Suffering.

It’s a guarantee of life–we will suffer. But that doesn’t mean we like it. Certainly, we don’t seek it. Generally, we do all we can to avoid it. And yet it’s a key part not only of life universal, but of faith in Christ in particular.

I’ve blogged before about Christian suffering and the misconceptions and “martyr complexes” that surround it. In that post from 2018, I focused on how we will suffer, yes, but we don’t seek it, shouldn’t seek it, but rather can rise above it thanks to Christ. Today, I want to focus on a different aspect of suffering.

Suffering is usually linked to the fallen state of our world–caused by sickness, death, or injustice. We suffer at the hands of others who are cruel. We suffer grief and loss and loneliness. We suffer pain and illness. When we cry out in our spirits, “Why, Lord? Why?” it often seems that there’s no answer. Or at least, not a satisfying one. Because we live in a fallen world sure doesn’t feel like an answer, does it? Because of sin doesn’t satisfy either, especially when it isn’t our sin that leads directly to our pain.

And yet, all suffering can trace its roots back to sin–back to Satan, the father of sin. All sickness, all death, all cruelty are inexorably linked to that first curse handed down in the Garden. But here’s the thing, my friends: we serve a Savior who has already beaten sin and death and Satan. We serve a Savior who is King over that Curse.

Why then, you may ask, do we still suffer?

Because that full victory is still playing out on the human stage–but here’s where we have to shift our perspective. We will still suffer–but it’s no longer a curse in that heavenly sense. Now, because Christ suffered for us, our own suffering can be joined to His and become redemptive…it can help us to better understand His suffering. It can make us appreciate the true sacrifice He made.

He broke the bonds of sin. So now, let’s embrace the words of Christ, when He said that “it’s so that God may be glorified.” If we are healed, may it be to His glory and credit. If it lasts, may He buoy us up and fill us with His peace in a way that shines out into the world around us. When we are persecuted, may it be for His sake, so that even our oppressors see and marvel and are intrigued enough to become converts themselves.

May our suffering–which will come–be not because of sins, may not be punishments that we bring on ourselves. May they instead be witness to the One who suffered all. Who conquered. And who delivers us into the Light.

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We are the light of the world.

We know it’s true because Jesus, the true Light, told us so. We know it’s true because He gives us His light. Why? To shine it. To scatter the darkness. To light the Way to Him, to the Father. To guide the people stumbling around in the shadows of the world.

The shadows…here. They’re not just in the world, are they? Those shadows plague our churches too. Our communities. Our families.

Our hearts.

We’ve all felt them. Sensed them. Cursed them. Given in to them. We know the teeth of fear, of pain, of rejection, of anxiety. We know the hammer blows of judgment and prejudice. We’ve experienced the claws of hatred and bitterness.

Aimed at us. And coming from within us.

We know. We know the darkness. We know it because it surrounds us and sneaks in. We know it because in some ways, it’s more comfortable than the light. It doesn’t make us squint our eyes or shield them from harsh truth. In darkness we can just rest. Or…not. In darkness, we can do what we want, and no one can see to tell us we’re wrong. Darkness lets sin creep in. Darkness lets sin flourish.

We never like to think that the darkness is here. Not within us, not within our families, not within our churches. Darkness is out there. The WORLD is full of darkness.

And it is. But why, then, isn’t our light able to banish it? If the darkness is all without and inside is nothing but light, why is our light not chasing away the darkness? That’s how it works–it only takes one match, one flame, one candle, one lamp, one star in the night to make the darkness retreat. If we are living in that Light, why is it still so dark? More, why does it seem to be getting always darker?

Because we’re not doing our job. Our lights are under bushels of selfishness and judgment. Our lights are hidden behind shutters of tribalism and greed. We see the darkness as an enemy, but we don’t know how to combat it…because too often, we’re too busy fighting the other light-bearers over whether their torches or lamps are trimmed properly. We’re too busy lecturing the darkness for being what it is. We’re too busy philosophizing about how anyone who steps out of our little box is lost, without realizing that our own oil is running low, that are wicks are flickering, that it’s getting dimmer and dimmer.

But we are the light of the world, my friends. We are the light because He gave us His Light. If the world is dark, it’s not the fault of the world–it’s the fault of the people who aren’t illuminating it. Are we hiding our hope away? Are we cursing the darkness instead of shining into it? Are we closing our light off from those who need it most, guarding it jealously?

We all do that. But we don’t have to. We can call upon the Spirit who breathes light and life into our souls. And we can step out into the darkness, ready to shine for Him.

The Beloved Charter is a more detailed take on something I’ve heard people speaking of for years: take Scripture and make it speak directly to you by changing a few pronouns or inserting your name. Have you ever heard of that? For instance, take John 3:16 and rewrite it to say, “God so loved Roseanna/Karen/Jennifer that He gave His only begotten Son…” I’ve heard of other verses were we’re encouraged to do the same thing, to try to help us realize that God and His Word are personal. They’re meant for us. He loves us, and He speaks directly to us as He spoke to other people.

Well, let’s take it even further. Let’s pull together some of the verses about promises that really resonate with our spirits. And then let’s put them into our words, in a letter written directly to each of us, from God, based on God’s Word.

The point of this is to help us all to learn to see ourselves–and then each other–as God sees us. We are His beloved children. He loves us SO MUCH. But put the emphasis, for a moment, on yourself. He loves you. He speaks to you. You are going to resonate with things that I don’t, and I will resonate with things that don’t strike you at all. That’s part of the beauty of how He creates us. So different, and yet all bound by this common something that makes us human, that makes us Christian.

Would you like to do this exercise? If so, here’s how you do it. Read through the Scriptures in this PDF (I recommend printing it out if you can). Highlight whichever ones (or parts of ones) strike you especially.

Once you have your verses marked, pull out a piece of paper or a word processing doc or however you want to work. Date the page. And then start it like a letter, written from God to you.

Dear ___________,

Or even just your name.

Then start writing. Use the verses you marked as inspiration, but write them in words like YOU would use on a daily basis, written from the perspective of God to you. Use terms of endearment like you would if you were writing to your kids or best friend. Combine a few of the verses into one paragraph, or start a fresh paragraph for each one, whatever works best for you.

At the bottom, make note of which verses you pulled from.

Here’s mine, as an example:

Roseanna,

Come here, my daughter. Draw near to my throne. You have a right to be here as my child. Sit right there beside your brother, Jesus–He brought you here, raised you when He raised Himself from death.

I know sometimes you feel weak, but don’t worry. The weaker you feel, the stronger I Am. I can do my best work in you and through you when you have only weakness to boast of.

I am your Author. I have written every day of your life in my book. You know how your fictional character live in your heart and mind? How much more, my daughter, do you live in mine! Abide here with me, in our story. I will live it with you.

Search your heart for anything that would keep you from me. Confess it with your lips. I’ll forgive you, heal you, restore you. Then I will truly rejoice over you, always. I can pour out far more blessings than you can even imagine.

Heb 4:16; Eph 2:4-9; 2 Cor 12:9; Psa 139:16; John 15:4; I John 1:9; Zeph 3:17; Eph 3:20

Once you’ve written yours, take a few minutes each day and read over it, imagining that Jesus is there beside you. Then, as you go through your day, view the people around you in the same way–as beloved children of our Almighty Father. Pause to wonder what words He is speaking to them. Are they words that those people need you to speak aloud to them?

I found writing this to be a beautiful exercise…and then living it to be even more so. Nearly a week after I wrote it, I’d just gone through a situation that left me feeling so inadequate. I wanted to help my daughter with something (school related), and I just didn’t know how. I felt like a failure. I felt like I wasn’t able to give what she needed.

Then I sat down with my charter again for the first time, and I read that paragraph about weakness, and tears flooded my eyes.

I felt so weak. But He is so strong.
I love my daughter. He loves her more.
I want the best for her. He died for her.

I can entrust my daughter to my Father. More, I can trust that He’ll make me the mom she needs. He will equip me to give, and He’ll equip her to walk the path He has prepared for her.

What promises is God speaking to your heart today?

I’ve always found the Beatitudes–the Sermon on the Mount beginning in Matthew 5–to be a beautiful redefinition of what life should be about. What we should be striving for. There are so many lines in it that make me pause and reflect and ask myself, “Am I doing that? Is that how I’m living my life?”

Yet it starts off with a line that’s had me puzzled for years.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

What does it mean to be “poor in spirit”?

For many years, I assumed it meant something like “sad.” Like, you know, “poor in health” is sick, so a sickness of the spirit would be depression or sadness or something like that. Except that Jesus addresses “mourning” in the next couplet…and why would He want us to seek sadness? Yeah, my initial interpretation leaves something to be desired, LOL.

In some other reading I’ve done over the last few years, I came across ideas of it meaning one’s spiritual poverty–which is to say, our need for God. That struck me as true…er. But again, is that the state we’re supposed to live in? A perpetual state of spiritual poverty? Doesn’t He, when we recognize our need for Him, fill us up and make us spiritually rich? Hmm.

I recently heard a sermon that touched on it and made a light bulb go off.

Let’s look at these lines together. The poor in spirit have–own, possess–the kingdom of heaven. Okay. Well, these verses are all about the contrast to the traditional wisdom, right? So what’s the opposite of these worlds? “The wealthy in spirit” and “the kingdom of the world.”

Ah. That’s beginning to make sense. Because who “owns” the world? The rich. The wealthy. They are the ones with power, political might, sway, all the possessions, and so on. What’s more, striving after that is the natural, worldly, “given” thing to do. Even if we aren’t rich, we want to be. We work harder, seek higher paying jobs, vie for the promotion, the raise. We invest our money and try, always, to increase it. We long for the nicer this or that. We spend, spend, spend on our own pleasures and luxuries whenever we can afford to. This is a “spirit of wealth” whether we actually have much of it or not. This is yearning for wealth.

What is the opposite, then? It isn’t necessarily yearning for poverty, per se. But it’s yearning for something beyond worldly wealth. It’s holding everything we own out to God and saying, “This isn’t mine. It’s yours.”

It’s recognizing that we own nothing. NOTHING. It’s all His. Which means He can ask us, as His stewards, to do something “else” with our possessions at any moment, and we willingly obey. Maybe that means selling it all and following Christ into a mission field. Maybe it just means putting something extra into the offering plate. Maybe it means leaving a  crazy tip for that down-on-her-luck waitress. Maybe it means giving sacrificially to someone in need, even when you can’t really spare it. Maybe it means turning down the better job to stay where you know God put you. Maybe it means simply listening, waiting, being ready to give up any one thing or all things.

A spirit that is poor holds nothing tightly. Holds all things loosely. Is ready to give, at any moment, because nothing is truly his.

An image I’ve been falling back on a lot lately is that of holding things only in open, cupped palms. God can pour in…and I’ll pour it right back out, onto whomever He wills. This is how I’ve been working to view my writing. God pours stories into me, He gives me glimpses of His truths to share. I write them, I do the best I can on them, and then I send them out into the world. What happens from there…that’s not the important question. Oh, I’ll do everything I can to make them succeed–investing the talents He left in my care, knowing He sows where He doesn’t reap, like the parable says. I’ll be the best servant I can be. But I’ll do all that knowing it isn’t for me. It’s for Him. He is the one who reaps the benefits. He is the one who gives the increase. He is the one who controls the markets.

When we view the world that way, it keeps us nimble–ready to pivot in whichever direction we see Him moving, to whatever need He draws our attention to. It keeps us unattached to material things, worldly pleasures, and focused on exactly what the Beatitude promises us: the kingdom of heaven.

And it should make us pause, every day. It should make us wonder, which kingdom are we striving for, yearning for, working for? Are we concerned more with the earthly things that the world’s spirit of wealth tells us we should want…or are we striving, yearning, and working for the invisible things that God promises?

What do we need to hold out in open palms today?

There are some phrases we’re all familiar with if we read the Old Testament of the Bible…

The God of Israel
The God of Jacob
The God of Jerusalem

We’re told that Jerusalem is “His holy city,” especially in the Psalms. So much of the poetry and songs revolve around that city, the Temple, and the God who has claimed it as His own. Who dwells there. Who protects the place and the people.

For the Ancients, this wasn’t a weird thought. In the polytheistic societies that surrounded Israel thousands of years ago, each city had its own patron god. It was that god’s protection that led to prosperity; it was that god’s abandonment that led to its demise. If one city and its king defeated another, the assumption was that their god had triumphed as well…but also that by taking over the city, one became the new darling of its god. Victors would incorporate worship of that town’s god into their own worship, but also introduce their new, stronger god to its citizens.

Then there was Israel. Israel, who claimed “No, there is only one God. He is our God whether we win or lose. He is our God in exile. He is our God whether we’re in Israel, in Jerusalem, or in Babylon. He is our God when we prosper. He is our God when we starve.” And they dared to add something no other ancient society claimed about their gods: “He loves us. Everything He does is for love of us.”

As Christians, we still lay claim to that old covenant between God and Israel, even though many of us have no Jewish blood. Why? Because Christ’s blood fulfilled that covenant and extended it. The promise God gave to Abraham was not “and through you I’ll have one city to claim as my own.” He promised, “From you will come a nation, and through them, all the world will be blessed.” That’s how children in Sunday School can sing, “Father Abraham…” and claim him as their own patriarch. We were adopted into God’s family.

But…what does that mean in terms of nations?

It’s something I pondered, and then pondered some more as I heard so many Americans claiming, especially during the last election cycle, what basically amounted to God being the God of…America. I’ve read some HUGE bestselling books that spell out how America has taken on that old covenant with Israel for its own. How we’re the new Israel, more or less. And so He is our God. The God of our freedom, the God of our land. We pray His blessings upon us, from sea to shining sea.

We should pray for our nation–for our leaders, for our neighbors, for the people. But the idea of Christians claiming God as the God of their land comes with some definite problems. I’ve quite literally been chewing on this for a couple years, so let’s see how coherent I can be in parsing it, LOL.

First of all, what about the Christians who live in other countries? What do they think when Americans claim this? I can tell you, because I’ve heard from them–they’re offended. God is their God as much as He’s ours, after all. He adopted them too, whether they’re English or Spanish or Mexican or African or Scandinavian. He loves the Russian farmer as much as the Chinese factory-worker as much as the politician from D.C. Do we really think about that as we contemplate how proud we are to be American? Or have we linked where we live with the God we serve?

Last month, I read a book called The Lamb’s Supper that put a new lens on the book of Revelation for me–but in fact, a very old lens. It talks about how the book makes sense when viewed as a liturgy, and how, in fact, nearly every step of liturgy is there in Revelation–they informed each other, built each other, as a matter of fact. In Revelation, we see the New Jerusalem descend. The new dwelling of God. It’s part of the new heaven, the new earth. And do you know what it is?

The Church.

The “holy nation” that Peter talks about in 1 Peter 2–what is that? Is it Israel? No. It’s the Church.

That is the nation to whom we should be most loyal. Not America or Canada or Britain, not Mexico or Germany or Australia, not Portugal or the Netherlands or Uganda. The Church. Those other places…those are where we live. Where we serve. Those are the neighbors we’re called to love and show the ways of God. We are supposed to have affection for our homeland–it’s built into the human DNA. God made us that way–tribal. But we have to be careful. We have to be careful not to begin thinking we’re superior, that God loves us more, has favored us more, has blessed us more. We have to be careful we haven’t begun to think of ourselves, as citizens of a human nation, as the caretakers of God’s Word and His promises.

We are that–but not because we’re American or Western or Eastern or even Israeli. We are caretakers of His Word and His promises by virtue of the cross. By virtue of being members of His bride, the Church.

In Back to Church by pastor Cara Luecht, she asks, “Are you an American who happens to be a Christian, or are you a Christian who happens to be an American?” That, I think, is a great focusing question. Because He isn’t the Lord of our land–He is (or should be) the Lord of our hearts. When we are baptized into the family of God, we don’t gain a citizenship in an earthly country–we gain a citizenship in Heaven.

God is still the God of Jacob. He is the God of Israel. Jerusalem is still His holy city–but Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem that John saw descend, is us, my friends. We are the Church. We are His dwelling place. Where we live…that’s nothing but a circumstance. It’s not a definition.

Before I’m a West Virginian, before I’m an American, before I’m a Westerner, before I’m even an Earther, I am this:

I am a Christian. All else is just smoke and vapors.