to stare, but I could not tear my eyes away from the man in his nineties fighting hard for a couple of small steps to the door. It was a long, short walk.

In his song, “Faith to Be Strong,” Andrew Peterson says that “This life is not long, but it’s hard.” When I think of the encouragement given to believers throughout the pastoral epistles, a similar sentiment rises from the pages: Jesus is coming soon, but you will suffer while you wait for Him. Be patient and hold fast to the gospel. Our lives may feel long with innumerable days stringing out in front of us, but in the limitless economy of God, our existence here on earth is just a whisper. A tiny, tiny breath. That said, if you have pneumonia or bronchitis, then even the tiniest breath hurts. A short existence does not protect us from suffering. While our path from salvation to glorification is a short walk, it might look a lot like fighting with all your might for one small step on the driveway.

In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul warns Timothy to flee from greed and false teaching. But rather than just running from something, Paul tells Timothy what to run toward.

“But you, man of God, run from these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, and gentleness. Fight the good fight for the faith; take hold of eternal life that you were called to and have made a good confession about in the presence of many witnesses. In the presence of God, who gives life to all and of Christ Jesus, who gave a good confession before Pontius Pilate, I charge you to keep the command without fault or failure until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Tim. 6:11-14

Perseverance in following Christ is a fight sometimes. We all have days when we don’t desire to read the Word or pray, and we certainly don’t want to strike up a conversation with someone about Christ. How awkward! We hope we’ll wake up tomorrow and feel differently but are discouraged when the morning doesn’t immediately produce fuzzy feelings or obvious spiritual growth. Paul’s encouragement applies. Press on. Keep fighting the good fight of faith. Hold fast to the confession of Christ. Paul gave similar words to Timothy in his second letter when he exhorted the young pastor to preach the gospel faithfully and persistently “whether convenient or not” (2 Tim. 4:2).

To be honest, there is not a lot about following Christ that is convenient. Following Christ faithfully pushes against our desire for convenience. Persisting in the faith requires us to, with the Lord’s help, kill our sin every single day. I don’t know about you, but it is never convenient to put my sin to death. It is an uphill fight all the way. It requires me to reject the easy paths of self-indulgence and gospel-hoarding for the treacherous road of denying self, taking up my cross, and following Jesus so I can hand out the gospel liberally. To keep doing this day after day until Jesus returns or calls me home–well, it is as rewarding as it is daunting. It’s a long, short walk up a ten-foot driveway.

Jesus tells us why following Him is worth every hard step: “If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it. What will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his life?” (Matt.16:24-26a). The result is life, real life. A life tethered to Christ on earth means real life with Him for eternity later. We may fight for every shuffling step of sanctification, but He will be with us, working in us and enabling us to keep taking those steps to know Him and make Him known.

We may fight for every shuffling step of sanctification, but He will be with us, working in us and enabling us to keep taking those steps to know Him and make Him known. Share on X
“Indeed, most of us are so oppressed with weakness that we make little progress–staggering, limping, and crawling on the ground. But let us move forward according to the measure of our resources and pursue the path we have begun to walk. None of us will move forward with so little success that we will not make some daily progress in the way. Therefore, let us keep trying so that we might continually make some gains in the way of the Lord, and neither let us despair over how small our successes are.” -John Calvin1

I don’t know what awaited the elderly man when we made it inside the house. A comfortable recliner and a nap, I hope. But we do know what awaits us as we move from justification to sanctification to glorification. It’s real life in the presence of God who has ordained every step and helped us persevere through the long, short walk of following Christ.

The way we press forward when the steps are especially hard, when our feet don’t want to comply, when our hearts are weary or cold–the way forward comes in staying close by our Savior’s side. It’s listening to His voice when we want to ignore it. It’s obeying His commands when we’d rather run out into the street of selfish desires. It’s trusting Him to protect our hearts even if following Him is not physically safe. It’s knowing that while we seek to hold fast to Him, He is securely holding fast to us. He is both the source of and the reason for our perseverance.

 “Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good reserve for the age to come, so that they may take hold of life that is real” (1 Tim. 6:18-19).

 

1John Calvin, A Little Book on the Christian Life. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2017) 16.

Photo by Esther Tuttle on Unsplash

Is it Sinful to Live in the Past?

I was juggling housework and a very energetic two-year-old yesterday morning when the phone rang. My friend on the other end, also dealing with a little one, had called with a very specific question about suffering and sin. As I’ve mulled it over, I decided to address her question publicly (with her permission).

She asked me, “Is it sinful to live in the past, even when the past wasn’t a result of poor choices but difficult circumstances not of our choosing?”

It’s a loaded question, really, and I told my friend that. When you dig into the root issues, you’re talking about God’s sovereignty and the problem of evil which are not easily explained in one blog post. And yet, there are some passages of Scripture that came to mind immediately when I considered whether or not it was sinful to dwell on a past marked by suffering. Specifically, I thought of Job and the apostle Paul.

If you’ve read my writing for very long, you know that I frequently address the topic of suffering. In one calendar year, we experienced a nearly failed adoption, the death of my grandmother, my persistent struggle with chronic illnesses, and my mother’s brain tumor and subsequent brain surgery. Because I’m a writer, I wrote about these difficulties as a way to both process and find hope. I shared them with you to help you connect the sufferings of your own life to what is true about God as revealed in Scripture. It’s the primary reason I write: to remind you to let Scripture inform your suffering, not the other way around. So often we work backwards, letting our circumstances dictate what is true about the character of God, which aids only in making God in our own image. What I hope to accomplish with my writing, speaking, and music is to point you to the Word of God first so that you can rightly view your hardships through a biblical lens that explains how God can be good, even in our suffering. Essentially, let’s let God tell us who He is. That said, I believe there are two thoughts to bear in mind when we consider our past sufferings.

The Past Can Serve Us 

My years of living with chronic pain and infertility are the vehicles I use to tell the story about God’s kindness and sovereignty, but they are just that: vehicles. The main story I tell is the one about God that comes from His Word, and the truth of the gospel must pierce every part of my testimony or else I’m just a resounding gong bemoaning the hard things that have happened to me. I’m not that unique; hard things happen to everyone. So, here is where I believe that my past experiences can serve as a place of ministry. When I stand at a podium and talk about how difficult it was to rock a baby to sleep every night for months without knowing if I could keep him, I share the ways my heart felt like broken shards of glass so that I can highlight how the faithfulness of God put all those pieces back together. When I write about the years that I cried out to the Lord for healing because of the disastrous effects of physical pain, I do so to explain how the Lord’s presence and the ministry of His Word persevered me through even the darkest nights of body and soul. The past experiences are merely the touch points for liberally handing out the greatest comfort, which is the truth of God’s unchanging, purposeful nature as seen in Scripture.

“…for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstance I have learned the secret of being content–whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)

I want to be able to say with Paul that I’ve learned contentment in every circumstance. I’m not there yet by a long shot, but with each round of small sufferings I’ve learned that when contentment is found in Christ, then the treasure is not so much the end of specific sufferings but rather His constancy in the midst of them. He is the treasure. In this way, our sufferings serve us as ways to recount God’s past faithfulness to us. You see this pattern in Scripture frequently. The psalmists often structured their songs about suffering by beginning with despair and ending in praise. How did they make this shift? The key is that they nearly always called to mind the past faithfulness of God in order to believe in His future faithfulness. The Psalms are rich with a beautifully relatable pattern of panicking about circumstances, lamenting what has happened, remembering God’s past faithfulness, and resolving to trust Him because of that past faithfulness. I don’t believe the psalmists are “living in the past,” but rather, are allowing the constancy of God’s goodness in the past help them to persevere through present and future sufferings.

The act of remembering God’s past faithfulness is one of the recurring themes of Scripture I’ve noticed in my Bible reading over the past few years, and I believe the practice is meant to remind us who God is as we are bent toward disbelief. Or, in the case of suffering or hardships, we’re bent to let those things tell us what is true about God. Remembering God’s past faithfulness must be done by knowing Him as He’s revealed Himself to us in Scripture and looking for the ways He’s kept His Word in our past difficulties. In this way, I believe we can safely allow our past hurts to highlight God’s goodness to us and give us a place of ministry to those who are currently suffering. It’s incredibly important to keep God as the hero of His story and yours to prevent what I believe can be the sinful aspect of “living in the past.”

The Past Can Enslave Us

There is nothing more annoying than listening to someone recount all the ways they’re victimized by their circumstances. Our culture feeds this self-entitled worldview by liberally spooning out the lies that we are basically good and therefore undeserving of anything bad that happens to us, even the consequences of poor or sinful choices. Here again, we must let Scripture inform the way we think about even the most basic of truths about humanity: the heart is desperately wicked and there is no one who is good or who seeks God (Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:10-12).

Sometimes we suffer at the hands of our own sinfulness or at the hands of others. Sometimes we suffer because of our commitment to Christ. And sometimes we suffer and never know why. It is this last one that my friend was addressing in her question. Suffering that seems arbitrary is hard to swallow. I think of Job, who never knew what was behind the catastrophes that shattered his life. And yet, I am thankful for the account of Job’s suffering in Scripture because we are taught how to process suffering that we cannot understand or categorize.

The Job replied to the Lord: “I know that You can do anything and no plan of Yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this who conceals My counsel with ignorance?’ Surely I spoke about things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…Therefore I take back my words and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:1-3, 6)

What was most comforting to Job in the end was not the cessation of his suffering but the strong, bold statements about the character of God–His wisdom, His authority, His universal sovereignty, even and especially in Job’s suffering. I wouldn’t say that Job “lived in his past,” but he let his experiences serve as a vehicle to grapple with what was true about God.

“Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead. I pursue as my goal the prize promised by Go’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Therefore, all who are mature should think this way.” (Philippians 3:12-15a)

Paul suffered a lot for his relentless preaching of the gospel, but I don’t see him as a victim of his past. Rather, I see a man who recounts them as a way to talk about the prize of pursuing Christ wholeheartedly. He presses forward for the treasure of Jesus, for maturity in the faith, for a citizenship anchored in heaven. The difference between living as a victim of your circumstances and rejoicing in them is again viewing God as the hero of the story. When we prop up ourselves as the heroes of our own stories, we count our sufferings as undeserved and unjust which puts us at odds with both God’s position of authority and sovereignty. Rather, I believe we should recognize that whatever God allows into our lives has first been filtered through fingers that are threading together a tapestry of redemption that we cannot fathom. Our sufferings may seem arbitrary at times, but what we don’t see is the way God may use them to display the power of the gospel to a watching a world. Avoiding self-victimization begins with trusting a good, sovereign God with our suffering. Maturity grows from the recognition that we’ve been taken hold of by Christ, not our sufferings.

Remembering God’s Faithfulness or Recounting My Miseries?

As people of the cross, the challenge lies in recounting God’s faithfulness in our past, rather than dwelling on how we felt about our suffering. Like most of our struggles as sojourners longing for our better country, we must challenge our feelings with the truth of Scripture. We miss the ways God has worked things for our good when we dwell on our miseries rather than His good purposes.

We miss the ways God has worked things for our good when we dwell on our miseries rather than His good purposes. Share on X

So is it sinful to live in the past? It can be if we allow ourselves to be enslaved to a victim mentality. In so doing, we miss the way our past sufferings can serve as a rich palette for painting a picture of the Scriptural truths about God’s unending, faithful goodness to us. But we must first endeavor to see Him as both the treasure and the hero of our past, present, and future.

 

Photo by Moritz Schumacher on Unsplash

Recommended reading: Future Grace: the Purifying Power of the Promises of God by John Piper

5 Tools for the Christian Struggling with Anxiety

I knew when I turned out the light that I would be up in a couple of hours.

I could feel the unsettling burning in my stomach. I was tired enough to fall asleep quickly, but when the clock read 2:30 a.m, I was predictably awake with a pounding heart, sweat-soaked pajamas, and a brain firing every neuron in my head that’s labeled with anxious thoughts. I knew better than to just lie there. I kicked off the too-warm covers and slipped out of bed quietly. I roamed the dark house, pausing for a drink of water to quell the quivering in my belly. I stood by the window, blinking against the darkness, fingers pressed against the cold glass. This is real, I whispered. Not the fear standing in my peripheral vision. 

I checked on my kids, adjusting blankets and stuffed animals. I sat on the couch with the lamp on and breathed long, slow breaths. In. Out. I picked up a book. Put it down. Paced the living room restlessly. Prayed for the messy tangle of suffocating thoughts to loosen and still. An hour later, I climbed back into bed still unknotting my compulsory thoughts and reminding myself of the realness of the blanket in my hands, of the sleeping man lying next to me.

Like most of my anxiety attacks, there was no one reason for my panic. My anxiety doesn’t usually stem from a particular event or hovering fear. It happens without a nameable reason, without a clear indication of why. I know that my brain and my hormones are working against me–sometimes as the result of poor food and drink choices from the day before, sometimes because of an overly filled calendar, and sometimes as a result of nothing I can trace or understand.

The first few episodes I ever had presented themselves when my autoimmune disease woke up right before I turned thirty. I’ll be battling the brokenness of my body until the day I see Jesus face-to-face. I see the dysfunction of my frail flesh as a result of Eve’s first disobedient bite in the dimming beauty of Eden. Not that I blame her, of course. I would have tasted it, too. You’d have found me by the tree, hands sticky with guilt, stomach churning in the repercussive knowledge that I had done the one thing I shouldn’t. So, no, I don’t blame Eve as much as I blame the general effects of sin. It doesn’t matter much, anyway. Jesus covered all the blame at the cross.

Because the consequences of a broken body still pulse through my veins at a pace that makes it hard to breathe sometimes, I’ve had to develop some coping mechanisms. It’s difficult as a Christian to admit that I struggle with anxiety, but this discussion can help remove the stigma that anxiety is merely a lack of faith. You can read my first public writing about anxiety here.

While I can’t cure my anxiety, there are things I do that can help. Since I only have anxiety attacks at night, my tools for coping are things that I do at night to still the whirling mass of tangled thoughts.

5 Tools for the Christian Struggling with Anxiety

 

1) Utilize grounding techniques.

Grounding is a way of helping your brain draw a line between what is real and imagined. My anxiety isn’t usually founded on one cause; it spins from nothing I can name. Even when anxiety stems from real concerns or fears, panic attacks blow those concerns out of their logical margins. So, while my thoughts are swirling like a storm of static and white noise in my head, I orient myself with what’s real.

This means I need to get out of bed as soon as it starts. I walk around my house, touching objects–the dining room table, the living room windowpane, the kitchen counter. I force my mind to slow down by naming things and what I associate with them. “This is the dining room table, and it is real. It’s warped in the middle where my son banged on it with a fork repeatedly one night at dinner. Remember when we covered the table with newspapers and painted pumpkins here at Halloween?” This little practice forces my brain to tell a story, which is how it likes to work. It makes the spinning stop for a minute, helping me to disassociate from the foggy panic.

 

2) Ground yourself in the gospel.

I call this my “Christian grounding technique.” This is when I run through the truths of the gospel to remind myself what is true, what my brain and heart believe the most. It’s the anxious person’s creed.  I believe that God made me, loves me, sent Jesus to save me. Jesus died for my sin and for all my weaknesses, even for this moment now when I’m afraid of what I cannot name. He is with me right now, He is always with me. He will not abandon me in my anxiety. This is a good time to turn on a lamp and open to the Psalms. This is when you read words of truth to combat the lies in your head, and you do it until you’re sleepy enough to return to bed.

Sometimes I am hesitant to get back into bed for fear that the spinning in my head will start back up. I have a few Scriptures that I have memorized for this very thing. I recite them until I fall asleep. The simple act of reciting something from memory forces my mind to stop what it’s doing and do something else. Additionally, I’ve found it helpful to pray through the list of things I usually pray through during my morning Bible study hour. I’ve been praying through that list for years, so I have it memorized which gives me something else to dwell on when I’m lying in bed trying to rest after a fight with anxiety.

Here are a few of my go-to verses:

I will both lie down and sleep in peace for You alone, Lord, make me to dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8)

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. (Psalm 46:1-3)

 

3) Prepare ahead of time.

The prayer list and Scriptures verses are things you want to have on hand in preparation for an anxiety attack. Begin memorizing a few verses now so you’ll have them ingrained in your head and heart when you really need them. Fill your mind with good things, as we’re instructed in Philippians: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you” (4:8-9).  Read books that assure you of God’s sovereignty, listen to sermons that preach gospel truth every week, make it a priority to be active in your local church.

As a musician, I find music to be a very soothing way to calm my heart (and pretty much to express every emotion I can conjure up!). Here’s my personal playlist for times of anxiety. This is another way to fill yourself with good, true things.

 

4) Avoid potential triggers and guard your heart.

Though my anxiety attacks aren’t often rooted in any one specific issue, there are things I’ve discovered that can trigger a nighttime episode. So, while I do some proactive things to help me fight anxiety, there are also things I avoid. Lots of processed food, sugar, too much caffeine or alcohol, and certain brands of cold medicine are all things that can trigger an anxiety attack. Similarly, too much of the wrong kind of stimuli in the evening can also be potential triggers. I do not ever watch violent television, I don’t consume certain types of disturbing books or shows, and I try to shut down my screen time at least thirty minutes before bed. Reading before bed is a habit I’ve had since childhood, and I find it is something my mind and body need to rest without excessive waking. Be mindful of what you are using to fill your mind and heart. And for some of you it might not quality of stimuli as much as it is a quantity.

 

5) Ask for help.

If my anxiety becomes unbearable, more present, or is accompanied by depression I will see a medical professional as soon as possible, and I would encourage you to do the same when you feel like you need help. Broken bodies sometimes need medical assistance. There is no shame in that. See your doctor to talk about your issues.

But don’t stop there, either.

I’ve found anxiety to be both a physical and spiritual issue because as a believer, everything in my life is bound up in my relationship with Christ. Talk to your spouse, a friend, a pastor, a Bible study group, and ask for prayer. There is no shame in that, either. If having a weakness like anxiety is embarrassing to you as a believer, take heart in knowing the Lord’s grace is more than sufficient for you because in your weakness, He is strong. There is a stigma in the Christian community about having anxiety, but there shouldn’t be. If anxiety reveals your need for the Lord every minute of every day, then learn to be grateful for the thorn in your flesh even as you pray to be released from it. Paul’s story in 1 Corinthians 12 of persevering in weakness should be encouraging to us all.

When it comes down to it, Christian, anxiety tethers us to our brokenness. We long for our real home where our true citizenship lies, and one day we will be absolutely free of fear, panic, and pain. While you wait, view your anxiety as a means by which you learn to lean hard on the vast strength of the Lord. Train your heart to trust Him during the day so that you can remember to trust in Him in the night. In so doing, you’re creating spiritual muscle memory.

And above all, remember that He is with you. When you feel like your thoughts are stretched so tight they might snap, He is with you. When your heart won’t slow its pace, He is with you. When you’re afraid of what you cannot name, He is with you. When you ask for help, He is with you. When you can’t stop the white noise from grabbing your every thought, He is with you. When you plead with Him to be near, He is with you.

When you feel alone in the dark with your fear, the Lord is with you. 

When you feel alone in the dark with your fear, the Lord is with you. Share on X

 

*Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. As with any mental or physical health issue, please talk with your health team.
Photos by Ben Blennerhassett and Lorna Scubelek on Unsplash

The Strongest Thread

It was mid-October a year ago when my mom had brain surgery to remove a tumor from her left frontal lobe. Hovering over the place where her speech and emotions live, the tumor had grown quickly enough to cause a seizure and lost time. I remember how nervous we were when it all happened on a night nobody expected, how my mom and I laid in the hospital bed together and tried to piece together what her recovery would be like. And then there was the surgery, the good report, the way we sat quietly waiting for enough hours to pass to see what the side effects might be.

I remember how my dad and my aunt and I all slept in the CCU waiting room, and how one really doesn’t sleep in a waiting room but waits while pretending to sleep. I remember the woman sitting next to me and the odd way she talked to herself while trying to get comfortable on the teal vinyl chair for the night. Her teenage son had overdosed the night before. There was a family in another corner of the overnight waiting room whose patriarchal member was suddenly diagnosed with late stage esophageal cancer, and I remember my aunt, a former ICU nurse, telling me his prognosis was poor. I remember how we lined up, all of us, at the doors of the ICU and waited for the nurses to buzz us in during visiting hours. What brave smiles we all wore, and how we took any little sign of improvement as proof that all would be well. There was that lady whose husband had had a massive stroke. “They told us he said a few words!” she said with a beaming smile. It was unlikely that he would walk again, but he had said a word or two, and that was enough for hope and resilience to blossom on her face.

The man in the room next to my mom’s never had a visitor.  I thought about sitting in his room and praying for him while he slept. I wish that I had. I don’t know why I didn’t. I will never forget his brown toes peeking out from beneath the sterile hospital blanket. Someone give him some socks, I kept thinking. He needs some socks.

During visiting hours a couple of classical violinists came and played hymns for the ICU patients, and I stood there by the nurse’s desk with tears in my eyes, the non-patient who didn’t know how to reconcile all the hope and grief living in that hospital corridor.

Less than a week later, I sat outside with my mom on the deck behind her house. I made some spiced tea for us, the Tennessee weather cooling off while we sat and watched the squirrels empty the backyard bird-feeder of its contents. I pretended to read but really I just watched my mom. She looked anxious. Do you want a book or a magazine, I asked her. No, she said, adjusting the headscarf I’d bought for her to wear post-surgery. She picked up her phone and then set it down without looking at it. No, I’m just trying to organize my thoughts. They’re always going off in weird directions. I can’t catch them.

We watched TV, she slept a lot, my dad and I cataloged every strange thing she did and googled “brain surgery recovery” when she wasn’t looking. There wasn’t a lot to recovery besides waiting and worrying and praying.

When I traveled home to my husband and kids in Missouri, I tried to process all that had happened that week, that month, that year. I couldn’t remember a harder year. And yet, my mother is fine. Healthy, thriving, nothing to remind us much of a brain surgery or the weeks of wondering what our family would look like when it was over. I sent her a text yesterday: Happy brain tumor removal anniversary!

Last week I dreamed of my grandmother. She died nearly two years ago in January. We buried her right after a snowstorm. In my dream she was exactly the way I remember her best—before Alzheimer’s, before she stopped speaking, before she didn’t know us, before she shrank down to the final version of her earthly self. In the middle of a night last week she was laughing the way she did when she squinted her eyes and showed all her teeth, as if she knew the joke was on her and she was glad to be laughing about it. That’s the way I remember her, the version that shows up in my dreams from time to time and reminds me that maybe she’s laughing that big in heaven with Jesus, but the joke is clearly on us because we’re not there to see her tuck her chin down and laugh with her eyes closed. When I dream of her, I always feel happy but wake up with a knot in my throat.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been remembering and writing. In some ways, I thought writing a book would be easy. It’s just communicating what’s true. How hard can it be? Turns out, it involves a lot of sitting in front of my laptop and watching my tears puddle on the table. I have unspooled the thread of my life to examine all the ways God has been near, and it has left me breathless with thankfulness. There is a good portion of loss, a surprising amount of grief. But there is so much grace that I could never find a vessel large enough to contain it.

I have wondered why at times the Lord allowed certain grief and at other times only brushes with it. Why did my mother leave the ICU with a full recovery ahead of her but the man next door was unlikely to wake up? Why do we have thirteen years of infertility attached to our histories? Why do my husband, sister, and I all have lifelong chronic illnesses? Why did we get to keep our son? Why did my grandmother suffer from Alzheimer’s cruel grip for more than six years? Why didn’t we get fired from church ministry a decade ago? Why am I sitting here free from physical pain when my life used to be characterized by it?

Why are some days suffering and others grace?

Why is it so hard sometimes to tell the difference between the two?

It’s good to lay out the past and remember where you’ve been. In detailing the gifts and griefs and the blurry line between the two, I find one constant. The steadfast love of the Lord is the thread that stitches together my past, present, and future. He’s sewing something beautiful, something that’s connected to a much larger tapestry. It’s hard to trace the pattern. I can’t even see it most days. But I know He’s pulling together the threads of joy and suffering in your life and mine, and He’s continuing the story He planned before anything existed. On the days when the thread looks frayed and faded or maybe pulled so tight it could snap in two, this is when we remember that the One who’s weaving together our future has never lost a thread, never dropped a stitch, never made a mistake. His story will be good no matter what, and He will use the pattern that draws our eyes to the unifying thread the most. He will use what will keep our eyes attentive to His presence and His steadfastness the most.

Maybe it involves long nights in a hospital waiting room, or maybe months making trips to a cancer treatment center. Maybe the pattern includes a pregnancy test that just won’t turn positive. Or a loneliness that presses your chest with grief every day of your life.

Sometimes the pattern feels like the wrong one. Wrong design, Lord. Pick another template. I’ve said as much to Him before. This was not a good plan, Lord. I would have done it differently. But my plans would never have involved me laying face down on the floor in my living room pleading with the Creator of the universe to be near to me. So, I never would have seen Him answer that prayer in a thousand different ways if not for the grief and pain that put me on the floor in the first place. I think it comes down to what dictionary I’m using to define good.

Here’s what I know: the Lord never withholds what is good from His children (Ps. 84:11). He will never keep from us anything that would have been for our good. He even uses what is evil or broken for good because He is the Redeemer (Gen. 50:20, Rom. 8:28). If He has said no to some dreams or ended other ones, it is because He has seen the finished project and knows the way the seams should run. We can trust the One who designed the pattern. When He seems to be withholding good things, He’s giving us everything we need. When He closes a chapter, He’s giving us everything we need.

It’s Him, friends. What we need is always Him, and He always meets that need.

His love is high and deep and wide. It fills in the thin places where our doubts about His goodness thrive. When I look back at the story He’s written thus far, I know I can trust Him with the parts I haven’t read yet. His nearness, the way He has loved us with His nearness—it is the constant. It is the thread that holds it all together.

During the days of my mother’s brain tumor diagnosis and surgery, she and I came to study Psalm 139:5 separately. Neither of us knew that the other one was holding tightly to the same verse.

“You hem me in, behind and before, and You lay Your hand upon me.”

I can’t think of a more assuring promise than to know that the Lord has completely surrounded us with Himself.

There is no stronger, more binding thread.

 

 

 

 

Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash

There’s Blessing in the Longing

I want to run away from these words.  I hit “publish” so you wouldn’t feel alone when your hopes rise and fall in a tumble of confusing might-have-beens.

It’s embarrassing to admit after thirteen years of one-lined tests that sometimes I still find myself entertaining a glimmer of hope that my situation might change. It’s a small hope, nearly nothing really. But that doesn’t seem to matter. It will still swell and grow and cloud my memory of the way things have always been. I spent a week wondering if maybe everything I’d fought to squelch down over the past decade would find room to breathe in the way of Sarah or Rachel. Hannah. Elizabeth. Every alarm went off in my head—don’t do it. Don’t unlock that door. Hope doesn’t live there.

But I did it anyway. And now I’ve added an extra padlock to the door because the answer was no. The answer is always no. And deep down, I know that the answer will likely always be no because for some reason I cannot fathom, God is more glorified this way, in this continual no. I pressed down the feeling of disappointment as I tucked my kids into bed last night. There’s no reason or room for complaining here in this house where we tuck in our answered prayers with comforting regularity.

I just wanted to see You do it, I told the Lord later when I climbed into bed. I turned this way and that trying to find a position that lessened the familiar grip of physical pain clenching my lower back. It’s not that You can’t. I know You can. Why wouldn’t You do it? It’s not like it’s hard for You. I just wanted to see You do it.

How can a thirteen-year-old wound still reopen with such presence? I thought it was closed up tight. Most of the time it is. So when it opens after such a long time, I’m caught off guard by the way it rubs against my faith. I’m surprised that the remembered pain is just exactly the way it feels now. I turned over on my side and wedged a pillow between my knees to relieve the pressure of a painful back spasm that, to be honest, hurt a lot less than the ache in my heart. I turned out the light and prayed for sleep to come before the sadness swallowed me whole.

Morning dawned gray but not without mercy. I sat on the couch during the early morning hours with my coffee cup and my Bible. I pondered the words of Paul as I read all the way through Ephesians. I pictured him writing from jail. His chains were for our good, he said, and he was right. We needed him to sit in jail and pen the words about who we used to be before Jesus made our hearts new. We needed him to sit in one place and encourage us to be who we are, who we really are in Christ. Like his original readers, we need the reminder that God has given us Himself and that He is always enough.

Maybe the tears on my face haven’t dried up just yet. Maybe the no still stings as much at thirty-six as it did at twenty-four. Maybe the Lord’s path for me will never include the thing I only pray for when I think no one is looking. Maybe a year from now I’ll still feel disappointed in the no. Maybe.

But this I know to be true: God has blessed me with a lot of physical blessings as well as  every spiritual blessing. He has lavished His love upon me. He has breathed life into my dead body and resurrected my dead heart. He has secured my inheritance.

He withholds no good thing from His children, He says (Ps. 84:11). So how does that measure up when the good things I’ve longed for still go missing? If He had satisfied my every physical longing with every physical blessing, I might not feel the hollowness inside, might not learn to name it. Having every desire met might distort my vision of what it is I need. It might keep me from seeing just how much I need Him. Him. The Giver, not the gifts.

There’s blessing in the longing.

I feel like that’s the most upside-down sentence I’ve ever written, so I’ll say it again to make sure I believe it: There’s blessing in the longing.

Longing reminds me that the things I want in this life are unlikely to fill my heart. Good things, even, can turn my heart away from loving Christ the most. If their absence requires me to keep cracking open this heart of mine before the Lord and letting Him tell me what’s most important, then let them be absent. If it keeps sending me back to the Word for what I need the most, let the test always carry a single line.

There is blessing in the longing, it’s true. Oh, it hurts like someone’s bulldozed your imagined future until all that’s left is rubble and chaff. It hurts. But the ache, the longing, the desire for something to be sealed up is an internal reminder that what we long for the most is the One who spoke our very lives into being.

It’s always been Him beneath the ache. It will always be Him.

There is blessing in the longing, it’s true. Oh, it hurts like someone’s bulldozed your imagined future until all that’s left is rubble and chaff. It hurts. But the ache, the longing, the desire for something to be sealed up is an internal reminder that what we long for the most is the One who spoke our very lives into being. It’s always been Him beneath the ache. It will always be Him.

I don’t know what your heart is longing for today. I kind of hate the fact that the things I think I’ve conquered can pull me back to a place of mental reorganization. I slide the file labeled “infertility” back to its corner, hoping I don’t have to pull it out anytime soon. Maybe you feel that way about the thing you’ve just thought of without even trying. Didn’t take long to conjure up that void, did it?

Here’s the good news: it’s not really a void. It’s a reminder.

Paul says in Ephesians 3 that because of Jesus’ work at the cross we “may be filled with all the fullness of God.” So you see, it’s not really a void. Unmet desires make it feel like a void, but you can’t be empty when you’re filled with the fullness of God.

No, you can’t be empty when you’re filled with the fullness of God.

No, you can’t be empty when you’re filled with the fullness of God.  Share on X

 

 

Photo by pan xiaozhen on Unsplash

Future Discipleship Part 2: God’s Part in Our Perseverance

When my husband and I first settled into rural church ministry twelve years ago, I was a little unprepared for the pace of life offered by the farming community where we had made our new home. We had left a much larger college town buzzing with traffic and commutes, a life where I’d had a job and goals and lots of church commitments. My first few months as a pastor’s wife in a small town surrounded by farmland was an education in listening and learning the rhythms of life in a small church in a small town.

Those days taste of summer in my memory. We moved into the church parsonage during the sweltering heat of July; a few neighbors and church members introduced themselves with offerings of local produce, sweet corn being the preeminent housewarming gift of choice.

My young pastor-husband chose to take our congregation through the prayers of the apostle Paul during mid-week prayer services that first summer in Southeast Missouri—a gesture of hope from a twenty-seven-year-old seminary graduate to his new flock. What has stayed with me from those warm summer evenings at church are the sincere prayers of the church members whose names we were just learning. Most significant at the time were plaintive petitions for rain, of all things. In the humility that comes from knowing one can do nothing about the weather was a significant sincerity in those requests for rain for the crops. These weren’t merely general blanket prayers for a reprieve from summer’s heat. These were genuine prayers stemming from love and concern for one another: there were farmers in the congregation. While I listened to the prayers of these people I barely knew, I began to understand what they believed about God. Our prayers offer an overview of our theology, and the habit of praying together is a disarming way to get to know someone.

 

He will do the work of perseverance while we do the work of persevering

 

I’ve been studying Ephesians 1 over the last couple of weeks, and surprisingly I got stuck in Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church family in verses 15-19 (that’s not normally where people get stuck in chapter 1, by the way). I felt a pull to stay here for a few days:

This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray the that God our our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the perception of your mind may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.

Ephesians 1:15-19 (HCSB)

Paul prayed that God would enlighten the eyes of the believers in Ephesus so they would understand the richness of God and grasp the following:

1) the hope of God’s calling

2) the glorious riches of His inheritance

3) the immeasurable greatness of His power

Paul’s prayer teaches us a lot about God.

What kept me in this short pastoral prayer was the integral involvement of God in each layer of Paul’s petition. These gifts Paul prays for: hope of the calling, riches of inheritance, greatness of power all seem to be mentioned and prayed for in order to encourage the Ephesian believers to continue in the faith by remembering Who is behind it. They could function as Christians because of the hope they have in God’s calling on their lives unto salvation, they could set their eyes on things above when they remembered that they belong to God, and they would be able to persevere because of the immeasurable greatness of God’s power.

God’s calling, God’s inheritance, God’s power. But all bestowed upon His people by Him because He is faithful to persevere His children to completion. The hope of God’s calling them to faith in Christ (discussed earlier in chapter 1), the glorious riches of belonging to God as His inheritance with the guarantee of a future with Him forever (1:13), and God’s immeasurably great power on which the believer can lean according to the working of His vast strength. In his commentary on Ephesians, Peter T. O’Brien says that “the Christian growth of [Paul’s] readers, as well as the furtherance of [Paul’s] own ministry of the gospel, is wholly dependent upon the living God, who gives generously to His children when they call upon Him in prayer.”*

Paul’s prayer also tells us about God’s part in our perseverance.

In my last post I made the point that our daily Bible intake functions as a sort of deposit for our future discipleship. What our hearts are absorbing now from the Scriptures will equip us for the future. I believe that with all of my heart, and I’ve known it to be true in my own life. Equally true is the possibility that we will be ill prepared for suffering when we’ve ignored the call to spend time with the Lord, when we’ve avoided meeting Him in His Word. I believe that to be true because I’ve lived it, unfortunately.

That said, we shouldn’t approach personal Bible study as a formula with which to conquer all the hard knocks life may offer us. Delving into our sacred text is not done for the sake of acquiring knowledge to win an argument or for turning passages into some kind of scriptural talisman with which to shield ourselves from suffering. Our goal in opening our Bibles is always to know God and to make Him known. Perseverance is born from that. Hope is born from that. Security, assurance, help, healing, love, wisdom—these things come in time spent knowing our God, but they come under the umbrella of knowing Him first and foremost. They are fringe benefits, so to speak. Considerable, weighty, lavishly given fringe benefits that are necessary for our growth as believers, but ultimately they stem from first staring intently at the character of God.

He is the one who pulls our hearts to faith, who promises His presence continually (and keeps good on that promise continually). He is the one who holds up our chins and reminds us that He will do this thing. He’s already done it, really. He will do the work of perseverance while we do the work of persevering. It’s Him working in us, according to His vast, vast strength. It’s a kindness that He involves us at all. After all, what is man that He is mindful of him, the son of man that He looks after him? (Ps. 8:4)

He will do the work of perseverance while we do the work of persevering. Share on X

The Author and Sustainer of life has made sure to bend low with reliable regularity to persevere us through suffering, through trials, through temptations. He has guaranteed His work on the cross. Why wouldn’t we endeavor to know Him daily? Why wouldn’t we get up each morning to pile up reminders of His involvement in our sanctification for the days that dawn bleak with doubt? Why wouldn’t we dwell on His faithfulness now when we will always need to be reminded of it?

The pastoral prayers in the New Testament always remind me of those early days in ministry when we listened to Paul’s requests for the first century churches as a primer for praying together as a 21st century church. I thought we had a lot to teach our church, a lot of wisdom to share. I couldn’t imagine all I would have to learn. When I listen to my brothers and sisters pray now, some twelve years later, I’ve learned to listen for what I can learn about God. The pleas from my siblings for grace, for healing, for salvation of friends or family, for provision—these prayers teach me a lot about the character of God. He is as involved in our sanctification as much now as He was in the church at Ephesus in AD 61. Listening to the prayers of other believers encourages me to press on in faith. What they’ve soaked in from their own time with the Lord in Scripture comes pouring out in petitions and pleas that speak of the necessary involvement of God in every corner of our sanctification.

What a relief it is to know that perseverance is a community project.

 

*O’Brien, Peter T. The Letter to the Ephesians. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1999.

Photo Cred: Alexandre Godreau with Unsplash

Future Discipleship: Perseverance Now Means Perseverance Later

A few hot summers ago, the first week of August found me in the early stages of marathon training. For accountability’s sake, I had already signed up for the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis, Tennessee, and paid my registration fee. My financial investment was the impetus for faithful training.

Immersing myself in the Bible now is not only for today's benefit. It is for tomorrow and next week, next month and a year from now.

I’d spent the previous year working up my daily mileage, and I had (like many runners) become a bit obsessive about mile time and long runs. Running a marathon seemed to be the crowning achievement for any committed runner, and I was eager to have that 26.2 mile finisher’s medal hanging alongside my other 5K and 10K medals.

Every evening I scrutinized my training schedule for the next day’s mileage or cross-training activity. Before going to bed, I laid out my running clothes, filled my hand held water bottle and popped it in the freezer, packed my running belt with salted caramel flavored energy gel (the high point of every run), and charged my iPod and Garmin watch.

Running in the intense, humid summer heat began to take its toll on my long runs. Once I hit 7 and 8 mile runs, I routinely suffered blinding headaches for about 48 hours afterward. After doing some research, I discovered that low electrolytes and low sodium were the likely culprits. I began to change my approach to my long runs by preparing the day before. In addition to normal hydration, I added about three bottles of water spiked with electrolyte/sodium tablets on the days before a run longer than 6 miles. I began to notice a difference after my long runs immediately after making this change.  Gone were the headaches! I also noticed overall improvement in endurance and mile time.

It always felt odd to be drinking so much salty electrolyte water on a rest day, but it helped tremendously with my long runs. Each time I did this, I was making an investment in a future event. I was doing something today for my physical benefit tomorrow.

Spiritual disciplines work much like this. 

This hot, first week of August I’m not doing any marathon training, but I’m reminding myself that what I’m investing in my spiritual life now will aid me later when my reserves feel low. Immersing myself in the Bible now is not only for today’s benefit. It is for tomorrow and next week, next month and a year from now.

I’ve lived through seasons of trial where my spiritual tank was so low that the bucket I sent down for endurance kept coming back up empty. I had not prepared for trials–or even just normal life events–because I’d spent almost zero time nurturing my relationship with Christ the weeks, months, and even years prior. When sorrow struck, I scrambled for something solid to hold on to. I grasped for a promise from Scripture that would help me persevere, but the truth was I didn’t know the Scriptures well enough to be certain of any promise.

Now, this is not to say that the Holy Spirit can’t still encourage and prod you forward in perseverance when you’ve not spent time arming yourself with truth. God is greater than our hearts and is full of grace and kindness. He teaches us to trust Him while we waffle and scramble for surety. But if I had spent time loving the Lord by knowing Him in His Word I could have enjoyed His nearness in suffering rather than doing so much exhausting scrambling just for survival.

Paralyzed but Prepared

There are days when climbing out of bed before 6 am feels like war. It is war, in a manner of speaking. Our enemy would love to derail our efforts to commune with Christ, and he does it by whispering lies when the shrill ring of the alarm jolts us from restful sleep. You need your rest. You can skip today. You’re not really getting much from your study right now anyway. It doesn’t hurt to take a break now and then.

I’ve listened to some of those lies this summer. I’ve let the clock dictate my commitment to faithfulness, and I’ve felt it’s numbing effects. Trouble is, those “breaks” turn into seasons really fast. Feeding a dry spell with a break from spiritual disciplines may feel like the right answer, but it will never serve you well when pain and suffering show up on your doorstep unannounced. On a broken, fallen planet, suffering seems sure until Christ returns or takes us home. So, we can be paralyzed when the phone rings with devastating news, or we can paralyzed and prepared for the moment life seems to fall apart. I’ve found that the paralyzing feeling comes no matter what, but I’ve seen unbelievable differences in whether or not my heart has been primed with the truths of God’s good character and sovereign hand.

What helps me fight the allure of the snooze button is knowing that my bleary-eyed Scripture reading in the morning, even when it feels like work, is not just beneficial to me now. The prayerful conversation with the Lord, the outlines of Scripture passages, the asking of hard questions, the work of study is also beneficial for my future. It is a stockpiling of truth and strength for days of grief and loss that are as sure the rising sun on an earth that groans for reconciliation.

Perseverance now means perseverance later.

When you’re feeling like your time in the Word is dusty and dry and not worth the time you could have been getting some extra sleep, remember that now is when God is teaching you to trust Him with your future. Now is the time He’s given you to fill your well with belief that Jesus’ work on the cross was enough to save you, that God’s goodness doesn’t waver, that the one who follows Christ is secure in the palm of His hand. Eventually, dry seasons turn into flourishing spring times of the soul. But it might take a long view of perseverance to get there.

Stay the course, friends. Guard your time in the Word with protectiveness if you must. Every morning that you show up  to meet with the Lord, you can know with confidence that He meets you there. He is faithful and ever-present.

Together, you are investing in your future discipleship.

 

For more on working through a spiritual dry spell, read this.

 (*For those interested: I ended up falling on a run during my training, which resulted in an injury. Thinking it was a strained muscle, I unwisely continued to train and ran 200 painful miles before finding out I had been running on a stress fracture in my femur. [Insert facepalm emoji here.] I was ordered 3 months physical rest by my doctor and had to quit marathon training. I’m sure there is another spiritual analogy in there somewhere, but someday I hope to reclaim my training and add that finisher’s medal to my small collection!) 

Photo Cred: Arek Adeoye for Unsplash

I Prayed for Healing. He Answered with His Presence.

These are slow summer days, stretching long at the ends from first light to last. We drink them in deep swallows, savoring the absence of hurried schedules. We sleep later than normal and wear pajamas longer than we should. The hours unspool without our notice or care. It seems a luxury. I’ve not had such a peaceful summer in years, and I couldn’t put my finger on the reason until I remembered the shroud of pain that used to wrap me up tight with fear and misery. The familiar heaviness of July heat has settled over our low corner of Missouri, a wool blanket dipped in boiling water and hung out to steam and dry above our heads. It’s hard to get a good breath when the air is so hot and wet. In being well these past 12 months, I’ve nearly forgotten the summers past when I struggled to separate the heat of a southern summer with the fire that encased my spine. It was always hot, inside and out.

Two summers past, I was on the brink of a breakdown. My health had deteriorated to the point I was losing my hair, struggling to remember things, sleeping only an hour or two at night, wrestling with pain like it was my full-time job. Physically, I was wrecked. I was also losing my grip on faith. I wasn’t just sick, I was heartsick. My husband and I were walking through a season of doubt about our vocational ministry while also watching our fourth year in the adoption process come to a fruitless close–a lot of loose ends, frayed and pulling at my confidence.

I was sorely tempted to hold hands with bitterness. She’d been a longtime companion, bitterness. But she is a difficult root to kill, the kind of plant nobody wants in their garden, a tangle of vines that spreads with ferocity. Bitterness is the kudzu of discontentment. At its best, kudzu cloaks the world in greenery, turning trees into stooped giants with draping, viney arms. It kills everything underneath, but it’s not until winter when we see the degree of damage. Kudzu inhabits what it covers. And I know from a ten year contention with it that bitterness works the same, inhabiting the heart with tightly wound tendrils that suffocate life and light.

I was afraid of the kudzu effects of bitterness again in my life. Desperate for health, for relief, for purpose, for contentment, I turned with halting steps and faltering prayers to Christ. I hesitated because it seemed too much. My health. My complete inability to have another child, no matter what avenue I tried. My internal wrestling with a decade of failing church ministry. The dizzying effects of everything at once.

The believing part of me knew Jesus was the one to run to, but the doubting part of me couldn’t hold His gaze. I was Peter sinking in the Sea of Galilee, unable to take my eyes off the choppy, churning waves. But Jesus was Jesus, chastising my weak faith while also holding on to me. His grip was stronger than bitterness, His gaze steadier than mine.

His strength overrode my weakness.

He held on to me while the pain engulfed my spine, when every rejection email from the adoption agency landed arrived, when Sunday morning rolled around and I dreaded being the pastor’s wife, when doubt felt bigger than faith.

How did it happen, you ask. How did He hold on to you?

And I would answer that He did it by walking the floors with me in the middle of the night that summer of heat and pain. Pain was the word reverberating through my body, throbbing in time with my pulse. Pain, pain, pain. 

But there was also Christ. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Reminding me of the words He’d said, of the promises He’d made, reminding me until His words were louder than my pain.

I am with you always. (Mt. 28:20)

I will never leave or forsake you. (Dt. 31:6, Heb. 13:5)

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. (Is.43:2)

I will be with you in trouble. (Ps. 91:15)

Nothing can separate you from My love, not things present or things to come. (Rom. 8:35, 38)

While I waited long for healing, for a child, for some kind of purpose, He held fast to me. He did it in every turn of the page in my worn Bible. He did it when I struggled to pin down the words to pray. He was present. Visibly, no. But in every way I needed, He was present because He has promised to be, even (and maybe especially) in pain and doubt. In the white-fisted vise of pain, I learned that Christ could sustain me. He could hold my gaze and teach me to hold His. He could deepen my faith when He reminded me who He was. I could walk on water because He was with me.

  I remember the way I called out to the Lord to heal me and the way He responded by being with me instead.  

 I wasn’t healed that summer. My pain worsened, actually. It would be another year before I would begin to experience pain’s release. It slipped away slowly, hesitant to leave me, I guess. And then one morning at the beginning of last summer, I woke with a jolt and scrambled to name the startling absence I felt. It was nothing. I felt nothing. Instead of a body on fire, there was just a body. I turned to the clock in a room bathed in bright morning light and realized I’d slept all night for the first time in six years.

These past few weeks, I’ve let myself remember those days fogged up with heat and humidity and pain and doubt. I’ve had a bit of a flare-up, and while the ache settles into my joints, there’s a stifling muscle memory there, too. I feel those surges of anxiety that used to steal my breath when I tried to imagine a future shrouded in lifelong pain. I remember the dark, still nights and my splintering sanity. I remember the song I sang to keep me grounded.

I remember the way I called out to the Lord to heal me and the way He responded by being with me instead.  

I remember the words He spoke long ago that throb with truth in time with my pulse, whether there’s pain or just the memory of it. His words of promise and presence. Words I needed then, words I need now. Words that remind me that He is enough on these long, summer days that shimmer with the heat of pain and faithfulness.

My pain and God’s faithfulness. I am not sure I could know one without the other.

 

 Photo cred: Jake Givens with Unsplash

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