Suffering Saints

The earthquakes in Haiti and Chile caused great suffering. The work being done in Haiti is rather to be observed not in destroyed buildings and human suffering. It is distinct in the many acts of mercy and kindness being shown by faith based groups, secular organizations, and our government.

The mercy of God is demonstrated in compassion shown by the many faith based organizations offering solace and providing for needs. The Red Cross is an admirable manifestation of mercy. God’s love is to be seen in the Israeli army field hospital set up on the island as a medical oasis. Franklin Graham’s “Samaritan’s Purse” with a base of operation already in Haiti has expanded its humanitarian efforts. The Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Agency is actively engaged in acts of mercy.

Why is there such suffering in the world? Why do the innocent suffer? Since the days of Job people have searched for an answer to those issues.

We paint with a brush too broad in speaking of “the reason why.”. There is not a single reason people suffer. There are some reasons but by no means do they provide an exhaustive answer to the question. At best there are gray areas and unknowns.

God gets a bum rap at times. Involving Him entitles a spiritual answer. Job clued us: “Far be it from God to do wickedness.” God created a perfect world and it remained that way until man sinned. The result was an imperfect world: “The whole creation groans….” The flawed world became susceptible to natural disasters, germs, viruses, bacteria, etc.

Certain laws of nature intended for our good when violated cause suffering. An elemental example is gravity. Defying it can be dangerous and often deadly.

Some suffering is because of sin. I know of a situation in which a guy mixed alcohol and drugs in a night of debauchery. Speeding on the way home he crashed into a tree. His companion was killed and he broke almost every bone in his body. When his pastor visited him he asked, “Why did God do this?” What?

Some suffering involves the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. The Apostle Paul was encouraged to think he was considered worthy of sharing the suffering of Jesus. In such an occasion it gives the one suffering an opportunity to show God is all sufficient. Observers seeing the grace of God at work in such lives are often drawn to God to meet their needs. I have two delightful young friends now in the vicious vice of cancer who by their response have caused others to embrace their faith.
Simon Peter summed it up well. “That the trial of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes, even though tried by fire, may be proven genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (I Peter 1:7).

Dispute it if you want but we all suffer. I am not bragging or throwing a pity party but I am a member of that society also. I find it best not to ask why but how. How can it develop in me qualities pleasing to God? How can it be used to help me become all God has given me the capacity to be?

Perhaps our best response might be not to engage in endless debate regarding the theology of suffering but to engage in efforts to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, council the wayward, heal the sick, and comfort the dying. Thus, we become the hands of God among the suffering.

Overcoming Bitterness

Many people suffer from bitterness without considering its significant affect on life.

I don’t have time for bitterness. When we drove away from our retirement celebration my wife said, “Isn’t it great to have no bitterness toward anybody or about anything.” She repeated that recently.

Our English word for bitterness comes from the Greek word PIKRIA which refers to a person who becomes cynical, caustic, sarcastic, hostile, or resentful. Such a person becomes negative, unhappy, and critical. That definitely isn’t me.

Two brief concepts have long helped me deal with any vestige that might tend to build up.
One is based on the Bible verse Hebrews 12: 15, “…lest a root of bitterness springing up trouble you….” Observe who it troubles — “you.”

This couplet summarizes that concept: “Bitterness does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to the one on which it is poured.”

Bitterness and other emotional stresses cause an increase in thyroid gland secretion. When this excess of thyroxin pours into the blood stream some of it goes to the brain which is contained in a rigid skull causing headaches. It can change muscle tension, influence blood flow to the organs, and the secretion of glands.

A second aid to dealing with bitterness is also based on Scripture. “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with malice” (Ephesians 4:31).
Some people are bitter with a person. That person may be a world away or even dead but they are ever present with the bitter person. The object of bitterness becomes the task master of the bitter person.

Others may be adults still bitter with their parents for failing or emotionally injuring them. Don’t be a marionette controlled by past injustice.

Some people are even bitter with God. Old Testament character Naomi was one such person. She said, “Call me Mara, because the almighty has made my life bitter” (Ruth 1:20). It is impossible to get your hands on God and exercise vengeance on Him. Some feeling He failed them respond by denying His existence. Still others take out their bitterness toward God
on the church.

Bitter persons tend to blame their bitterness on someone else. Actually it is a fault in their reaction.

We are all subject to injustices and injuries. Vitriol and vengeance are visited on all persons. Therefore, when I say I have been the object of what I consider mistreatment I am not saying “poor little ole me.” I am saying I am in the boat with you. We each choose how we react. Our response is our choice. I choose not to be bitter. It is not in my constitution.

Oh, Naomi! Once she got her eyes off herself and realized what a blessing God had given her in the person of Ruth, she became a blessing to Ruth and was herself blessed. It works.

Thomas Jefferson Plus God

Thomas Jefferson, the “Sage of Monticello,” was a complex and sagacious man; wise and farsighted. He was a Deist very familiar with the Bible. He believed in the morals and ethics of Christianity but not in Christ as divine. Much of what he and others of his ilk espoused has been written out of textbooks. As a reminder to some and as news to others following are extracts from the latitudinarian Jefferson that are pertinent for today.
“Indeed, I tremble for my county when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
“It is incumbent upon every generation to pay its own debt as it goes. A principle which acted on would save one-half of the wars of the world.”
“I predict happiness for Americans if they can prevent government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
“A wise and frugal Government … shall leave them [citizens] otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement andnot take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned — this is a sum of good government.”
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for propagation of opinions he disbelieves or abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
“Educate and inform the masses of people. They are the only reliance for the preservation of liberty.”
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use or arms.”
On the principle of separation of church and state his reference to a “wall of separation” can be better understood by other comments he made on the subject.
In what is known as the “Kentucky Resolution of 1798,” Jefferson wrote: “No power over the freedom of religion…[is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution.”
In his Second Inaugural Address, 1805, he said, “In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General [federal] Government.”
In a letter to Samuel Miller, 1808, he wrote of the “free exercise of religion,” as stated in the First Amendment.
As President in 1787, Jefferson recommended special lands “for the sole use of Christian Indians” and reserved lands for the Moravian Brethren “for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity.”Congress extended the act three times and Jefferson signed it each time. They were not prohibiting religious activity they were actually evangelizing.
Our liberties are eroding more rapidly than we realize. It is actually being accomplished not only speedily but easily. Could it be because we have failed to do what Jefferson enjoined us to do: “Educate and inform the masses of people. They are the only reliance for the preservation of liberty.”
People of good conscience dare not remain silent.

George Washington Plus God

Each year in America we celebrate our independence which but for a change in the wind and an eerie fog we might still be a colony.
In the summer of 1776, the Continental Congress commissioned General George Washington to serve as commander-in-chief of the greatly out manned and out gunned American forces. Washington’s 9,000 men were poised on Brooklyn Heights. Their purpose was to try to stop British General William Howe from moving up the Hudson River Valley and dividing the colonies enabling a total British victory.
They watched as the British fleet which was described as looking like London afloat had delivered over 32,000 well equipped British and German soldiers. In a previous encounter between the two armies Washington had suffered over 1,000 casualties. Howe was now poised to deliver the final defeating blow but for some reason paused intending the next day to annihilate the American forces.
Washington’s position was an impossible one. The superior British force of 20,000 regulars was at his front and the nearly mile wide Hudson River at his rear. Howe paused to allow the vast British fleet to sail up the river and be in position the next morning to attack from Washington’s rear as he assaulted the front. No army had ever been in a more defenseless position.
In the late evening a strong breeze began to blow prohibiting the fleet to sail up the river. This fortuitous change in the wind foreshadowed a change in battle strategy.
Washington proposed a retreat by crossing the wind swept river at night. The officer in charge of the maneuver, General Alexander McDougall, informed Washington that crossing the wind stirred river was impossible. One chronicler wrote, “about eleven o’clock when, as if by design, the northeast wind died down. Then the wind shifted to the southwest….” This shift in the wind enabled John Glover’s Massachusetts sailors and fishermen to begin crossing the river in an attempt to evacuate as many of Washington’s men as possible. These oarsmen knew how to stealthy maneuver their crafts with a minimum of noise.Employing anything that would float the evacuation began and moved slowly. Most of the boats were so overloaded water came within inches of the gunwales. It became apparent the night would not be long enough to facilitate the strategic withdrawal. Again the weather intervened. A pea-soup fog so thick persons could not see six feet moved in just before dawn. This cover allowed the last of Washington’ forces to ship out by 7:00 A.M. Just beyond the range of British guns they looked back and saw the British forces already on the shore they had just evacuated.
This allowed the American forces opportunity to regroup and eventually win the war for independence.
Call it what you will: luck, happenstance, or blind fate, but those there wrote of if as “a peculiar providential occurrence,” “manifestly providential,” and “very favorably to the design.”
In our current culture God is often denied. However, today as in that day a remnant of spiritually inclined believers still pray thanking Him for His grace and asking for His blessings. As America faces an uncertain future that cadre has cause to do so again as we celebrate our independence made possible by Him.

Our Constitution Today

Thinking of the future of America we tend to conceive of it in light of the past. Today that is impossible to do in that fundamentals are missing. In our past our nation was guided and governed according to our Constitution. Today that vital document is being ignored or circumvented. Our Federal government is engaging in activities never authorized by our Constitution. Some are even in conflict with our Constitution.
President John Quincy Adams delivered an address entitled “The Jubilee of the Constitution: A Discourse.” The occasion was the fiftieth anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington, April 30, 1839. Therein Adams spoke of the condition of the country which in ways mirrors our’s today and the intended purpose of the Constitution:
“The nation fell into an atrophy. The Union languished to the point of death. A torpid numbness seized upon all its faculties. A chilling cold indifference crept from its extremities to the center. The system was about to dissolve in its own imbecility – impotence in negotiation abroad – domestic insurrection at home, were on the point of bearing to a dishonorable grave the proclamation of a government founded on the rights of man, when a convention of delegates from eleven of the thirteen states, with George Washington at their head, sent forth to the people, an act to be made their own, speaking in their name and in the first person, thus: ‘We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’”
Regarding the emergence of the Union Adams spoke of the people appealing to “the omnipotence of the God of battles.”
That is another variable making foreseeing what is ahead for America more difficult. Adams like presidents before him and the populace in general had a God orientation. They were not all Christians by any means but with rare exception they had a biblical world view. Today even the phrase “the God of Nature and (of) Nature’s God” is railed against.
John Adams, Washington’s successor wrote, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the governing of any other.”
There is another variable. By no means can the moral climate of America be described as “a moral and religious people.”
John Adams was a man of faith who strongly considered becoming a minister. He devoted time four days a week to the study of Scripture. He was more than a tinkling symbol when he wrote Thomas Jefferson on October 7, 1818, a warning that needs to be heeded today: “Have you ever found in history, one single example of a Nation thoroughly corrupted that was afterwards restored to virtue?And without virtue, there can be no political liberty.”
Virtue has been vanquished and political expediency enthroned. Not by all but obviously by the majority.
The variables noted here are: a change of regard for Constitutional government, change in regard to a God orientation,
our general classification can no longer be considered as a moral and religious people, and a diminution of virtue.
These changes in our culture make it impossible to predict our future based on our past.
Or as a frightful afterthought perhaps they can.