Better Days Ahead

A few months ago, we left our church of seven years.  The thought of setting foot in a church right now is more than I can bear.  I will graduate from Moody Bible College next spring, and since we left our church, I've had many people tell me that God has better plans for me and that I've got a better future ahead.  But all I know right now is that I have no desire to be in a church and I'm not sure what to do with that.  My relationship with God has grown exponentially more intense since we left our church, because He's all I have to hang onto at this point.  My faith was rocked to its core, my soul was torn asunder, I was left with nothing but hurt and betrayal after pouring my life out into a church and congregation for seven years.  I have nothing to show for it but hundreds of seemingly unanswered prayers.  So here I am, sitting alone on the tailgate of a beat-up pickup truck, kicking the air, being told that better days are ahead, but what if they're not?

What if all I have ahead of me is more soul wrenching torment and failure?  More rejection and betrayal?  More hurt and disappointment?  Because that is what Jesus had ahead of Him, and what makes me think that my life should be any better than His?  There is this concept in church-dom that God has a great plan for your life and that better days are just ahead.  With Joy holding the helm of the ship hostage, church-dom says, "If you will just have faith, God's wonderful plan for your life will begin to work itself out!"  So we tend to live our lives focused on tomorrow, on the better day that is sure to come.  But we are not promised tomorrow, so all we really have is today.  What we have is now.  We put all our faith and focus on the "better-days-ahead," when our faith and focus should be on Jesus, now.  When our faith and focus should be on our love of Jesus, today, rather than what we want from Him tomorrow.

There is an exchange between Jesus and Peter that is recorded in Scripture that church-dom should contemplate.  Jesus begins to explain His purpose and destiny to the Apostles, telling them that "He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed..." (Matt 16:21).  But Peter, seemingly having his mind set on better days ahead, said to Jesus, "God be merciful to You, Lord! This shall never happen to You" (v. 22).  Then Jesus does something that has surely caused each one of us consternation when we first read about it.  He does something that seems uncharacteristically harsh, showing a side of Jesus that is foreign to most of us.  Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's" (v. 23).  

Church-dom says, "God be merciful to you! Better days are ahead!"  But Jesus says that is a way of thinking that is set on the concerns of man, rather than the concerns of God.  Quite often, the concerns of God come at the expense of our personal happiness.  Which is why Jesus follows His rebuke to Peter with His explanation of the cost of following Him:  "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life, will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (v. 24,25).  The writer of Hebrews said that "for the joy set before Him" Jesus endured the cross (Heb 12:2).  The joy set before Jesus was yet to come, and the shame of the cross stood between Him and the joy yet to come.  The joy of salvation and restoration was the joy yet to come, and salvation and restoration only came through the torment of the cross.  Because "whoever wishes to save his life, will lose it."

If better days are not ahead, would you still follow Him? Is your hope in better days ahead, or is your hope in growing in knowledge of Christ?  We want to be safe and we want to have joy, but the pursuit of Jesus is anything but safe, and is more often harrowing than joyful.  That is what is real.  The joy that Jesus promised us comes from knowing Him, not from our circumstances.  That is a Gospel that can be preached to the thousands of Nigerian Christians who are being slaughtered. To the thousands of Christians in the Middle East who undergo torment and tribulation every day of their life.  To the thousands of persecuted Christians in Indonesia, China, Africa, and everywhere else we are hated.  To the millions of Christians all over the world who do not have better days to come on this earth.  To the millions of Christians whose faith and focus is on their love of Jesus, today, because that's all they have to hang onto at this point.

I have hope and faith, but my hope and faith are not in better days ahead.  My hope and faith are in Jesus.  Oswald Chambers said, "The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success...The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting."  Walking through adversity, and not fainting from the weight of it.  Sitting in the darkness, and not spiraling down into the abyss of doubt.  Faith must be tried and proven, and that is often done through adversity.  Therefore, to progressively grow in faith, one must live through perpetual adversity.  Just like Jesus did.  For Jesus, better days never came, only betrayal and crucifixion.  Better days never came for the Apostles either, only rejection and persecution and eventually, martyrdom.  Church-dom says to focus our hope and faith on better days ahead, but Jesus says to focus our hope and faith on Him.  That way, if the days ahead are harder than the days behind, we won't lose hope, because our hope isn't in the quality of our future which is at the mercy of our circumstances, but in the person of Christ Who endures eternally.

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him Who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Heb 12:2,3)

"But the time is coming-- indeed it is here now-- when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving Me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart, because I have overcome the world" (John 16:32,33)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:3-9)

   

Sailing Along In Joy With Sadness

There is a Disney movie called "Inside Out."  For those who haven't seen it, it is about emotions that have been personified into cartoon characters and how they interact with each other inside a person's mind.  There is Anger, Fear, Joy, Disgust and Sadness.  For most of the movie, Joy spends her time trying to keep control of the ship, keeping happiness afloat inside the mind of the little girl where they dwell.  Of all the emotions, Sadness is ostracized the most.  All the other emotions try to keep Sadness from influencing the little girl at all costs.  But by the time the end of the movie comes around, everyone finds out that it was Sadness that the little girl needed to experience to get her through the toughest time of her life.  By trying to keep the little girl happy all the time, she was unable to move forward in any significant growth and emotional maturity.

Sometimes when I'm writing, I feel like Sadness.  I know that no one wants me around.  I know there are a lot of people that think, "Sheesh, lady, do you ever write about anything happy?  Reading your blog is like taking a cheese grater to my soul."  I'm actually a pretty normal person on the outside.  Most people that know me wouldn't describe me as an overly-broody person.  I keep it all inside.  I'm like the living meme that says "On the outside I'm fine...but deep down, inside my shoe, my sock is slipping off."

Don't worry, I get it.  Brooding existential woe isn't a popular commodity.  Happiness sells, and you can find it anywhere.  Truth, on the other hand is a little harder to find.

Much like the Disney movie, I know that Joy wants to keep at the helm of the church so that happiness can keep it afloat.  But just in case anyone hasn't noticed, this ship has been sinking for quite some time.  If you haven't noticed, well, maybe that's because you are just as blinded as the character Joy was, until the things that were falling apart all around her began to affect her personally.  It took the total destruction of the little girl's inner emotional foundation to get Joy's attention and make her see that happiness alone couldn't fix what was wrong.  Because the little girl was being protected from feeling sadness by all the other emotions, she couldn't understand what was happening to herself.  She had emotions but she had no understanding.

The church needs all its emotions to be expressed to bring the fullness of experience and depth of understanding of itself, and this cannot take place unless there is a full range of perspectives at work.  To chastise Joy for not inciting Fear, is to denigrate her for not doing something that she wasn't made to do.  Joy was made to express Joy, not Fear.  Likewise, to chastise Sadness for directing people's attention to the things that we should be sad over, is to disparage her for doing her job.  Often times, Sadness must be experienced for true Joy to follow.  Sadness must be experienced to keep Disgust from turning into Anger.  Sadness must be experienced to numb Fear. 

In too many churches in America, Joy has taken the helm of the ship and holds the wheel hostage.   "Come to our church where everybody is happy, all the time!"  But that is not real.  In real life, there is sadness.  There is brokenness.  And telling people that putting their faith in Christ will make them happy, happy, happy, all the time, in a happy church, where everybody always gets along, is a lie.  The truth is, that Christ brings not only a depth of joy into a person's life, but also a depth of sadness.  When we rightly understand Who Christ is, and what He is like, we are better able to see through His eyes.  We see the degree of our sin, and the degree of brokenness that is all around us in a fallen creation and we should mourn that.  That is why Christ tells us, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matt 5:4).  Notice Christ puts the sadness of mourning first, so that it can then be followed with the joy of comfort. 

Perhaps the reason the church has yet to repent, is because Sadness is needed to bring Godly sorrow that leads to repentance, so that the Joy of deliverance can follow.

"For His anger is fleeting, but His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay the night, but joy comes in the morning." (Psalm 30:5)

"And now I rejoice, not because you were made sorrowful, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you felt the sorrow that God had intended, and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. Consider what this godly sorrow has produced in you:  what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what vindication!" (2 Cor 7 :9-11)

"The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me....to provide for those who grieve in Zion-- to give them a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise in place of a spirit of despair. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." (Isaiah 60:1,3)