The other day I took one of my Junior Highers out to get ice cream. We looked intently at all of the flavors, made our choices, and sat down to enjoy ourselves. This was the first time that I’d spent much time with this particular young man so I started asking lots of questions about what he liked to do, where he went to school, what his family was like, etc. What followed was an hour long conversation that broke my heart in almost every way. In the same matter of fact tone that you might tell someone about what you did yesterday he began to relay to me the broken details of his life. Divorce, parental drug abuse, multiple siblings spread all over the state, CPS, and countless other tragedies made up the tapestry of this young man’s life. The only consistent thing seemed to be the complete instability that characterized his day to day experience.
As we finished our ice cream and made our way outside I couldn’t help but think about how broken this young man’s life was, and he’s only 12. Something inside of me wanted to cry out, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be! Children are meant to live with both of their parents, to be raised to know and fear the Lord, to have security knowing that mom and dad love them and love each other.” The problem is that life is broken and so nothing is the way that it’s supposed to be, including this young man’s life.
Paul Tripp writes about this brokenness in his book, Broken Down House:
“The brokenness around you affects you in different ways at different times. Sometimes you have to deal with personal hurt. Sometimes you grow angry that things do not function as they were designed to. Sometimes you are overwhelmed with feeling sad or lost in the face of this world’s pitiful condition. Sometimes you get tired of the effort it takes to live in a broken-down house, and you just want to quit. At every point and every moment, your life is messier and more complicated than it really ought to be because everything is so much more difficult in such a terribly broken world."
How do we respond to life in this broken world? Should we close our eyes to the suffering around us and try to insulate ourselves from the brokenness? Should we allow our hearts to become numb or indifferent with apathy? Should we just lay down and cry? Here’s a summary of Tripp’s response:
Determine to be honest about the world we live in. In other words, don’t try to cover up the brokenness of the world we live in.
Let yourself mourn. This world is a broken place full of pain and it is appropriate for us to mourn over that.
Fight to be dissatisfied. Do not allow the day to day drone of this broken world lull you into being satisfied with it’s brokenness.
Be glad. While this world is broken, Emmanuel has come to restore that which has been lost.
Live with anticipation. By an extraordinary act of God’s grace, all his blood-bought children are guaranteed to be part of a much better neighborhood. Someday we will all live in the New Jerusalem on a street called Shalom, where brokenness will be no more.
I want to add a hearty AMEN to Timmy Brister who recently blogged about “Dysfunctional Calvinism”. Timmy writes:
Most of the Calvinists I have met are robustly evangelical and passionate about the gospel. They love the church and have found their soteriological understanding as empowering to their Christian life, causing them to function with greater confidence and courage under the sovereign purposes of God. However, there is a Calvinist here and a Calvinist there, few to be sure, who have provided sufficient provocation to address dysfunctional Calvinism.
What am I taking about, you might ask?
Dysfunctional Calvinism is the practice of embracing human responsibility in converting people to Calvinism but denying human responsibility in converting people to Christ.
Dysfunctional Calvinism likes to play the “sovereignty card” as a “get out of evangelism” exception clause.
Dysfunctional Calvinism gives an articulation of the doctrines of grace without exhibiting grace to those who disagree with them.
Dysfunctional Calvinism embraces “word” ministry to the exclusion of “deed” ministry–that is the love for the truth does not go far enough. Let’s just have another Bible Study.
Dysfunctional Calvinism finds it easier to talk to Christians about election than the free grace of God to sinners.
Dysfunctional Calvinism turns your right theology in a wrong-headed way, sometimes as a heresy hunter/watchdog blogger and other times a tacit gnosticism.
Dysfunctional Calvinism is gospel-centered insofar as it satisfies their intellectual inquiry but does not inflame their affections and transforms their will in becoming “all things to all men that by all possible means I might save some.”
Dysfunctional Calvinism gets mad that I am willing to call out the dysfunctionality and complains that I am not going after Arminians.
Dr. David Powlison is one of my favorite people to listen to, especially when it comes to counseling. This is a touching video relating to suffering and counseling.
I’ve recently noticed something about myself. When friends ask “How are you doing?”, often times my default response is “busy.” Not, “I’m doing well” or “I’m keeping up” but “I’m busy.” In some ways this is understandable. I’m a pastor at a large church, I have a growing family, I’m out 3-4 nights a week for ministry related activities, and I shepherd a large group of High School and Junior High students. It seems that “busyness” is probably about the only thing that I have time for. What’s more, I know that I’m not the only person who struggles with busyness. Whether they be Doctors, Lawyers, House Wives, Computer Programmers, or Teachers everyone seems to be unbelievably “busy” these days.
In some ways this busyness is a good thing. 1) Keeping a busy schedule allows us to get more done, and frankly sometimes there’s just a lot that has to get done (i.e. raising the kids, making a living, etc.). 2) While it is possible to keep busy doing absolutely nothing, my experience is that most of the busy people I know are extremely hard workers and are very conscientious about their use of time. So, there are some good aspects to “busyness.”
On the other hand, “busyness” can oftentimes be nothing more than a veiled form of personal pride. Far too often busyness is simply a manifestation of my own desire for autonomy. I want to be able to do what needs to be done without having to rely on anyone (including God) for help. Oswald Chambers described it like this, “We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses.”
So, what is the cure for this pride of busyness? You may be surprised to learn that it is not necessarily to do less things (although, it may very well be that something has to be cut out in the long term). There are seasons in life which present greater responsibilities than other seasons and those responsibilities simply have to be dealt with. The problem is not so much in the volume of things that I have to do, but rather in my attitude toward the things I have to do. Martin Luther once said, “I have so many things to do today that I must pray for two hours instead of my usual one.” The cure to the pride of busyness is to be still (Psalm 46:10) before God and to trust Him, even in the midst of busyness.
We too sacrifice Jesus to our greed like Judas, to our envy like the priests, to our ambition like Pilate. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” the old spiritual asks. And we must answer, “yes, we were there.” Not as spectators only; but as participants, guilty participants, plotting, scheming, betraying, bargaining and handing him over to be crucified. We may try to wash our hands of responsibility like Pilate. But our attempt will be as futile as his. For there is blood on our hands. Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, “only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross,” wrote Canon Peter Green, “may claim his share in its grace.” – The Cross of Christ, John R.W. Stott
One of the questions that I often encounter is in my adult Sunday School class as well as youth group is, “If God is sovereign, why should I pray?” For years I wondered the same thing. It seems that when you combine the fact that God is sovereign (He can do anything) with the fact that He is omniscient (He knows all things) prayer almost seems unnecessary. I mean, if there is no chance that I am going to change God’s mind with my prayers, than what’s the point of praying?
What helped to change my thinking about prayer and the sovereignty of God was one simple principle that has since become very precious to me: Prayer is not about changing God, prayer is about changing me. In other words, we do not pray in order to change God’s mind but rather so that God will change our mind.
One of the radical implications of this truth involves the way that we approach prayer requests. For years I maintained a prayer list which I would go over in my prayer time that simply consisted of asking God to do things for certain people (provide financially, give the doctors wisdom, etc.). These things are all well and good, but I’ve come to understand that God is interested in more than providing financially for those who I care about, or giving wisdom to the doctors who are working on those I love. God is supremely interested in my heart and how these circumstances affect me personally.
It seems that God uses prayer as one of the primary means by which He sanctifies His children. So rather than giving God a laundry list of items I would like Him to address, my prayers should focus on the needs before me and specifically on my response to those needs. For example, rather than simply praying for God to bring healing to a loved one I might want to pray something like this, “Father, I am greatly concerned for my dear friend in the hospital right now. I ask that you would provide for all of her needs and that you would bring healing to her in Your good time. But Father, I also want to confess that when those close to me are sick I find myself prone to anxiety, because I don’t want to lose them. I know that ultimately, this anxiety is really a way for me to question your goodness so Father, would you guard my heart against this temptation and help me to trust in you for the life and well being of those I love.” I believe that what God is doing in these kinds of prayers is changing my heart and conforming my desires to His. Kent Hughes described prayer in this way: Imagine getting into a boat, having secured a line to the shore and casting out onto a lake. When you pull on that line of rope, the mainland does not come to you but rather you are drawn to the mainland. In prayer, God is seeking to line us back up with Himself by changing our hearts through the discipline of prayer.
