The following is a message I wrote several years ago, that I'm just posting here for the benefit of someone who was interested in the topic.
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I want to talk to you this morning about abandonment; about pain and suffering, about praying desperately for deliverance and not being delivered, praying for rescue and not being rescued; about fearing the very worst and then having your worst fears realized and finding it even more terrible than you had feared.
Some of you have experienced disease and great physical pain. Many have grown up in broken homes or with alcoholic parents. Others have experienced horrific sexual abuse. We all have some basis for feeling abandoned and unprotected and insecure. I grew up moving every year or two. Maybe that wouldn’t have been too bad, but it fed into other things that also helped shape my experience of life at an early age. By the time I was 11 years old, 5 members of my family that I lived with had died, including my sister who was 18 months younger than me. My best friend at school died in second grade. My mother’s family has a hereditary disease that is slow, wasting, debilitating, incurable and ultimately fatal. If a parent has it, the kids have a 50/50 chance of getting it, too. My grandmother, a great-aunt, a great-uncle, an aunt and two uncles have all died of it so far in my lifetime, and two of my first cousins are dying of it now. Those things shape my experience of the idea of abandonment.
I remember the moment Daddy told me that my sister Paula had died. I ran back to my cousin Doug’s bedroom and threw myself across his bed and sobbed “No, no, no, no, no, no, why, why, why, why? Why!?!” And God didn’t answer. I asked Daddy what time she had died and then I thought back to remember what I had been doing at the moment of her death. I had been watching a cartoon about a big, goofy, bumbling one-eyed giant. At the moment of her death I had been laughing, and I felt somehow that I had been tricked into committing some sort of terrible sin. It seemed like God should have let me know what was happening at that moment so I could have prayed against it, or at least been appropriately grieving or reverent or somber to show my love for my sister and express the significance of my loss. Daddy felt obligated to have an answer for every question, and he eventually tried to answer the why. He said that three families had become Christians through the impact of Paula’s death and the way her spirit had reflected God in the hospital. Bless Daddy’s poor, grieving, Daddy heart, trying to answer unanswerable questions that deserve answers. It’s terrible sometimes being a parent, isn’t it? I didn’t find that answer even remotely adequate. I would very much have preferred that all those three families burn in hell if I could have kept Paula. I couldn’t imagine that God couldn’t have found a less destructive way to reach those people.
Christians aren’t supposed to feel that way, are we? We aren’t supposed to question God or doubt his power or his goodness. We’re not supposed to feel devastated. We’re supposed to always be happy and confident, aren’t we? If we aren’t, if we feel all those bad things and have all these bad thoughts, we’re supposed to stuff it, hide it, deny it. If you fall apart when your world collapses in on you, it scares me, because I’m afraid I might react the same way. I’m afraid that what I believe about God always protecting me from my circumstances, might not be true, so I tell you to stuff it, to get over it. We think we have to make God look good by acting like nothing ever really gets to us. If we were writing the Bible, none of the heroes would ever look bad or weak.
But that’s not how the Bible was written. The Bible is sometimes just shockingly honest. As Jesus hung dying on the cross, he cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I think that must be the most puzzling, terrifying, bone-chilling sentence ever spoken or written. Think of it! Jesus is God so God cries out to God: “Why have you forsaken me?” Why would they tell us he said that? Why wouldn’t they hide that or censor it? I mean, it makes me think, what if I journeyed to the center of the universe and found this forbidden city and found gates of pearl and on a great white throne, this ultimate being of absolute power just like the world religions led me to expect, but it turned out that this ultimate being at the heart of the cosmos was utterly, certifiably – mad. Insane. But Jesus wasn’t just fully God, he was also somehow fully human. Still, why is the Bible so honest about human fear and pain and loss and alienation?
King David in the Bible is called a man after God’s own heart, and this is what he wrote in the 22nd Psalm, that Jesus was remembering on the cross:
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My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.... Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them.... But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all! Everyone who sees me mocks me.... Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb and led me to trust you when I was a nursing infant.... You have been my God from the moment I was born. Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me.... My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me. My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.... My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me.... My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments. O LORD, do not stay away! You are my strength; come quickly to my aid! Rescue me from a violent death; spare my precious life from these dogs.... Then I will declare the wonder of your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise you among all your people.... Honor him, all you descendants of Jacob!... For he has not ignored the suffering of the needy. He has not turned and walked away. He has listened to their cries for help. I will praise you among all the people.... All who seek the LORD will praise him. Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy. The whole earth will acknowledge the LORD and return to him.... Our children will hear about the wonders of the Lord.... They will hear about everything he has done.
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That’s the 22nd Psalm. When David was a young man, his king kept trying to kill him. Later, his wife ran off with another man. Still later, one of his sons raped one of his daughters and two years later another of his sons murdered the rapist. When David was an older man, one of his sons staged a coup and started a civil war, trying to kill David and take his throne. But David deeply loved that son and when the son Absalom was killed, David publicly wished that he himself had died instead. David had plenty of reasons in the course of his lifetime to feel forsaken by God. At the beginning of Psalm 22 he’s accusing God and at the end he’s praising God. David experienced miracles. He’s the one that killed the giant, Goliath. But it’s not apparent that David’s circumstances have changed at all between the beginning and the end of Psalm 22. But his experience of God has changed. He has changed. What matters most to him has changed. The thing that is really most important to him has changed.
Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes it hurts bad. Sometimes it’s just not fair at all. I don’t know why sometimes God clearly miraculously spares me from pain and sometimes he doesn’t. I don’t have all the answers, either about this life, or the life to come. But I know one thing for sure. Jesus loves me, this I know. I only have one answer that I know from personal experience to be true. Even when I am in despair and in agony, God is there with me. All the way with me. He hurts with me and cries with me and he restores my soul and heals my pain. And when I seek the Lord I wind up praising him. My heart does rejoice with everlasting joy. Let me tell you about one such experience.
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Let me tell you about my very favorite Christmas. We had some good ones and some bad ones. I remember a good one when the entire extended family was together, and our rich Aunt got me this really cool telescope and my cousin only got a stupid velour shirt. The prices were comparable, I'm sure, but he still brings it up. I remember one year when a big, full-sized van from a church in Little Rock pulled up in front of the house filled to the brim with toys and clothes and food for us. It was all the Christmas we got that year, but it was incredible. And then there was the year I got a "Thingmaker" by Mattel from the rich Aunt. It was so cool. You could make your own rubber insects with it. It was great. The first Christmas after my sister died when I was 11 and she was 9 was pretty rough. It was one of my chores to set the table before supper every night, and for months after she died in July, I'd forget and put down six place settings. Then I'd remember, and put the sixth setting back, and cry.
That Christmas, my parents went to a party and took my other younger sister Janet and my brother to a babysitter, but decided I was old enough to stay home alone. We had this really old, fragile, but authentic looking nativity scene with Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus in the stable, with angels and shepherds and all that. Daddy used to set it up every year. Each piece was separately wrapped in tissue paper for protection. They would be very carefully unwrapped and arranged around the manger. Daddy made it seem like an art, or surgery. That year, he decided I was old enough for that job. I was so excited and honored. So while they were at the party, I got to work on it. We had this fireplace that was supposed to have a gas heater in the fireplace part, but didn't. I arranged the manger scene there, with all the thought and care for realism that Daddy always put into it. Then I strung a string of Christmas lights around the mantle. And set out all the wrapped Christmas presents around the baby Jesus and the manger scene. Then, with Christmas carols playing, I turned out the overhead lights and turned on the Christmas lights and opened a Bible and read the Christmas story out loud to myself, with no one in the house but me. And God.
God was there. For the first time in my life, it hit me what God had done -- what a miracle it was that he could reduce himself to a human baby -- and what a sacrifice it was. What awesome, unearned, transforming, empowering love. We had very little money, no Christmas tree, few friends because we were new in town, my sister was dead, I was by myself. And my precious Jesus came down to me, and in to me, and wrapped me in his arms and loved me as warmly and as deeply as I have ever felt in my life. And I was transfigured. Maybe no one noticed but me. But that was my favorite Christmas.
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That seems to me to be pretty much the same thing David experienced in Psalm 22. I personally have seen miracles of physical healing, miracles of very specific comfort in times of trial, miracles of financial and material provision. But that Christmas, my circumstances didn’t change at all.
Ultimate reality, our ultimate joy and peace is not in our circumstances, it is in our relationship with God in the midst of our circumstances. Our pain here is absolutely not a part of his divine plan. He does not cause it or desire it. God does promise that ultimately, finally, everything will be redeemed and our circumstances will be perfect. But the truest thing we learn about God is learned not from our circumstances, but from what happens to us as we walk with him through the circumstances – from what is revealed about God and about me in the context of our relationship in the midst of the circumstances. My ultimate happiness depends on my relationship with God, and on my confidence in his character toward me, rather than on my immediate circumstances – no matter how terrible or wonderful my immediate circumstances may be. We all know what it’s like to be unhappy and dissatisfied at a very deep, fundamental level, in both good and bad circumstances. On the other hand, God invites us to experience, in both good and bad circumstances, real joy and real peace. I’m healthy right now. I may be the only person in the world over the age of 40 who doesn’t have back problems. I have a kind, beautiful, loving wife, and smart, sweet, good, beautiful kids and a bigger, fancier house than I ever imagined as a kid. But I am not promised any of that for tomorrow. I have known bad times, and almost certainly will again. I cannot base my happiness or value my life on the basis of my circumstances. I expect to experience heaven – eternal paradise with God and with you, but Jesus warned us that in this world we would experience pain. At the same time, he promises joy. The joy is in our relationship with him and our confidence in his character, his intentions toward us, and his power to secure our glorious destiny.
I stand here today and testify to you with God as my witness that such joy is possible and real here and now. And that it is worth everything. We are offered joy unspeakable and peace that passes understanding in this life with Christ and each other. And it is worth more than anything else I could ever desire. It is worth everything! It is worth everything! Those of us who’ve experienced that to be true need to continually remind each other of that truth, and keep each other focused on that one great prize. Those of us who haven’t, deserve to be drawn into that relationship, by being surrounded by people who can testify that it’s true. And we are surrounded by such people, right here and right now. I promise I won’t name names, but I could, and I did think about it. I could point to someone in this room whose childhood was a nightmare and ask is it true that God heals the deepest emotional wounds of childhood? I could point to another who spent most of their life feeling lonely and unconnected and ask is it true that God gives more and deeper and happier relationships than you ever dreamed possible? I could point to another and say is it true that God forgives your past and takes away your shame? Is it true that God sets you free from the things that held you in bondage? I could point to an old Christian who’s walked with God for decades and ask is it true that God never has failed you, yet. And you would testify from your own experience here at NewStart, resoundingly, confidently, joyously that yes, those things are true. It’s true. It’s true. Precious hearts, let us resolve together to allow the Christ of the cross to walk with us through our pain, and to allow ourselves to experience his power and his healing, and his everlasting joy.
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first time to preach to an Australian audience other than our little NewStart-RiverCity group which is largely Roland's extended family at this point. I was a little more nervous than normal, worrying I'd say something offensive to anyone who may ever have misunderstood Roland's methods or goals, worrying that I'd use some Americanism that miscommunicates ( a hoagie in the states is a sandwich, for instance, while in Australia it's a dirty diaper. Bubba means brother in the states and baby in Australia.). And the message just never felt like it was coming together adequately in my head as I prepared it during the week. I wanted it to be a message of hope and encouragement and affirmation to a good group of folks who have reason to feel beaten down and discouraged, and I wasn't sure I was up to the task.
