Tag: coping

Don’t Lose Heart (2 Corinthians 4:1-12)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (New International Version)

We all face times of adversity and seasons of life which stretch our faith and press the limits of what we can handle. 

You will find no promise within Holy Scripture that believers will avoid trouble. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Jesus promised that those who follow him will experience trouble. (John 15:18-20; 1 John 3:13; 2 Timothy 2:12) 

The pressures of life can sometimes be so overwhelming that we may lose heart. We might blame ourselves for the adversity we’re experiencing and wish things were different. Or we may blame others for our troubles and believe that if they would just get their act together, all would be well with my soul. 

Yet, no matter the source or nature of the problem, believers need a point of focus to direct their troubled hearts. We all need to be reminded of the grace we possess in Jesus Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is both a spiritual and a physical reality. If we believe this truth in our hearts we will be raised both spiritually and physically (Romans 10:9-10). This faith in Christ gives shape to the hope that, although we might be experiencing the effects of mortality and the fall of humanity, we are, at the same time, being spiritually renewed day by day. 

The same afflictions that cause our bodies to degenerate and dispirit us are the means to achieving a glorious, resurrected existence (2 Corinthians 4:13-18). There cannot be the glory of spiritual and bodily resurrection without a shameful death. The way of Jesus was to absorb the shame of the world’s violent ways on the cross so that we might be raised with him in his resurrection. 

However, this victory through Christ’s cross and resurrection does not mean that the church will never experience difficulty in this present life. In fact, daily spiritual renewal can and does happen through adverse circumstances. 

There must be suffering before glory, both for Jesus and for us. Just because we have spiritual deliverance, does not mean we are inoculated from daily stress and pressure. That’s because it’s the troubles of this life that teach us to trust God; it is the adversity which weans us from all that we have previously trusted upon to cope with those troubles. All of this begs several questions for each believer and every church: 

  • Do we give inordinate attention to either the tangibly physical or the intangible spiritual? 
  • How does the gospel impact us today? 
  • How do we interpret our earthly troubles? 
  • What place does faith in God have in our daily decisions? 
  • As we become older, are we being renewed in Christ? 
  • Does the Lord’s Table, as a tangible sign and seal of our intangible faith, shape our hope?

We must learn to embrace our troubles as the means of growing our faith. And the first step to this is by acknowledging those troubles. There is no accepting, coping, and transcending difficult circumstances apart from this awareness. Troubles only have power over us for ill if we ignore them or put up a false front to hide them. 

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, NIV)

The Apostle Paul wasn’t asking anything of the believers that he himself hadn’t already faced. Paul’s Christian experience sometimes resulted in beatings, stoning and shipwreck, hunger and poverty, danger and trouble, not to mention all the pressures of his concern for all the churches he established. Yet, through it all, Paul was transparent and named his troubles so he could apply the poultice of God’s grace to his afflictions. 

It is our brokenness, and not the pretension of having it all together, that shows the grace of God to others.

Over and over again, Paul described his life and ministry in apparent paradoxes: strength in weakness; glory through shame; life through death; riches through poverty. Although we experience the fallen nature of the world, God bends each situation for divine purposes so that what seems to be our downfall becomes the means to our spiritual renewal. 

Every church is inherently paradoxical, a strange amalgam of victory and defeat, faith and doubt, full of sorrow and joy. So, let us then embrace this reality and allow God to use whatever means to shape believers in Jesus for good and benevolent purposes. 

May it be so, to the glory of God.

Psalm 71:1-6 – How to Cope with Change and Loss

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

I run to you, Lord,
for protection.
    Don’t disappoint me.
You do what is right,
    so come to my rescue.
    Listen to my prayer
    and keep me safe.
Be my mighty rock,
    the place
where I can always run
    for protection.
Save me by your command!
    You are my mighty rock
    and my fortress.

Come and save me, Lord God,
    from vicious and cruel
    and brutal enemies!
I depend on you,
    and I have trusted you
    since I was young.
I have relied on you
    from the day I was born.
You brought me safely
through birth,
    and I always praise you. (Contemporary English Version)

No one gets off this planet without experiencing several events of change and loss, resulting in grief and the need to lament. Because of this reality, you would think we all acknowledge this great need of lamenting our significant losses. Yet, we don’t.

Many Christians avoid grief work. The following are just a few of the statements I’ve heard over the decades from parishioners when they experience loss:

  • “Christ is resurrected and alive. There’s victory in Jesus. No need to grieve like unbelievers.”
  • “My loved one is in heaven. No more suffering or pain. It would be selfish of me to be sad.”
  • “It’s a sin to be depressed.”
  • “I can’t let myself cry and fall apart. I need to be strong for my family.”

Those statements are very far from what we find in the biblical psalms and throughout the entirety of Holy Scripture. Consider these realities in the Bible:

  • 62 out of the 150 Psalms in the Old Testament are laments; some are communal, many are individual expressions of grief.
  • God laments. And God grieves with us. (Genesis 6:5-6; Isaiah 53:4; John 11:1-44)
  • An extended time and process of grieving was practiced by biblical characters when loss occurred. It was a normal emotional, spiritual, physical, and relational reaction to that loss. (e.g., Genesis 50:1-3)
  • Lament is an intentional process of letting go of relationships and dreams and discovering how to live into a new identity after the loss or change. There’s even an entire book of the Bible given to lamenting: Lamentations.
  • Everyone’s grief is personal; there is no one size fits all.
  • Avoiding grief, mourning, lament, and loss is totally foreign to the Bible.

Psalms of lament have a characteristic structure, distinct from psalms of praise, trust, or wisdom, like today’s psalm:

  1. Address to God: The address is usually a brief cry for help; and is occasionally expanded to include a statement of praise or a recollection of God’s intervention in the past (Psalm 71:1-3).
  2. Complaint: God is informed about the problem or experience through a range and depth of emotional, relational, and spiritual reactions to change (Psalm 71:4).
  3. Confession of Trust: The psalmist remains confident in God despite the circumstances and begins to see his or her problems differently (Psalm 71:5-8).
  4. Petition: Filled with confidence in God, the psalmist appeals to God for deliverance and intervention.  Petitioning is not bargaining with God or a refusal to accept loss; it is a legitimate seeking of help (Psalm 71:9-13).
  5. Words of Assurance: The psalmist expresses certainty that the petition will be heard by God (Psalm 71:14a).
  6. Vow of Praise: The lament concludes with the psalmist’s vow to testify to what God will do or has done through praise (Psalm 71:14b-24).

The biblical psalms do two wonderful services for us as God’s people: First, a constant stream of reading, quoting, memorizing, and meditating on them actually shapes our faith into a full-orbed, mature, and robust belief. Second, the psalms provide us with a healthy means of expressing the complete range of our human experience. 

So, then, the psalms both reflect our feelings, and, at the same time, form those feelings to know God better, cope with situations, and relate appropriately with others. 

The fourth-century Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, had it right about the psalms when he said: 

“Whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book [the Psalms] you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you not merely hear and pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill.”

St. Athanasius (297-373 C.E.), Bishop of Alexandria

Today’s psalm of lament is the expression of a person getting along in years and discovering all the limitations and weaknesses that go along with aging. It is a plea for help. Whereas in younger days the psalmist had the vigor to engage problems and enemies, now he has the realization that he must increasingly depend upon God (and others).  

Far too many people hitting the aging process do not deal with it well. The change to their bodies, even their minds, is so unwelcome that they do not cope quickly, or, sometimes, at all. They believe it silly to lament such a natural occurrence, even though those physical changes dog them day after day.

Based upon the psalms, I insist that lament is a powerful and necessary form of coming to grips with change. God has not promised us life-long health and constant energy. Rather, the Lord has promised to be with us as our refuge and help through all the vicissitudes of changing health and altered situations. 

Let praying the psalms, then, be a regimen as familiar and daily as your using your pill planner and taking your meds.

Ever-watchful God, you are a rock of refuge, a never changing reality in a world of constant change. You are my hope, Lord, and my faith has been in you all my life. I lament all the difficult changes I encounter. I can never go back to the way things were. So, please open to me a new reality where fresh hope and life can be found, through Jesus Christ my Savior. Amen.

Jeremiah 29:1-14 – Bloom Where You Are Planted

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” (NIV)

Whenever I am in a conversation with a Christian, I often ask them what their favorite Bible verse or passage of Scripture is. Hands down, the most often cited verse is Jeremiah 29:11 –

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)

It certainly is a wonderful verse. Yet, there is a distinct situation and context surrounding that verse about the future, which is very much rooted in the present. The nation of Judah had been invaded and taken into captivity to Babylon. Understandably, the people were longing to go back home. They did not want to be in Babylon. So, Jeremiah (who remained in Judah) sent them a letter, warning them not to listen to false prophets who would give them an easy answer about getting out of Babylon quickly. Instead, he instructed them to make a good life for themselves in their captive land.  He essentially told them to “bloom where you are planted.”

“If you don’t like something, change it.

If you can’t change it, change your attitude about it.“

maya angelou

The people, although in a place and in a situation which they neither wanted nor expected, needed to be present to their surroundings and settle down. They were to pray for peace, both for themselves and for their captors, because their own success in life was inextricably tied to their geographical place in Babylonia. The sooner the people listened to Jeremiah on this, the better off they would be.           

Plans to give us a hope and future only have meaning for us today when we:

  • Understand that we are to work hard, right where we are, in a place we do not want to be.
  • Pray for that place, its people, and their welfare.
  • Thrive in our present hard circumstance. 
  • Only then, can we look to the bright future of hope.

Our present sufferings are incomparable to the coming glory yet to be revealed. That future hope only occurs if we persevere and find ways of flourishing in the place and situation where we are today. 

So, how will you thrive in the place God has you right now? We always have the choice to practice resilience and make the absolute best of unwanted circumstances – or sit and stew over our misfortune to the point of becoming bitter and hard. It is important to choose wisely.

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought me in safety to this new day.  Preserve with your mighty power so that I might not just wish for a different today and are not able to see what you have for me in this place.  May I not be overcome by adversity, but in all things direct me to the fulfilling of your purposes, through Jesus Christ, my Lord in the strength of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.