Over the years, I have sung in a number of different church choirs and praise teams. One constant across those experiences is the instruction to smile. Smile while you’re singing. Smile during the sermon. Be an example to the congregation; make sure they see you smiling.

There is some value to this instruction. It is good to be expressive when we are singing, whether in church or elsewhere. It’s probably not ideal to have a choir full of people frowning behind the pastor during the sermon.

At the same time, I have seen greater emphasis on these things in church contexts, and I think it’s part of the too common church culture that encourages Christians to present only the good to the world and to each other. We are supposed to always be joyful, so that means we should smile all the time, right?

Wrong!

I believe this is one of those areas where we have taken the Bible and over-simplified it, placing a burden on ourselves that God never intended for us to carry.

Certainly, God has called us to joy:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. (Philippians 4:4 ESV)

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV)

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Corinthians 13:11 ESV)

However, as we learn to rejoice in the Lord at all times, we need to remember that he never called us to a fake display of emotions, nor did he forbid us to mourn authentically. In 2 Cor. 13:11 quoted above, the instruction to “rejoice” is followed by “comfort one another.” If we’re all happy, why would any of us need comfort?Paul also told us, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15 ESV). Jesus himself did that in the well-known shortest verse as he wept with Mary over her brother’s tomb even though he knew that the grief would not last much longer. The joy that God brings us is not a denial of grief and pain, nor is it just a smile we put on our faces. It is found when God works through us to overcome the grief and pain of life in this world.

I believe that joy is a choice and a process. We have to choose to experience the joy God calls us to, not only by choosing to follow God in the first place, but also on a daily basis. We are told, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, knowing that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3 ESV). This is not a matter of, “Oh, you’re a Christian now, so turn your trials into smiles.” Something that produces steadfastness (or perseverance or endurance) is not going to be fun or easy to go through. It’s going to be hard, even painful. James tells us to choose joy because we understand the outcome. Paul tells us to choose to rejoice in the Lord. 

The really good news is that joy is also a process. As we choose joy again and again, that joy becomes more natural. We learn that God does provide a peace and comfort that we cannot begin to understand. Paul says, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Philippians 4:11 ESV). That didn’t happen overnight; we should not expect to feel our own joy and contentment instantly.

Life is hard, and there are many suffering right now. It doesn’t help to pretend to be something we are not. We are not called to put on a forced smile, but to make the authentic choice to trust God and rejoice in the outcome he will bring, showing compassion and empathy as we weep with those who weep.

Photo by Charles Etoroma on Unsplash

The past three months have been intense at my house. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, the semester was a challenging one to begin with: teaching full time for the first time in nearly a decade, including teaching a new class and one that is very familiar but that I hadn’t taught in since spring of 2013. Then I got the flu followed, as one might expect, by my husband getting the flu. We didn’t get tested, but we know influenza A was going around the community at the time, and our symptoms were classic influenza, including a couple of weeks of being wiped out. So if you wondered why I quit posting after mid-February, there’s your first answer. 

Of course, you are all familiar at some level with part of what happened next. As I finished recovering physically and began to get fully caught up with work over Spring Break, the new coronavirus started impacting our lives. I had an extra week of break in order to prepare for teaching my courses online. As someone who had never taught online before, I was grateful for the extra week of preparation, but I also greatly regretted the loss of class time as I worked to cram the necessary material into an already crowded final six weeks of the semester without overburdening students.

I had been told many times that teaching online takes more effort and more time than teaching face to face. I pretty much believed it, but now I truly know that it is true. In the struggle to give my students what they needed and fulfill the other essential responsibilities I had, many things fell to the wayside, including this blog. My memorization program tells me that I have 155 verses to review at present (after reviewing James 2:12-26 earlier today). The resolution about serious weekly Bible study will get resurrected later this week. I have watched my church’s online services. I’ve kept up with my daily Bible reading. I’ve fed my family. I’ve had weekly calls with my parents and sons. I’ve mourned my cat, who died just as this was all starting. Beyond that, my life has been too much news and work, lots of work.

As hard as the past weeks have been, I’ve been grateful. My family is richly blessed in this circumstance. I’m not thrilled about having to teach from home, but I can do it. My husband usually works from home. Only one of our close family members was furloughed from her job, and she and her husband are fine financially. As I watch the world around me, I have been tempted to envy those with extra time on their hands, but I am mostly moved by the pain I see in those who have been directly impacted by this virus as well as those who have suffered due to the shutdowns.

Having submitted the semester’s grades and looking at a far reduced workload for the next few months, I find myself with time, at last, to look around and ask what my role as a Christ-follower is in this current crisis. Part of that role is easy to see. People are suffering, both from the virus itself and from the resulting economic impact. As believers, we are to give to those in need. 

I think there are other roles that we have in our current circumstance. One of those is the role of truth seeker. When we were told that the truth would set us free, Jesus was primarily talking of himself as that truth. At the same time, we know that God is the creator of the universe we live in and that his word is true. Therefore, we can be assured that actual scientific fact can never contradict God’s truth. Scientific theory can. We can misunderstand either the Bible or the facts. However, the reality is that the Truth and the facts cannot be in disagreement, and I believe that gives me as a child of God the responsibility to seek a better understanding of both the facts and God’s truth as I walk through every situation in life, including our current circumstances.

As we seek and disseminate truth, however, we must never forget another of our roles. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God,” (Matthew 6:9 ESV). Just as we are told to share our faith with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 ESV), I believe that we need to display that gentleness in other areas of our lives. Gentleness is, after all, one of the fruits of the spirit. There are deeply committed Christians with many different beliefs about the virus and different responses to it, just as there non-Christians with a variety of such beliefs. What should distinguish those of us who are believers is how we express our views and how we treat those who disagree with us. Let us, as Christians, be known by our love, our gentleness, our concern and respect for others, and our hunger for truth.

This is a hard time for most of us in this world. How are you coping, and how are you seeking God in this challenge?

I love Facebook, and I hate it. I love it because of the connections it has enabled me to renew and maintain. I’ve lived in a number of different places, and I have friends and family literally around the world. Currently, I live near no one from my childhood. Aside from my husband, there is one person in town that I met in grad school. Without things like email and Facebook, I would live a life very disconnected from my past. Through electronic media, I’ve also come to know some friendly acquaintances from my childhood much better as we’ve discussed a wide variety of topics. Thus, I’m grateful for the technology that has helped me stay connected to people from other parts of my life and has facilitated closer relationships with some of those people.

At the same time, social media’s connections are not the same as face-to-face connections. People who are on the other side of conversations that occur only through text are easy to dehumanize. What I hate about Facebook (and other social media platforms) is the frequency with which I see people saying things that they would never say face-to-face, or at least would never say in quite that way.

It’s not necessary that even those who disagree be acrimonious in such a medium. I have two friends on Facebook with whom I fairly regularly engage in discussions regarding theological and political topics. Both are men whose intellect and thoughtfulness I respect. One shares many of my values and has theological views very similar to mine, but his political opinions include a few things I strongly disagree with. The other is someone whose theology and politics are both significantly different from mine.

What I have very much appreciated about both of these people as we have engaged in discussions, often through Facebook, is the degree of respect that they have shown to me by debating facts and opinions but never being rude to me or dismissive of my ideas. Both are also ready to acknowledge our shared values and faith.

I think that as Christ-followers we should recognize that God calls us to unity, but he doesn’t call us to all be the same person. I know people who seem to think that all who call themselves Christians should think exactly the same way on every topic. I see a couple of problems with that. 

First, none of us are perfected in Christ yet. Therefore, I am confident that some opinions of mine are wrong and that some opinions of yours are wrong and even that some opinions of the Bible teachers I most respect are wrong. James warned us, “For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body” (James 3:2 ESV). Since none of us are perfect, we are prone to say wrong things.

Second, the Bible makes it very clear that we do not all have the same calling and gifting. That is much of Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 12. Different gifts and purposes in life give us different perspectives. I have seen that in my marriage. My husband’s spiritual gifts are mercy and service. Mine are teaching and prophecy. These give us very different perspectives at times and have led to a few heated discussions. However, that difference and those discussions have led to improved character and behavior in me as he encourages me to be more careful of others’ hearts as I seek to communicate truth. 

God intends for us to discuss our disagreements, to influence each other toward character improvement. “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another,” (Proverbs 27:17 ESV). However, we need to do that sharpening with grace, remembering that we are called to unity, as Paul reminds us:

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3 ESV)

I would urge all who try to communicate spiritual truth on any form of social media to remember something I constantly have to remind myself of. Even if I am called to share or teach spiritual truth, it is not my job to change minds. Only the Holy Spirit will do that. My job is to share what I have been called to share, but to do so with love—not as a clanging cymbal, but with gentleness and humility. This is something I continue to work very hard at, but I am convinced that it is worth the effort.

I was blessed in my childhood to have parents who were willing to believe me when there was no external evidence for what I was complaining about. Around the time I was 9, I started occasionally experiencing extreme pain in the back of knees that would keep me awake. I remember nights when I know they were tired and frustrated, but they never questioned my pain and always worked to find ways to alleviate it, even though all the doctors ever said was “must be growing pains.”

They went through that experience again when I had severe headaches at age 13. It turned out that those were due to a (benign) bone tumor above my left eye, and the physical reality eventually became obvious. I’d wake up in not much pain with my eye nearly swollen shut. By bedtime, the swelling would be almost gone and the pain would be intense. However, my parents didn’t need the physical proof before they treated my pain as a real thing.

I’ve sometimes wondered why they never questioned the reality of my invisible ailments. I’ve never asked, and I think they may not know. I suspect that it was about their relationship with me and their trust in me. They knew I didn’t have a habit of complaining about pain. They couldn’t see physical evidence of the cause of the pain, but they could see the evidence of the pain in my behavior in each of the circumstances I’ve mentioned.

We have been asked to have this kind of relationship with and trust in Jesus. 

After his resurrection, Jesus had appeared to most of the disciples, but not to Thomas. While we fault Thomas for his reaction to the stories about Christ’s resurrection, he had some excuse to think that his friends had all lost their minds. Jesus came back from the dead; that’s hard to swallow. Importantly, Jesus doesn’t condemn Thomas. He shows the proof that it’s really him. After Thomas acknowledges Jesus as Lord and God, we see Christ’s response.

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29 ESV)

To me, Jesus sounds a bit disappointed here. This is one of his disciples, a man who has been by his side and learning from him for most of his ministry. He failed to recognize the truth of the resurrection, the truth of who Jesus was, until he saw.

Yet, there is no condemnation. Jesus invites Thomas to look, and to do more than look; he invites Thomas to come to know him better. 

We shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus treats Thomas and his need to actually see Christ gently. We see God responding kindly to requests for assurance in the Old Testament as well. In Judges 6, we see Gideon asking God for a sign that he’s really been called to save the Israelites from their current oppressors. He leaves a fleece out on the ground at night and asks God to make it wet and every around it dry, and that happens. Then Gideon starts thinking about it and decides that that was too easy. “Then Gideon said to God, ‘Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew’” (Judges 6:39 ESV). And God does it. The next morning, the fleece is dry and the ground is covered with dew.

Despite his graciousness with our need for certainty, God still wants to grow so that we don’t always need to see first. When the Israelites are fleeing Egypt, Moses holds out his staff and the Red Sea parts and only after the water is out of the way do the Israelites cross. But later on when the people go to cross the Jordan, the waters don’t part until after the priests step into the swollen river (Joshua 3:13-17). God expects Israel (or at least their leadership) to have learned to trust him during the forty years they have spent depending on him while wandering about in the wilderness.

We often take that last sentence Jesus speaks to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” as an instruction to us and praise for us, as the people who have not seen Christ on earth. However, I think it’s more than that. I think Jesus is saying that those who come to know and trust him to the point that they do not need to see what he is doing in order to believe are inherently blessed.

If we know Jesus well enough, we do have joy in times of great sorrow and pain. If we understand God’s sovereignty and his love for us, we don’t despair when everything seems lost. The knowledge and trust that allow us to believe when we can’t see what God is doing are, in and of themselves, the blessing.

Of course, there’s no quick and easy solution to being able to believe what we can’t see. Relationships and trust are built over time. We can only take the time in prayer and Bible study and trust that God will reveal himself and his character to us over time, enabling us to become those who believe more and more, even when we can’t see.

 

Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

“Make wise choices today.” That’s something we get told by parents and teachers as we’re growing up. It’s also something the Bible advocates: “Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her” (Proverbs 3:13-15 ESV).

But what do we mean by wisdom?

Too often, I think, we use a worldly version of wisdom, a practical kind of wisdom. We make decisions based on our understanding of how things work in the world, sometimes with selfish motives. From a human point of view, that’s a very sensible thing to do, but it’s not the kind of wisdom Proverbs 3 is talking about.

The problem with earthly wisdom is that it is broken, just as the world and humans in this world are broken. We can see this as we look at society and its flaws. Whatever systems of government or economy we come up with will always work imperfectly, however wisely we create them, because they are created and run by humans, who are inherently flawed and generally selfish. That’s the biggest problem with capitalism, socialism, monarchy, democracy–you name it.

James takes about wisdom, both the earthly version and God’s version:

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:13-18 ESV)

The description here of earthly wisdom is shocking. Demonic? And that’s not just the translation; the NIV, NASB, Holman, and NKJV all use that same word. Selfish wisdom is deplorable.

The description of heavenly wisdom is even more striking, however. I tend to think of wise decisions in terms of doing the right things and making the hard choices, even when they make people unhappy. This probably comes from having to make such decisions as an administrator. I think that is a necessary part of being wise, but the focus in this passage of James is not on that.

The description of the “wisdom from above” does begin with doing righteous things. This wisdom is “first pure.” It has to start there, because this is God’s wisdom. Walking in this wisdom can never mean doing wrong out of convenience or expedience. It must also do what is right.

Yet, too often as Christians we stop there. If we’re going to walk in God’s wisdom, we must pay attention to the rest of the verse.

• peaceable – How often do we confront in ways that cause conflict rather than leading toward conversation that might lend itself to positive progress? It is true that peace-making sometimes has to confront, but it must always do so in ways that lead toward resolution.
• gentle – This goes with the peaceable part. Are we gentle in how we do right? Do we consider the potential pain of others in our decisions? We must not do wrong to seem kind, but we must do right in ways that do not cause unnecessary harm.
• open to reason – This one is interesting. It’s particularly important for humans, because we all are fallible. We are not perfect, so we must be open to listen to reason. That doesn’t mean we change our beliefs just because others disagree, but it does mean that we genuinely listen and engage rationally with those who have other viewpoints. Some versions translate this phrase as submissive, compliant, or willing to yield, so it goes beyond just listening to possibly giving way to another.
• full of mercy – If we walk in God’s wisdom, we must do it with hearts of mercy, not hearts of judgment.
• full of good fruits – Godly wisdom will produce visible good effects in our lives and those of the people around us.
• impartial – This one is more obvious to me than some of the others, but it is a reminder that God’s wisdom is not selfish and does not favor those we have an emotional attachment to or trespass against those we dislike.
• sincere – God’s wisdom doesn’t fake it.

That’s quite a list. It’s the wisdom from above because we can’t possibly do this by ourselves, but we can work toward this ideal by walking with God daily, asking him to help us apply his wisdom in each of the decisions we must make.

What would it look like if every conversation we had, every decision we made, was characterized by this description of the wisdom from above? I can tell you that churches would stop having business meeting fights over the color of the carpet. More importantly, those we interact with would see the difference that walking closely with Christ can make.

 

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

“People are different.” That’s something I’ve said a number of times and firmly believe is true. Each of my children, each of my students, and each of the other people in my life is a unique individual whom I should treat with awareness of their individuality and respect for the person God created them to be. 

Unfortunately, humans are not good at dealing with all of this individuality. Our limited mental processes lead us to lump people (and everything else) into categories so that we can deal with them more easily. In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing so much as a necessary one, but we turn it into a bad thing when we start treating people badly because of the categories we have placed them in. Human history is littered with examples of the harm that people do when they see others as members of some other category rather than as individual human beings created by God. We celebrated MLK Day last Monday because Dr. King stood up to advocate for the oppressed while arguing against hatred and violence toward anyone.

Being part of one of those underprivileged categories hurts. I cannot claim to have a clue what it is like to be an African-American in current US culture: I’m about as white as you get (very pale-skinned and blonde). However, as a female computer science professor who has also worked in the industry, I have experienced more demonstrations that I was part of the denigrated minority than I would ever have believed possible in this day and age.

So what does this issue of categorization, bias, and privilege have to do with faith? More than some of us remember on a daily basis. 

James flat out tells his readers, “Don’t do it”: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (James 2:1 ESV). In case they didn’t get the message, he later goes on:

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it (James 2:8-10 ESV).

It is crucial that we not miss this. If we show partiality (or favoritism), we are committing sin and are guilty as transgressors of the entire law. God takes prejudice seriously.

Now some might note that James is primarily focused on economic distinctions. His example of showing partiality has to do with treatment of the well-dressed and the shabbily clothed. I would argue that this distinction is one that we still struggle with in churches. In how many churches would someone who clearly couldn’t afford new clothes feel as welcome as someone in a new name-brand outfit?

The Bible doesn’t stop with treatment of the poor and the rich. It also addresses ethnicity and culture. We see multiple passages where Jesus has a conversation about the most important commandments: 1) Love God, and 2) Love your neighbor.  On one of those occasions, he tells a lawyer to go do those, and the response is telling. “But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Luke 10:29 ESV). Jesus responds by telling the story, familiar to many of us, of the Good Samaritan. That story must be understood in context. The Samaritans and the Jews hated each other. It was a hatred rooted in ethnicity, culture, and religion. Jesus is clearly saying, that all people, even those in the other group that you despise, are your neighbors.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise to the lawyer. The Jews were a people set apart in the Old Testament, but God repeatedly demonstrated that outsiders who were not enemies should be treated well. Leviticus has multiple requirements to provide good and or equal treatment of the “sojourner among you.” King David’s great-grandmother was a Moabite woman (Ruth 4:17-19).

As the gospel spreads in the New Testament, we see it scattered to a variety of people. Both women and men hear and believe. It goes to Asia, Europe, and Africa. Some of those we hear about are rich; some are poor. Paul declares: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:27-29 ESV).

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have no excuse for acting out of prejudice of any kind. Let us strive to be part of the solution in this broken world and seek to treat every person God places in our path with the kindness and respect and love that God would have us show.

 

Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash

One part of my daily routine, after I do my Bible reading, is to read small sections of several nonfiction books. Among my current reads is one about the gospel, and the author argues that many churches and individual Christians have lost sight of the essential gospel message and fail to present that message clearly.

While I haven’t finished the book yet and don’t want to misrepresent the author’s points, it has struck me that the author is undervaluing the importance of God’s love in the gospel story and message.

The book is reacting against views of the gospel that are human-centered rather than God-centered, and there is a legitimate concern there. We sometimes speak as if the whole story was ours–that creation and incarnation and crucifixion and resurrection all happened because God somehow needed human companionship. He doesn’t; he is self-sufficient. We benefit from it, but God didn’t do any of it because we deserved it or because he somehow had to have us.

Of course, that begs the question “Why?” Why would a self-sufficient, all-powerful, all-knowing God create people when he knew, given free will, they would turn away from him. Why would he subject himself to the humiliation of becoming one of them and the suffering of the crucifixion, all to allow some of them to come back and have fellowship with him?

That is something we cannot fully understand, of course. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8 ESV). The answer the author offers is “for God’s glory.” That is certainly true, but I believe it to be incomplete. Another part of the answer is rooted deeply in God’s character, in his love.

After all, that is what he told us. One of the best known verses of the Bible declares it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). Jesus made the point the day before his death that, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13 ESV).

The Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:16). Now, we can get in trouble focusing on that. We sometimes seem to think God’s love turns him into a friend or even a pet or a fluffy toy. 

We forget that God is also righteous and holy and just. His love does not change those qualities, and God’s love is of a kind that we cannot really understand. His is a truly unconditional, self-sacrificial love that wants the best for us. What’s more, unlike everyone else who cares for us, including ourselves, God actually knows what is best for us. We must also remember that God’s view always looks beyond present circumstances. An eternity with God is worth pain in this life, and God views it that way.

God’s love is a love deeply inherent in his character and completely lacking in selfishness. No part of his love is rooted in the one who is loved. It is entirely rooted in him. The greatest of human loves doesn’t come close. If we can grasp the reality of this love, it should bring us to our knees.

This I believe is the gospel: God chose to create a universe with people and to love them completely even though he knew they would reject him, which we did. He then chose to experience humiliation and pain as a sacrifice to reconcile us to himself. And any human willing to turn over his life to God and receive that gift of reconciliation and eternal life can experience God’s love in all of its wonder.

That is the good news: the gospel.

 

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This part of January is challenging to me. In many ways, it always has been; it’s a busy time, getting ready for the new semester to start. We’re coming out of the holiday season. There are multiple family birthdays, which bring joy but also additional tasks, though at least I no longer have to figure out how to do birthday parties for a child born in January.

The hardest part of this week is in some ways also the easiest. It consists of writing two short notes, one a message on Facebook, the other a text. The messages are similar and consist of not much more than “I’m thinking of and praying for you today.” One is to my older son, the other to a woman I’ve never actually met.

Nine years ago, my husband and I were sleeping in on Saturday morning when the phone rang. It was our older son who had returned to college a few days before, and he sounded strange, breathing heavily and struggling to speak. As a mother, of course, I immediately pictured him injured in the hospital and began questioning him, trying to figure out what was going on. He eventually managed to convey that he was not hurt, so I began questioning him about his girlfriend (now wife), and he finally managed to say, “It’s Mark,” eventually followed by, “He’s gone.”

Mark was that instant lifelong friend that many people seem to make in college. They met the first day of orientation and were nearly inseparable for the next three and a half years until news of the fatal car accident came. 

What do you do when your son suffers such a blow? To this day, I don’t think I really know the answer to that beyond simply being there. Within the hour, we had hotel reservations and were on the road. We shopped for his first adult suit, met his future mother-in-law for the first time since she had come to support her daughter, took a group of Mark’s friends out for dinner. Our presence was appreciated, but it couldn’t stop the pain, of course, and then we had to go home, back to our jobs and comforts while our hearts bled for our child.

This was a life-changing event, in the short term as it impacted health and school, but also in the longer term. It impacted life goals and helped dictate our son’s current job. It affected the wedding, where there were no attendants because the person who was supposed to be best man couldn’t be there.

Healing has come with time, so much so that there are significant periods of time when Mark is forgotten and life is full of happiness and joy. But then there is this time of the year, as his birthday approaches, and we mark the anniversary of the death. And so I send a message to Mark’s mother and one to my son, to let them know that I, too, remember their loss on this day. A small thing, but all that I have to do that might help.

Then I question, as we are prone to do. Why, God, would you take this young man? Why would you allow my son to suffer such a loss? 

I have no answers for those questions beyond the general brokenness of the world and the free will that God has given people. After all, I don’t believe that God caused the accident, only that he did not act supernaturally to prevent it.

In my questioning, however, I often find myself reminded of the suffering Jesus went through and the suffering God the Father subjected himself to in causing the Son to suffer so. You see, having heard and sung of the blood of Jesus and Christ’s death and suffering all my life, I sometimes see that pain as not real. It becomes something that I know about, but don’t quite recognize for what it is. After all, God is God. He is supremely powerful and completely self-sufficient.

But, think about this: God is God, but he allowed himself in Jesus to be subjected to horrific pain.

• Jesus was betrayed by one of his twelve closest followers, someone who was supposed to be his friend. “While he was still speaking, there came a crowd, and the man called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?’” (Luke 22:47-48 ESV).
• Jesus was mocked and scorned. “Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, ‘Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?’” (Matthew 26:67-68 ESV). In addition, there is the crown of thorns, both painful and mocking. He’s spit upon again and even derided while on the cross.
• Jesus was beaten multiple times. We see him being beaten before he is taken to Pilate. The Bible states that Pilate had him scourged before delivering him to be crucified. Then we have a description of yet another beating as part of preparation for the crucifixion.
• Jesus died a physically agonizing death. Crucifixion was a weapon Rome used to keep subjugated peoples in line, and it was designed for cruelty and visibility.

All of this is just the part we can relate to. Jesus was also suffering from the weight of our sin: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV). That is a kind of suffering that we really don’t understand, though anyone who has struggled to be free of an addiction or some sinful habit that they just couldn’t shake may have an inkling of what Christ was going through.

Furthermore, as a parent whose children have suffered, I know that God the Father also suffered as he put Jesus through this ordeal for our sake. 

I don’t understand; this side of heaven, I probably won’t ever understand why the really awful things happen. Yet, I will hold on to the insight they give me into the suffering that the all-powerful, completely self-sufficient creator of the universe chose to go through so that we might be reconciled to him.

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
                            Isaiah 53:4-5 ESV

I’m not usually one for New Year’s Resolutions. Most of the resolutions I have made over the years have been broken far too quickly, and I never wanted to fall into the trap of making the same empty promises year after year. However, this January clearly marks a new chapter in my life. I am a computer science professor, but I was pulled into administration nine years ago. I found my department chair position much more satisfying and rewarding than I expected, but also far more stressful and draining than teaching and research.  I stepped down from my position at the end of June and have been on leave since then, working on getting my research program back up and running as well as preparing to return to the class room on a full time basis.

Now, the time has come for my old and new life to begin again. Old because I’m going back to the job I did and loved for well over a decade. New because other circumstances have changed–children grown and moved away, new courses and changed course content, and a research field that looks nothing like it did a decade ago. As I look ahead, I am both thrilled and terrified; thrilled because I am glad to be out of the administrative role and its stresses, and because I loved my job in 2010; terrified because I am rusty, and because I want to love my job again.

Given these circumstances, I thought this might be a good year to actually make some resolutions and share them with you in place of my usual devotional content. So, here they are:

Care the Right Amount about My Job

A faculty position can take over your life, especially if you are a responsible person who cares about your students. I have a tendency to give my students more of my time and energy than I probably should. I can also occasionally get very absorbed into a research problem. As a mother of children at home, I worked to prevent my job from completely taking over my life, knowing that my family needed my time, though I’m sure my sons would tell you that I was not as successful as perhaps I should have been.

Looking ahead, I certainly don’t want to become one of those professors who go through the motions. I do care about my students and enjoy my research, but, more importantly, we are commanded to take our work seriously, whatever it is. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23-24 ESV). We’re also encouraged to enjoy it. “And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 8:15 ESV).

At the same time, I don’t want to lose track of other things that matter. The story of Mary and Martha reminds us that Jesus considers time spent with him to be important, more so than our daily work. My children no longer live here, but I still have a husband and friends. So my first resolution is to work hard, find joy in my work, and keep my work from consuming my life.

Spend Time in the Word

For many years, I have managed to keep a pretty consistent Bible reading and prayer time in the mornings, but I have only recently become serious about Scripture memorization and meditation. I also feel a need to pick up more serious Bible study than I have been engaged in recently. With the return to teaching, my daily schedule will become more erratic.

So my second resolution is to continue to reserve daily time for Scripture memory and to carve out at least an hour per week for serious Bible study in addition to my usual reading and prayer time.

Focus on Relationships

I am an introvert. In general, I do not need people when I get home from work. I love to read. I enjoy video games. I love to write. I can entertain myself with no problem at all, and I desperately need some of that time to be alone and recover the energy it costs me to engage with others.

But God doesn’t intend that even his introverts walk through life alone. We are commanded to fellowship. We are commanded to be witnesses. We cannot have good fellowship without spending time with other Christ followers. We cannot be effective witnesses without spending time with non-believers.

With the renewed scheduling flexibility of my faculty position, I have determined that I need to renew my focus on spending time with people and improving my relationships..

So my third resolution is to make sure I take time every week to spend with people other than students and to seek to develop at least one more good Christian friend and at least one friend that I can share Christ with.

 

Those are my resolutions for 2020. I encourage you to comment below about what God is leading you to commit to for the coming year.

 

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

In one of the novels I was recently reading, a girl wants something very badly, and the author says “she wished (for she wouldn’t call it ‘praying,’ which she instinctively knew should be reserved for very special needs)” (The Wizard of London, Mercedes Lackey). 

Now this is not an author I would ever take spiritual advice from; she does not claim to be a Christ-follower. However, I think that this idea that prayer is only for things that are somehow important enough to be prayed about is a misconception we find among Christians as well. Even when we pay lip service to the notion that we can (and should) pray about everything, we often don’t pray about the “little” things.

This reluctance to pray about things we see as little can come from a lot of different places. Those of us who are Americans were raised in a very do-it-yourself culture. Even though “God helps those who help themselves” is not biblical, many of us were raised on that phrase. We believe that we shouldn’t start praying until we’ve done all that we could do in our power. When we do this, we are trying to use God as the hero who rides in to save the day at the end of every episode. But that’s not what God is willing to be for us. He offers us a relationship to walk with him in everything. He’s not looking to be the superhero who comes in only when all is lost. He is our savior, but that was a one time act. One we have accepted that gift, he becomes our helper and comforter, intending to interact with us on a continual basis. Relegating God to the role of occasional hero is missing the point entirely.

We may be reluctant to pray about things we see as small simply because God is so great. We sometimes think he wouldn’t care about this little thing that matters to us but doesn’t have an impact on our ministry, or maybe even an impact on anyone else in the world. It’s hard to believe that the creator of the universe actually cares about me, but he has said that he does. “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12: 6-7 ESV)

I like to tell the story of one of the little things that mattered only to me (or maybe me and my immediate family). My glasses had broken on Saturday night. They were plastic frames that had snapped at the nose piece. This had happened to me before a couple of times over the years, and we glued them as we had before, but we didn’t expect the glue to hold long, because it had never held for as long as a day before. I could not get to the eye doctor until at least that Thursday, and I had a lot of driving and graduate classes to deal with on Monday through Wednesday. So I asked my Sunday School class to pray for my glasses to somehow hold. And they did, not coming apart until I was sitting in the optometrist’s office. A little thing, for the glue to hold for four days instead of one, but something that made my life much better for those four days.

As I tell that story again, one thing occurs to me: what isn’t little to God? He spoke the world into being. What can we ask of him that he would think is a big request? There are things God won’t do because of his character. There are things he won’t do because he has a better plan for us. There are also times when he waits to act. But there is nothing we can ask that would cause his to say, “Oh, that’s hard.” Paul reminds us that he “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20b ESV). Since everything we might ask is small to God, there is no reason why some things should be considered too small.

Of course, the biggest reason for praying about everything is that he told us to: “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6b). Not in some things, not in the important things, but in everything. When we are tempted to think, “Oh, God won’t care about that,” or “I can handle this problem by myself,” we should remind ourselves that God intends for us to pray about every single thing, large or small. Then, we should pray.

 

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay