Pushing Through

There's a group of us at Central Church here in Fort Wayne wou are working through this whole idea of "sole delight." We're using the book, "Don't Waste Your Life," and we're discovering that the only way to not waste our life is to take delight in God and God Alone, to develop a passion within for more and more of God, and to use every opportunity to enable others to find their delight in Him as well.

But there's this question that keeps creeping in: How do I find my delight, my joy,my pleasure, my happiness -- whatever your word is -- in God? It's one thing to know in my head that He is ultimately desireable, but delight itself is such a viseral -- an emotional -- response that seems rather difficult to control.

That's where "pushing through" comes in. When we have an experience that delights us, there is a very strong tendency to stop with that delight and enjoy it for what it does to me. Whether it's a kiss from the one we love, a taste of our favorite food, or a view of a breathtaking sunset, we take it in for the pleasure it brings us, we savor it, as we go no further. It we are ever to learn to delight in God, we need to push through that stopping point to the One who made it possible, to the Grace that grants all good things, and to the Cross that delivered that grace to us. In other words, we need to push through everyday pleasures to turn them into moments of worship and sweetness with God.

More later ...

Piper at New Word of Life Conference

Sooner or later, it will become evident to the reader of this blog that I have been and continue to be a student of John Piper. His books, his messages and his conferences have been places where God has met me to reveal to me the glorious reality of His Glory and my one and only real purpose – to reflect that glory as much and as far as He enables me to.

Piper has much to say about this subject of suffering, and most recently, he delivered two messages at the New Word of Life Conference in Wales. I highly recommend these. They may be heard and downloaded at:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/2008/2718_Treasuring_Christ_and_the_Call_to_Suffer_Part_1/

and

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/2008/2722_Treasuring_Christ_and_the_Call_to_Suffer_Part_2/

Below are some personal applications I took from these talks. If you take time to listen to them, you will, most likely, find even more.

(Note: Unless otherwise noted, the reference numbers are verses in Romans 8)

1. I must embrace my suffering as a means to my glorification. (17: “we suffer with Him in order that we may be glorified with Him.”) Therefore, each suffering prepares me more for my glorification.
2. I must look upon the suffering of all creation (which includes natural disasters) as God’s demonstration of the horror of sin. (20-21)
3. Because I, and all others who have received the grace of Christ, no longer stand under condemnation, I must receive my own suffering, and that of by fellow Christians, not as judgment, but as purification. (1-2)
4. I must look through my sufferings to see its ultimate purpose – and the ultimate purpose of the universe – to perceive the glory of God in the crucifixion of the Lamb of God. (Rom 8:20-21, Eph 1:6; 2 Tim 1:9; Rev 13:8)
5. I must magnify Christ in my suffering as the one who will, now or in the age to come, deliver me from all suffering and heal me of all infirmities. (1 Peter 2:24)
6. I must glorify Christ in my suffering as the one who is infinitely satisfying even as I suffer – so satisfying, in fact, that the greater my suffering, the greater His satisfaction is revealed. (18-19)
7. I must rest on the promises that:
1. After this suffering, we will see His all-satisfying beauty and greatness. (18)
2. My sufferings will lead me to a glorious state where I will have the capacity to enjoy the glory of God fully.(19)
3. All creation will be freed from its present futility to become a fitting place for the eternal, unfettered worship of God. (21)

When Bad Thngs Happen

Recently my good friend and very dear brother in Christ, Eric, lead pastor of The Crossing At Woodland Fellowship gave a talk on the perennially thorny question: Why do bad things happen to good people? It was a good talk. Eric has what it takes to give good talks – A gift for gab, an understanding of his culture, a love for his people, and an unrelenting, uncompromising passion for the Word of God. And it got my thinker going, especially over how this question connects with the theme of this blog: Sole Delight.

My first thought was that the question itself, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” is flawed, but I think we already knew that. “Good” and “people” are oxymoronic. We think there are good people in the world because we don’t really understand the horror of sin. But, once we recognize that sin is real, pervasive, and incredibly ugly, we remember that there really is no such thing as “good people.” But let’s not get hung up here. We know what is meant.

Second, it brought to mind a conversation I had with David Clark, Professor of Theology at Bethel Seminary back around my second or third year there. I was considering writing a paper on the problem of evil, and was chatting with him about it. I suggested that the answer might lay in our incorrect definitions of both “good” and “bad.” He said that I wasn’t the first to think that, and that I might want to go with that thought. I didn’t, opting instead to write on something else.

But, like I said, the talk got me to thinking about that again. Is it possible that we have a wrong idea of what is evil and what is good? We seem to define both terms with an eye toward the effect that an event has on “me.” If it fits my notion of what I think I need or want (health, money, dopamine…) then I call it “good.” But if it makes me sick, poor or unhappy, then it is “bad.” I realize that is a drastic oversimplification, but, for the sake of the discussion, allow me to be simple for a moment. Because, when it all comes down to it, the complexity is really nothing more than a matter of degree. Really bad stuff is stuff that makes me really sad, really poor or really sick and really dead. Or, it’s a matter of contrast. When really good people (like, say, children or Randy Pausch) experience those kind of things, then this is really bad, and we ask theologically faulty questions like, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”.

We need to start by redefining “good” and “bad.” Rather than think of it in terms of what an event does to us, we need to think of what it does to God’s glory. Of course, that means we first need to learn to value the glory of God above our own self-defined “happiness.” We need to come to the point that we understand that God’s first and foremost object of affection and worship and joy is in the only thing worthy of affection, worship, and joy, and that is Himself. Think about it: If we worship anything other than God, that’s called idolatry. If God were to worship anything other than God, that would also be idolatry. It is only when God and all of God’s creation comes to value Him above all else that we find things coming together as they were meant to be, and we discover what real joy and happiness is. As long as our affections are on anything other than God, we are loving the wrong thing, and we will always be unhappy.

God knows that. He knows that we can’t be happy until our hearts are turned away from the stuff of this world so that we love only Him. So, because he loves us, He comes to us and removes those things that can lead us away from Him and His glory, away from treasuring Him above all else, away from finding our pleasure in the only One who is truly pleasant, our purpose in the only One who is truly purposeful, and our hope in the only One who is truly solid and true.

Maybe you’ve heard it asked – or maybe you have wrestled with the question yourself – Doesn’t God’s passion for His own glory stand at odds with my desire to be happy? The answer, of course, is that God’s passion for His own glory and my happiness are not opposites, but are, in fact, the same thing. The goal of the first is the goal of the second. And the means to those identical goals are also identical.

I have come to believe that the same is true for God’s allowance of trouble and suffering in my life on one hand, and His love for me on the other. By human wisdom, they appear to be opposites. But, in truth, they are really the same thing. His love compels Him to come to me and remove anything that could draw my affections away from Him and place it on something, or someone, else. That hurts. And the more I love that thing, the more it hurts. But also, the more I love it, the greater the danger that that love could supplant my love for the One who gave it. When that happens, I become an idolater, and God takes second (or third, or fourth, or 125^th) place in my affections. We need to grasp just how awful that is, and therefore how loving it is of God to let that be taken from us.

This brings to mind another friend who has now gone home. Dan Roelofs was the founding pastor of Woodland Fellowship (the predecessor of The Crossing @ Woodland) who struggled for 15 months with a cancer that ultimately took his life on his 33^rd birthday. During that painful journey, Dan kept a journal, and in that journal he wrote of his mixture of suffering and joy. And, in the process, I think he settled the problem of suffering for me, once and for all.

Thank you for calling me your ‘beloved.’ Thank you for the trial of cancer that has shown me that you are enough for joy. Your power and love are so great that not even cancer can remove the joy from my life. Thank you for communicating your heart to me through your Word. You are a wonderful, powerful Savior. To walk with you has been the greatest adventure of my life.

Lord, I open my hands to you. What you want is my desire. What you want is so much better than what I would seek to provide for myself. I want to receive from you. I choose to rest and stop trying to meet my own needs. You are my provider, my Master, my Lord and Savior, and I trust you. Have your way in me.

It’s here where this takes us from the theological to the pastoral. How do we answer the “theologically flawed” but pastorally very valid question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”.

It’s not an easy answer, not because it is complex, but because the answer itself asks us to give up even more than we have already lost. What we have lost is something or someone that is very, very dear to us. Pastorally, we need to recognize the reality of that loss, and the depth of the pain. It’s real, and comfort is needed.

But, to really answer the question, we must ask for more to be given up. We must ask that we give up the idea that God’s love for us means that we should never experience this kind of loss, or that He would never require of us something this precious. We must let go of the notion that we should define the manner of God’s love.

The truth is that God’s love for us is not about making us feel good. Rather, it is about Him equipping as and molding us into people who find our inexpressible joy, delight and fulfillment in Him alone. We think we know what will make us happy, but God knows that there is really only one thing that will: Him. He is far, far, far more valuable, more precious, more delightful, more wonderful than anything, and I do mean anything this world has to offer.

This means that Romans 8:28-30 is more than a glib throw-away line that sounds nice when “all things” includes nothing worse than a bent fender on Daddy’s old Fairlane. No, it is an amazing, profound promise that God’s purpose for us is glorification – that state in which we are fit to see Him face-to-face and spend forever in the incomparable joy of His unfettered fellowship, and that Hw will used all things, all things, yes ALL THINGS to get us there.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

Romans 8:28-30 (NASB)

Sole Delight

“O God, rid my heart of all that isn’t Christ,

And cause me to find my sole delight in You.”

Delight. I like how www.dictionary.com, defines it:

1. a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; joy; rapture: She takes great delight in her job.

2. something that gives great pleasure: The dance was a delight to see.

–verb (used with object)

3. to give great pleasure, satisfaction, or enjoyment to; please highly: The show delighted everyone.

–verb (used without object)

4. to have great pleasure; take pleasure (fol. by in or an infinitive): She delights in going for long walks in the country.

I love the breadth of this definition: pleasure, enjoyment, joy, rapture, satisfaction. All wrapped up in this single word. It doesn’t seem to leave out any human desire. It is a list of all that we long for, all that drives us. We are wired, it would seem, to look for delight. I don’t expect much argument here. Whatever it is that delights me, give me more, and more, and more of it!

But, hold on a second. Sole delight?? As if there is only one thing I should delight in? How dull can that be? And if I only delighted in one thing, I wouldn’t be very well-rounded, would I? (Well, unless that “one thing” was Extreme Chocolate Moose Tracks Ice Cream. Then I’d be a bit too well rounded. In fact, now that you mention it…)

Well, actually, there’s a difference between “Sole Delight” and delighting in only one thing. At least, the way I’m using the words. What I mean by “sole delight” is that one thing through which and for which I delight in other things.

For most people (and I have certainly been counted among the most) delight – that is my personal delight – is it’s own goal. Or, to put it another way, I take delight in whatever makes me feel good. If I believe that something will make me happy, or give me pleasure, or displace my sorrow and replace it with joy, I will pursue that thing. That can be something as simple as a bowl of my favorite ice cream (see above), or grand as a mountain view, as beautiful or as the face of a smiling child, or as seemingly altruistic as shoveling my neighbor’s walk. (Please, Barry, if you read this, don’t stop shoveling my walk!) If they are done because they make me feel good, they are done for the sole delight of, well, My Self Delight.

My Self Delight, then, becomes the standard against which I measure all other delights. That is, the desirability of a given experience is determined by how it makes me feel. Now, If I have a fairly well developed deferred gratification pattern, I may be able to find a less than pleasing experience to be desirable if I can look down the road a few minutes, a few days, or even a few years, and see that this experience will, eventually, make me happy. For example, I may find the unpleasantness of spending some of my money on a pretty girl if I expect that, eventually, she will return my wooings with her affections, and thus make me feel good. Or I can face the long hours of study if I can see that, eventually, I will earn that diploma or degree, and I will feel very good about it. Or I can stay in an odious job if I know that, at the end of the week, I’ll get a paycheck which I can spend on things that will make me feel good.

But there’s a problem with that. Because, when I measure the desirability of all things against the standard of My Self Delight, I attest to the fact that My Self Delight, my feeling good, is the most important thing in my life. It becomes my object of worship. It becomes my god.

And, as a Christian, that is a serious problem. As a Christian, I know that my object of worship, my god, must be none other than the one and only true God, Himself. Yet my desire for delight has led me to the wrong place. How do I fix that?

Some years ago, when I began to comprehend this concept, I came to realize that My Self Delight was really a delight in many things – anything in that would make me feel good. Fortunately, I had a degree of common sense that said not everything that makes me feel good for the moment will make me feel good in the long run, and not everything that will make me feel good in the long run will make me feel good for the moment. Nonetheless, there were many things in which I delighted, because there were many things that made me feel good. I had many delights, many affections.

But I was beginning to see that this was a problem. My delights, my affections, were leading me to the deadly end of self-worship. I needed to turn the whole thing around. I needed to get rid of the goal of self-centered living and start over with the right goal – God-centered living. But to do that, I had to check my long list of delights as the door, and I had to establish a new ultimate, singular delight – one that didn’t answer the question, “Will this make me feel good?” but rather the ultimate question, “Will this lead me closer to the heart and face of God?”

In other words, I had to replace My Self Delight for a new Sole Delight – a delight only in those things that pleased Him, glorified Him, and drew me closer to the One and Only who is truly worthy of delight: God Himself.

The question was: Was I willing to let go of those affections? They were so deep, so ingrained in me, and so many of them were so “right,” that I struggled to let them go. So, God gave me a simple prayer: O God, rid my heart of all that isn’t Christ, and cause me to find my sole delight in You. I knew from the moment that thought entered my mind that it had the power to transform my affections and, therefore, the power to lead me to a true, consistent worshipper of God. So I prayed it. Occasionally, often only half-heartedly. It scared me to think that it would make me let go of so many things I had come to love. So, God let me keep those things, and He let them keep leading me back into Self Delight. But he never let go of me. He never let me abandon that desire to find My Sole Delight in Him.

It’s been a long struggle. But God has stepped up the pace in this pursuit of My Sole Delight. He as expelled so many things from my heart that at times it feels rather empty. But then He steps in and fills it with more of Himself – fills it to overflowing. And out of that overflow, He allows me to find delight once again in those things that he had removed. But it is a different delight. It’s not a delight in those things because they make me feel good, but it is a delight in them because, in them, I see the excellences of God, or the sacrifice of Christ, or the drawing power of the Holy Spirit.

It’s been a long struggle, but I have yet to arrive. Every day brings new awareness of things yet unaddressed, things that still grab my affections, but don’t draw me closer to God. Things like Extreme Chocolate Moose Tracks Ice Cream. And stuff that’s even worse. But by His enormous grace, He’s giving me the guts to pray that prayer with more conviction, and He’s answering. He’s slowly, piece by piece, ridding my heart of all that isn’t Christ, and causing me to find my sole delight in Him.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.

When a man found it, he hid it again,

and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Matthew 13:44 (NIV) (emphasis mine)

One Thing

One thing I ask of the Lord,

this is what I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

and to seek him in his temple.

Psalm 27:4, NIV

I call that my “life verse;” the thought upon which I hang all of my hopes and dreams, by which I measure my successes and failures, and through which I know I will find the thing we are all looking for: true happiness.

But what does it mean? Does it mean that I aspire to find a church someplace where I can sit 24/7/365 and stare at some image – physical, mental or spiritual – of God? Of course not. And I don’t’ think it meant that to David, either. What it means is that I have come to understand that God’s greatest gift to me – to all people – is not a gift of stuff, or wellness, or friends and family, or even salvation. Rather, it is that through all of these things, God has built a way for me to experience His greatest gift: Himself.

It means that, for all the days of my life (which, if I count heaven, will be forever!) I will seek after and treasure and adore and cherish and behold and experience the One who is, Himself, the fulfillment of all my deepest desires. Augustine said it well: You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. Not in things, not in painlessness, not in people, not in anything but Him. Period. That is His greatest and foremost gift, and it is my purpose to pursue that gift will all I have in me.

That does not mean that I shun His other gifts; I just see them as ways to lead me to behold Him through them. Some examples:

I love waterfalls. Whether the immense power of the Niagara that screams of Him amazing power and strength, or a tiny fall of a mountain stream along a ledge of the foothills of Rainier, that reminds me of the simple intricate beauty of his flowing sweetness, they remind me of God.

And oh, do I enjoy a good storm. The lightning and thunder, the winds, the swirling clouds and even the tornadoes. I think of that line in the movie, Twister (I think), where someone asks what an F-5 tornado is like. After a pregnant pause, one of the storm-chasers says, with appropriate awe in his voice, “That’s the Finger of God.” Exactly!

But even more, I love the faces of the nations. An old Afghani Tajik man. A little Miao boy from southwest China. The Fulani peoples of West Africa. A Kazak woman from northern Xinjiang, China. A little Kalasha girl from the valleys of the Hindu Kush mountains in northern Pakistan. I look at their pictures and I see the Image of God in the diverse beauty of His creation. And I am filled with joy. But, at the same time, I am filled with sorrow, because I know that the face I see in those pictures is likely one that does not know Christ. And I sense again the real purpose of my life on this planet – to do whatever I can to see heaven populated with people from every tongue, tribe, people and nation, so that the glory of God will shine all the more fully through those who surround Him with eternal praise.

Oh, how I long for that day when my faith will be sight, when God’s glory will be revealed in all His fullness, and I will be joined with the millions upon millions of the redeemed, beholding the glory of God in the Face of Christ, and reflecting that beauty back to Him.

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Psalm 42:1-2a (NIV)