The Shadowlands

I’ve read over and over what are known as the “suffering letters” from Charles Spurgeon…letters written to his congregation during the 22-year long, dark night of the soul he endured. Bright’s disease, a malady of the kidneys, and other related miseries started to wrack his body and would take its toll until death. The first symptoms showed their ugly head when he was just 35 [1869]. He would spend one-third of his last twenty-two years out of the public ministry he loved, preaching at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. There were days and weeks when he simply could not leave his bed. The following recollection gives you some sense of his wrestling with the problem of pain:

“It is a great mercy to be able to change sides when lying in bed [age 37, 1871]….Did you ever lie a week on one side? Did you ever try to turn, and find yourself quite helpless? Did others lift you, and by their kindness reveal to you the miserable fact that they must lift you back again at once into the old position, for bad as it was, it was preferable to any other?…It is a great mercy to get one hour’s sleep at night….What a mercy have I felt to have only one knee tortured at a time. What a blessing to be able to put the foot on the ground again, if only for a minute!….My spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept for…. The iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison, needs a heavenly hand to push it back.”

I know nothing of the depth, degree or extent of Spurgeon’s physical, emotional and spiritual agony. If he lived in our day there would be the common grace of modern medicine that would have assuaged some of his physical pain—I can’t imagine enduring my measure of pain without the relative help and relief I’ve received. What I do know is that you cannot separate the physical condition of the body and one’s spiritual condition. The Psalmist knew this reality intimately: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever [Ps 73:26]. The heart can be deeply affected by the condition of the flesh with the great danger of falling into spiritual depression or, as Lloyd-Jones so carefully explains, unbelief [Spiritual Depression]. This was Spurgeon’s great concern in the midst of all his suffering: “Despondency is not a virtue; I believe it is a vice. I am heartily ashamed of myself for falling into it, but I am sure there is no remedy for it like a holy faith in God.” At the heart of my own personal wrestling with God is this: In the midst of unrelenting pain, how am I helped and how can I display Christlike attitudes and words and submission in it all? What does it mean to live by faith when the condition of the body starts to cause the heart to fail [“Where is my God?”] and the mind dismiss Him as irrelevant when the consuming desire is physical relief [“Why don’t You help me?”].

Intrerlude: It may be helpful to explain some of the details of my own experience that have just recently been explained to me by my surgeon. Probably because of the nature of my surgery, my metabolism, the rather good physical condition that I was in, and this being the first significant surgery I’ve ever had, the anesthesiologist had a very difficult time managing my pain when I came out of surgery…the easiest way to explain it is that the medications went into my body and back out again without having the desired affect. What is normally quite effective on most folks didn’t come close to touching my pain levels [thankfully I don’t remember any of this]. I think the surgeon’s comment was, “The anesthesiologist threw up his hands in frustration, ‘I don’t know what to do with this guy.’” They simply had not put the level of drug into someone my size without the desired affect. And post-surgery the same problem kept presenting itself…finding a safe level of pain reliever that actually would work. My surgeon has never given any of his patients the level of drug he has given me…his rather dry-humor way of explaining the situation was to say that most people wouldn’t be breathing if he gave them what he was giving me. So much internally is effected by the nature of the surgery, all kinds of pain-causing things are raging all at once. Finally, in the last few days there has been a convergence of internal healing and effective medication that has brought some sense of relief. For a couple of weeks I was dipped into some of the kind of suffering Spurgeon described.

Through all of this I’ve been wrestling with Lewis’ observation, which has been my experience…and Spurgeon’s and Paul’s [2 Cor 12:7-10]! “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him…you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.” [A Grief Observed]

God’s answer to my pleading is that He’s not coming with help to relieve the misery…yes, there are promises of grace and hope in the consummation, but no present relief. And so I’ve wrestled with living on the God who is invisible and not bringing physical relief, yet full of promises and transcendent ability. “Why won’t you come and help?” has been a repeated cry of my soul. This has pressed me deep into the question of “Who is my God, really?” At this point you might want to rehearse for me the contents of Charnock’s work on the character of God or send me a copy of The Knowledge Of The Holy [Tozer]. But I know these things and hearing them feels like throwing a ball against a brick wall when pain is consuming the body—it just bounces off my mind and falls into a big pile of “so what?!” The most honest issue seems to be what is my actual experience of God in the midst of pain. God doesn’t feel very loving and caring and merciful when you cry over and over for the smallest relief and nothing comes—although you know the truth. Then, like Jeremiah [Lam 3], I remember God…I remember Christ, the “darling of heaven,” who cried over and over for His Father to intervene and to keep Him from having to drink the cup of wrath [Lk 22]…and Paul who was assured that there would be sufficient grace [2 Cor 12]…and Jeremiah who broke his teeth on the suffering God sent into his life and concluded God was enough, his great portion, and all he desired [Lam 3]. I don’t know the depth of agony that Jesus felt…I do know He embraced what His Father ordained with a peaceful submission and an anticipation of the joy set before Him. I don’t know what kind of despondency Paul felt…I do know his confession was that he found even greater joy and gladness when no relief would come. I don’t know what Jeremiah felt in the midst of unspeakable horror with God’s silence and absence…I do know he remembered God and lived with hope, a happy hope when the sun came up every day to remind him of new mercies and God’s great faithfulness and His never-failing love. What Jesus and Paul and Jeremiah felt and experienced was God…and this comes to us by His Word, by truth, by the doctrine of God graciously self-disclosed in all the Scripture and supremely in Christ. And it is God’s very character that is the fountain out of which flows our experience of His presence and grace in the midst of untold pain. So, what I know of the greatness and glory of God isn’t so irrelevant after all. The problem of pain brings us face to face with who our God is…it is a question of faith fighting unbelief, worship fighting idolatry, the supremacy of God over all things fighting the supremacy of self over all things. As Piper has famously summarized, the fight of faith is a fight to believe in “future grace”…do I believe that the future with God is better than anything in this present life and can that reality hold me through the long nights of the soul?

This is the ultimate ballast of the soul. God has promised not to give us anything beyond the measure of grace He gives to sustain us—“my grace is sufficient.” All of us who have suffered physical anguish as Christians can testify to this reality—our God simply does not fail us…He may not answer us according to our desire, but He never fails in carrying us through and displaying the glory of His grace in us in the midst of suffering. Is this why we should embrace every experience of physical anguish with Paul’s refrain?: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me”…so that Christlikeness may be displayed in me while I suffer. I say that this is the ultimate ballast because it must hold us through death—what if the physical suffering has no relief in this life and is the way death will come. I think of Edwards, having received a small pox inoculation that went bad at the relatively young age of 54 [October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758]. Jonathan was in New Haven beginning his tenure as the president of the seminary and Sarah was still in Stockbridge, MA, with the children who still lived at home. As his condition worsened, he wrote his adult daughter Lucy this note:

“Dear Lucy, it seems to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you; therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell here, that the uncommon union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature as I trust is spiritual and therefore will continue for ever: and I hope she will be supported under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God.”

His doctor would describe to Sarah, his wife, his dying moments: “This afternoon [Mar 22, 1758], between two and three o’clock, it pleased God to let him sleep in that dear Lord Jesus, whose kingdom and interest he has been faithfully and painfully serving all his life. And never did any mortal man more fully and clearly evidence the sincerity of all his professions, by one continued, universal, calm, cheerful resignation and patient submission to the Divine will, through each stage of his disease, than he….Death had certainly lost its sting, as to him.”

And when he came to die, these were Edwards’ last words: “Now where is Jesus of Nazareth, my true and never-failing Friend?….Trust in God, and you need not fear.”

If I can’t give an adequate lexical definition of living on the God who is invisible while suffering unspeakable physical miseries and death [Edwards’ throat would swell to the point of asphyxiation], maybe the portrait of Edwards will give a glimpse of what it looks like. When we’re wracked with pain and are delirious this is what we know: Christ, the sovereign of the universe, is always present and never leaves us [Jn 14; Mtt 28]; the Spirit is making perfect groanings for us and being answered “Yes” by the Father [Rom 8]; and the experience of sufficient grace, although mysteriously administered, is indisputable and never-failing [2 Cor 12]. And if it is a misery that will lead to death, God’s grace is still sufficient and death is our gain [Phil 1:20-21]. So, I’ve tried to think through what I’m sure will be an ever-evolving list of lessons from “a long night of the soul,” a pilgrim’s search for something to hold when nothing is holding, a disciple’s fear of falling away into anger and unbelief in the midst of his God-ordained course. Here’s my feeble and humble attempt, certainly to be wonderfully improved upon by other saints…

1. God is enough…if your God is the only true God and your view of God is God’s gracious self-disclosure in His Word [supremely revealed in Christ—Jn 1; Col 1; Heb 1], then, for Him to be our God simply answers the problem of pain at every turn [Phil 1:20-21; Ps 73:25-28]. In the end, God is all our good [Rev 21:1-5; Jonathan Edwards: “The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Father and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean.”

2. In the midst of pain we must remember God—there is a transforming, renewing, sustaining grace that comes by simply remembering God [Ps 42; Lam 3:16-36 with Ps 42]. Hope comes and floods the heart so that all the cancerous lies of unbelief are washed away. I find that I cannot read very well when my body is screaming…so I’ve come to rediscover listening to Scripture that has been recorded and listening to God-entranced, Scripture saturated music to set my mind on remembering God.

3. Keep entrusting yourself to God–He is our very present help and holds us…we do not hold ourselves, ever…pain and suffering strips away the delusion that we hold ourselves. When we remember the promises of sufficient grace and God’s presence and His unfailing love and the reality that He is sovereign, we more and more come into the place of glad submission. So we fix our gaze on Jesus and follow him in suffering: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” [1 Pet 2:21-23].

4. Physical pain creates a context in which we can display the glory and grace of God—Christlikeness in the midst of misery—in ways that cannot be displayed in any other way [2 Cor 12:7-10]. When everyone else, especially in our culture, is fixated on the physical condition and all the details of diagnosis and prognosis and treatment that will bring relief, we entrust our bodies to Jesus, the Creator and Savior of these bodies, so that we can fixate on Christ and living in our pain in such a way that displays the glory of Christlikeness in our attitudes and speech and behavior and how we relate to others…while in pain we can have the mind of Christ and display a joyful servant’s heart [Phil 1:20-21; 2:1-8; 4:4-13].

5. Our depth of sin is revealed in pain…in the midst of pain my heart is exposed in ways it is rarely exposed, showing self-centeredness in the most vile expressions [self-pity, anger, idolatry, unbelief, impatience…oh, so much impatience, the ugly expression of selfism]. So Romans 7 cannot be escaped—I am woefully vile in my sin and in the most desperate need of Christ’s righteousness [justification]—and I am thrown on the gospel, to preach it to myself again, to see the beauty of Christ as my only hope and get lost in wonder, love, and praise for His amazing grace, a “grace unknown.” Pain is a gift to grow down in humility and repentance and up in adoration of our Savior.

6. Physical pain is the door through which our affections, our mind, our faith is attacked…in extreme physical pain the war is for faith in God, faith in future grace…unbelief and idolatry seduce us with relief—we are seduced to believe that God is not good, He cannot be trusted, His promises are suspect, He is irrelevant to life’s experience, He is hidden, He doesn’t care, He is silent. In effect, God is moved to the periphery, He is, as David Wells describes, “weightless”—He is allowed to exist in our lives, but He really doesn’t matter…He is not the most important being with whom we have to do. If pain comes and stays, it is a more difficult fight for faith…to wake up every morning believing that this day with God is better than relief from pain without God…living on Lamentations 3 and singing with the Psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” [Ps 73:25-26]…believing that we are transformed and our minds renewed as we behold the glory of Christ in all the Scriptures [2 Cor 3:18].

7. Prayer—even rather incoherent groanings and cries in the midst of unspeakable pain—carries us to God, the refuge of our weary souls and is the means by which we are helped in communion with God [Heb 4:14-16]. Prayer is the place where all of life is reoriented with God at the center of all things, where we get God, and where we feel that God is present and is for us [Mtt 6:5-15]. And prayer is that grace given to us to sustain us in the hour of temptation when the flesh is failing [Mtt 26:36-42]. We live on the God who is invisible through the dark night of pain by pouring out all our soul to Him in prayer…the cries of a child to our sovereign and loving heavenly Father. And when the pain is so great that you can’t utter words, you remember the Spirit is making perfect groanings on our behalf that are always answered “Yes!” [Rom 8:14-27], so that we experience the promise of Romans 8:28-32 and feel the unfailing love of Romans 8:33-39.

8. If we will be honest with others about our travail, guarding against self-centered whining and seeking the attention of others, there is a fountain of grace waiting to bathe us in love and mercy and kindness and encouragement and hope. The body of Christ is a gift to us in our pain to display the very affections and love of Christ incarnationally…a great display of the glory of God and a joy-filled opportunity to express the very grace and love we have received from Christ. Locking oneself off in isolation is just another form of self-centeredness masked in stoicism. Jesus invited His disciples to join him in the most agonizing hour of His life in the intimacy of prayer and joining Him in carrying His burden [Lk 22; Mtt 26]. And Paul reminds us we are one, the spiritual reality Jesus prayed for and accomplished on the cross [Jn 17]…and because we are one, Paul calls us to “weep with those who weep” [Rom 12], taking on the misery of others as our own and caring for each other with demonstrable expressions of love and carrying each other in prayer. How beautiful is the body of Christ, indeed!

How beautiful the feet that bring
The sound of good news and the love of the King
How beautiful the hands that serve
The wine and the bread and the sons of the Earth

How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful is the body of Christ
And as He lay down His life
We offer this sacrifice
That we will live just as He died
Willing to pay the price [Twila Paris]

I’m sure there are scores of God-entranced, Scripture-saturated, Spirit-anointed lessons from much wiser and more holy pilgrims on their way to the City, passionately longing for the day of consummation when we see the One we love supremely. My humble attempt is by no means exhaustive…it is my simple exercise in contemplating the problem of pain and the long night of the soul, trying to be faithful to the end and not drift away into the wasteland of man-centeredness where God is weightless or trivialized or possibly worse, where orthodox confession continues without believing or living on a word of it. I want to join David Brainerd, who lived a relatively brief but agonizing life of 29 years, 5 months and nineteen days…only eight of those years as a believer and four of those as a missionary to the Indians in the harsh, 18th century frontier of America…a life marked by every kind of pain with little or no relief. I want to know His affections and His communion and His Christ that would cause him to write this: “When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of him the more insatiable, and my thirstings after holiness the more unquenchable….Oh, for holiness! Oh, for more of God in my soul! Oh, this pleasing pain! It makes my soul press after God….Oh, that I may feel this continual hunger, and not be retarded, but rather animated by every ‘cluster from Canaan,’ to reach forward in the narrow way, for the full enjoyment and possession of the heavenly inheritance. Oh, that I might never loiter on my heavenly journey!” I want to know more of Brainerd’s “pleasing pain” rather than fixating on any pain my body might endure.

Oh, God, be merciful to me, the sinner…more than relief from pain, let me know Brainerd’s “pleasing pain.” I am given to you and there I love to be. Where else would I go? You are my God and I am Your child. You are enough and all I want…for from You and through You and to You are all things. To You be glory forever. Amen.

The blog has been silent for a few weeks as recovery from surgery has continued. What some may not know is that the surgery is one of the most radical adbominal surgeries with the attendant difficult recovery. The entire “marathon” has been marked with complication and, so, too, the recovery…with infection, difficulty in pain management, a body already weakened by chemotherapy and radiation, and internal swelling with a domino effect on the kidneys.

There have been days of extreme where I’ve found myself fighting with the Lamentation questions: Is God silent? Is God hidden? Does God care? Will God help? When you’re curled up in a ball pleading for Jesus to come and bring relief [I’m reminded of Spurgeon’s similar plea as a child in his Father’s lap begging help] and He does not come, the condition of the body certainly causes the soul to be downcast [”Where is my God?”-Ps 42].

C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed expresses what so many, including me, experience in the dark night of the soul: “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him…you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become.”

So, I will plead understanding and patience if blog entries have been suspended for a time and may be in the near future as I continue to recover and prepare to return to ministry in September if the Lord grants that grace. Living on Lamentations 3:21-25 is a good place to be: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”

This comes from the desk of “No-Whining-Allowed-But-It-Really-Hurts”…unfortunately, nothing about the now almost 5 month marathon has been without complication. Pre-surgery was complicated with three hospitalizations for blood clots and, what I’m told since I don’t remember anything, is that in post-surgery there was no small problem managing pain…something to do with high metabolism, high pain tolerance and a body that hasn’t had too much experience with drugs. Now that I’m more conscious of things and getting better educated, I concur with the pain management problem. Maybe we’ve turned a big corner. Friday when I was released from the hospital, I was experiencing some unusual pain in my lower back and my left leg was swollen. An ultra-sound was ordered to see about my nemesis, blood clots. Thankfully, both legs were clear and I was sent home. The pain continued to increase over the weekend, ramping up and down with no real consistency, except when it ramped up it was pushing the “8-9″ mark on the 10 point pain scale. By Sunday the doctor was calling me into the emergency room to be checked out…I held out until Monday and spent the day and evening in ER. The initial prognosis was a kidney stone. Never having had a kidney stone, only hearing the infamous stories, I had no idea where this was going. By mid-afternoon we tossed the pain scale out and were measuring by doses of narcotics. About the time we reached the limit of the amount of drugs I could have, some relief started to come and then almost an instant relief. A previous cat-scan had shown a kidney stone but it had not presented itself. A subsequent cat-scan after I was in relief mode, showed there had been one but it was gone. That ordeal put some significant stress on the incision and tender abdominals and there remains an infection in the wound site where a drainage tube had been inserted. A low-grade fever chases me around about once a day, ususally in the evening, and then beaks in the night. I had regained a pretty normal appetite but I’m back to liquids and softer foods for a few days. So, the first week of recovery has been a little rough, but hopefully better days are ahead.

It is amazing to experience grace in the midst of excruciating pain…to have the Spirit come and place your mind on things above…knowing your mind was nowhere in that ball park…to actually have the words of Christ come and wash over you and to find yourself pushed to the brink of whether or not grace is sufficient, only to find it always is. I remember praying like Spurgeon: “If my child came to me and asked for help I would surely give it…here I am, your child, coming to You, my Father, pleading for relief…Are You here? Why won’t you send help? You could do this…it is so easy for You.” Only to hear relative silence on the other side with the faint whisper of “Wait on Me…trust Me more.”

Weariness sets in more easily…prayers are short and quickly defer to the Spirit’s groanings…spiritual contemplations are hard to come by…keeping the gaze fixed is more of a struggle. But I woke up this morning, saw sunshine and remembered: His mercies are new, His faithfulness is great, He is my portion…and He is enough [Lam 3].

It looks like Friday, August 8, will be going home day from the hospital. About the only post-surgery complication has been finding drug levels and combinations to keep the pain mangageable and it looks like that’s been accomplished. I would have gone home today [the predicted discharge date] but there’s a minor infection at the site of the removed drainage tube [a tube inserted into the surgical site to drain excesss bleeding…sorry for the detail]. So, I’m getting a few doses of antibiotics through my medi-port and will go home in the morning with oral antibiotics to be taken for few weeks.

Let me thank you again for the faithful and merciful intercesion you have been making on our behalf in these days.

The Recovering Pilgrim

Dear Lover Of Our Souls:

In this was Your love made manifest among us, that You sent Your only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved You but that You loved us and sent Your Son to be the propitiation for our sins … And Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from Youe love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And even redeemed creatures awaiting their consummation, fighting sin and flesh and the world and Satan soar in adoration when considering the Lover of our souls. Oh, that we would have such thoughts as these: “Consider that the most wonderful act of mercy is already done in giving Christ to die. This is a much more wonderful act of mercy than justifying and pardoning the greatest sinner after way is thus made a way for it…that God should show His mercy so was ten times more strange and incredible than that He should forgive oour sins for His sake. Let our sins be never so great, He can’t hate oour sins more than He loved His Son; and if He made His Son notwithstanding the subject of His wrath, He will be ready to make you the subject of His mercy.”

Oh, great Lover of our souls, keep us ever in a state of constant remembrance of Your great love, as if even now we were deluged in Your world of love. Keep singing over us what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are. Oh God, we are Your children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

And at the heart of your Father-love for us is Your relentless pursuit of our joy in You. Sing in our ears, Jesus, sing in our ears the path to Your joy. Cause us to hear Your voice when you say, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

You are our King, Jesus—we have no other, we desire no other … there can be no more important question set before us by You than this: “Do You love Me? Do you love Me? Do You love Me.”

And this is the only question that matters: the healing and restoring question, the center of all life question, the question that reorients everything so that we can see clear, the question that will save our lives from a thousand shipwrecks, and the question that will lead us to our greatest happiness. But Dear Lover of our souls, here is the agonizing part: It is just easier to live “like ignorant children who want to go on making mud pies in a slum.” It’s easier not to think of loving Christ in this God-ignoring air. But You aren’t vague whene you come to us and say this: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus you know we will always do what we love most…oh, cause us to have an insatiable thirst and hunger for You

Here we are, Father…Your flock gathered before Your face desperately needing to hear Your voice. Please, for Your Name’s sake, visit us and gather us to Yourself. The most important realities in the universe and the most important realities facing us hang in balance of how we will answer this question. Oh, help us answer with joy and passion and with our lives that we love You above all else.

Fix our gaze on Jesus. Love us to Yourself. Be merciful to us, Your blood bought children.

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for love is passing by
Come to Jesus…Come to Jesus…Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden’s lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain, so
Sing to Jesus…Sing to Jesus…Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don’t be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk
Sometimes we fall…
So Fall on Jesus…Fall on Jesus…Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then
Cry to Jesus…Cry to Jesus…Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can’t contain your joy inside, then
Dance for Jesus…Dance for Jesus…Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory’s side, and
Fly to Jesus…Fly to Jesus…Fly to Jesus and live!

In the matchless Name of Jesus.

Amen.

August 2, 2008

All is well … our great and glorious God has been gracious beyond measure. Typing is a tad difficult so this will be brief … too many things attached to my fingers … it’s like typing with pickles for fingers … and pain meds make everything a little blurry. So, here’s what we know. Dr. Lynch said the surgrery could not have gone better as far as removing all the tumor and surrouning dieased tissue. Let it suffice that he was very pleased. I guess getting my post-op pain under control was no small effort. I’ll attest to that once I was conscious … we spent the better part of yestrday afternoon and evening trying to get it under control. The pain level hovers around 3-4 on a scale of 1-10 [10 being high]. I was able to sit up in a chair last night and I’m enjoying a robust diet of ice chips. If all goes well, I will come home in 4-6 days with a view toward being back at the sacred desk on August 17. My good friend, Brian Felten, will be with us to lead in corporate worship … looking forward to a most happy and holy Lord’s Day.

I’ll leave off with Augustine from my morning meditation …

“The soul of men shall hope under the shadow of Thy wings; they shall be made drunk with the fullness of Thy house; and of the torments of Thy pleasures Thou wilt give them to drink; for in Thee is the Fountain of Life, and in Thy Light shall we see the light? Give me a man in love: he knows what I mean, give me one who yearns; give me one who is hungry; give me one far away in the desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal country. Give me that sort of man: he knows what I mean. but if I speak to a cold man, he just does not know what I am talking about…”

Do you love Jesus? In the end, nothing else matters. Jesus’ question to Peter is the one necessary question…all of life will flow out of this one question: “Do you love Me?” [Jn 21] .

Grace Unknown [dsc]

Immortal beauty, eternal love,
Incarnate glory, beloved Son of God—
Now we behold Him, the Word of God to man,
He who was and is the great “I Am”.
The Prince of glory, for sinners slain.
The Man of sorrows bore all our guilt and shame.
The holy Lamb pleads with His precious blood:
“Save this poor and hopeless soul for God.”

Who am I? A sinner, vile, unclean;
Without one plea, in shame and misery.
Who am I, that God would mercy me?
A grace unknown—what amazing grace—grace alone.

* Luke 18:9-14, 1 Peter 2:9-10

* Tune: Above All [LeBlanc & Baloche]

My Hope Is God [dsc]

Oh God, my God, when hope is gone,
When happiness cannot be found—
Will You be there when the morning breaks,
With mercies new, faithfulness great?

My soul cries out—Lord, hear my prayer.
In silent hope, I wait for you there.
You come to me singing songs of grace:
“I love you still—Be not afraid.”

I see the LORD, my Sov’reign King
For His great Name, He does all things.
Almighty God—Forever reign!
My soul, rejoice and hope again!

My hope is God in life and death;
I know He’s all my righteousness.
For I am His and He is mine!
Forever loved in Joy divine.

Soliloquy
Whom do I have in heav’n but You?
You’re all I want on earth below.
My flesh and heart may faint and fail,
My soul will hope in God, my all.

* Lamentations 3, Pslam 73

* Tune: Appalachian Folk Song / “The River Is Wide”

Our Father:

You are God and I am not. You are holy and I am not. You are sovereign and I am not. You have need of nothing and I am absolutely dependent upon You in every conceivable way. Nothing good dwells in my flesh…Christ is all my good … and this by Your sovereign grace. You and You alone are to be glorified in everything. And You will.

You, the One who is all Good, have given me a dread disease. You will get no Job-like argument or inquisition from me…no Jeremiad railing that You are deceitful. Not that I have any claim of superiority on these men “of whom the world is not worthy” … quite the opposite, my affections can only hope to tag along at their feet … and if they have put their hands on their mouths in humility and worship, I will follow this sacred “cloud” praying for these same affections. My sin is ever before me and You would be justified in anything You ordain for me. And yet I do not like this and plead that You would make it all go away. The problem of pain haunts me … if You are almighty You have the ability to do anything and if You are good, why won’t You? It would be nothing for You … every physical, relational, spiritual, emotional, financial, circumstantial misery You could relieve. While the question lingers in the air I can hear the whisper of rival gods and feel the rising of damnable “self.”

I know that any misery that comes to me is better than I deserve. And the “problem of pain” with all of its attendant questions seems to come out of the dark place in me that wants to be God. Your love and mercies and grace eclipse every breath of discontent and unbelief and question in me…oh, the mercy and love and grace poured out on me in these days by Your Spirit and Your people! Humility and thanksgiving! Whatever suffering comes to me comes to an end at death and then infinite joy. This is all the suffering I will ever know…and how small it is…how small in comparison to what I deserve in hell … how small in comparison to “the cloud” … how small in comparison to the martyrs … how small in comparison to so many saints I know and so many around the world … how small in degree and duration. Oh how much misery and shame I have been spared. Oh how much mercy and love and grace has been poured out on me in my suffering. And still I fight within, wrestling in the deeps with why you ordain such things.

You foreknow and foreordain all that comes to pass…there is mystery here, I know. Your ways are beyond my finite, creaturely, sinful understanding. I confess this great truth that you are Sovereign God…

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” [Rev 4:11] … “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” [Rom 11:36] … “For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps” [Ps 135:5-6] … … “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases” [Ps 115:3] … “[He] works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will” [Eph 1:11]

And how can I escape the fact that Your Son, the One in whom You find Your infinite pleasure and joy, suffered infinitely according to Your will?—“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” [Acts 2:22-23]. And Jesus, my Savior and Elder Brother and High Priest and Friend drinks the cup of infinite suffering without a word of rebellion: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” [Is 53:7]. If the “Darling of Heaven” suffered so, for You to be most glorified, can I accept whatever cup does not pass from me? … in humility and love for your glory? Your child needs grace, help, mercy, love … You are my Father, I am Your child and I’m coming to rest in Your arms, cast all my cares on You, and cry for help … help to know something of Jesus’ affections and show something, something of His life.

I gladly call my children to come and see You, our great and glorious God, to put our hands on our mouths and see Your holiness and greatness in Your providence…and so I teach them what reformation saints have taught their children for centuries… “God’s providence is His almighty and ever present power [Jer 23:23-24; Acts 17:24-28], whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures [Heb 1:3], and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty [Jer 5:24; Acts 14:15-17; Jn 9:3; Prov 22:2], indeed, all things, come not by chance [Prov 16:33], but by His fatherly hand [Mtt 10:29].” And I plead that we all see and rejoice at the grace of Your providence in our lives… “We can be patient in adversity [Job 1:21-22; Ps 39:10; Jas 1:3] thankful in prosperity [Deut 8:10; 1 Thss 5:18], and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love [Ps 55:22; Rom 5:3-5; 8:38-39]; for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they cannot so much as move [Job 1:12; 2:6; Prov 21:1; Acts 17:24-28].”

And yet, I don’t want us to live in mere mental submission to such glorious providence, I want us to embrace it with passion and live in proclamation of Your glory even from a place of misery. What shall I say? Yes, I will pray for grace to sing Job’s song and sing with all my heart [Job 1:21—“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”]. But what will fill the song with honest passion? Is Edwards right? He seems to have found the answer of faith … the fountain of truth out of which Paul’s soliloquy would flow [2 Cor 12:7-10] …

“It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all….Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all. If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired….So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.”

My finite mind stands on the edge of the ineffable but can see enough … You are more glorified, Your grace is most glorified in the face of sin and all its miserable effects. The greater the misery, the greater the grace, the greater the glory of Your grace. Is this it? It must be. Mystery is here and I will choose to put my hand on my mouth. You promise that Your mercies are new every morning, Your faithfulness is great, Your love never fails. And in it all You promise to be my Good, my sufficient Grace, my never-failing Friend, my ever-present Help, my sympathizing Intercessor, my Savior and my God … nothing can separate me from Your love [Rom 8]. I will give myself every morning to these new mercies and seek to live in such a way that shows the supremacy of Christ. Does it sound like I’m trying to convince myself of all these things? Help me.

Oh that my children would see and delight in this. Oh that all my family and friends would see and delight in this. Oh that all those who suffer in Christ would see and delight in this.

Father in heaven, glorify Your Name. My idolatrous fight for “another way” is abandoned for now. Keep my heart. Love me to Yourself. Keep my dear ones…love them to Yourself. We cannot keep ourselves and we desperately need to be kept close to You, our gaze fixed on You. You know my fears and worries…I confess my fears and know they are rooted in the sin of unbelief…grant me the gift of repentance and help my unbelief. Jesus, pray for me like you did for Peter so that when I am sifted by the enemy my faith will hold. Spirit, fill me with the affections of Christ so that there is no desire for any rival god. Father, love me as You do Your Son…please let me feel it in the depths of my being. Be merciful to me, the sinner … oh, my Father and my God, be merciful to me, Your child.

I pray in the Name that is above all Names, Jesus my Savior and My Friend.

Amen.

The surgeon [Dr. Lynch] has scheduled my surgery for July 31 to remove the malignant tumor and lymph nodes. I will go in a day early so I can be monitored when taken off all blood thinners. The great concern of the physicians is that I will be 3-4 days without blood thinners and at significant risk for new blood clots to form post-surgery. I’ve been told to expect 5-7 days of recovery in the hospital and then about that same amount of time at home before I feel relatively normal…whatever that may be.

Hopefully you’ll understand if there are no blog entries for a few weeks. If recovery goes well and there is something I feel merits writing, I’ll certainly try to make my way to the computer.

This has been a long four months and we have been carried on the wings of your intercession. I have no way of expressing our gratitude, as I’ve mentioned before…we have been mercied by your praying in ways that leave us speechless. In a most difficult hour, Sarah Edwards wrote to her daughter, “We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be.” And so we are and love to be.

For whatever reasons, my mind runs to Jonathan Edwards’ contemplation of God’s mercy and His world of love. Find a quiet place and drink deep from this well…we will live on this great and glorious God…

God Is A Being Of Transcendent Mercy: “Consider that the most wonderful act of mercy is already done in giving Christ to die. This is a much more wonderful act of mercy than justifying and pardoning the greatest sinner after way is thus made for it [i.e. after He made a way to pardon]. That God should show His mercy so was ten times more strange and incredible than that He should forgive your sins for His sake. Let your sins be never so great, He can’t hate your sins more than He loved His Son; and if He made His Son notwithstanding the subject of His wrath, He will be ready to make you the subject of His mercy.

Heaven, A World Of Love: “And oh! what joy will there be, springing up in the hearts of the saints, after they have passed through their wearisome pilgrimage, to be brought to such a paradise as this! Here is joy unspeakable indeed, and full of glory — joy that is humble, holy, enrapturing, and divine in its perfection! Love is always a sweet principle; and especially divine love. This, even on earth, is a spring of sweetness; but in heaven it shall become a stream, a river, an ocean! All shall stand about the God of glory, who is the great fountain of love, opening, as it were, their very souls to be filled with those effusions of love that are poured forth from his fullness, just as the flowers on the earth, in the bright and joyous days of spring, open their bosoms to the sun, to be filled with his light and warmth, and to flourish in beauty and fragrancy under his cheering rays. Every saint in heaven is as a flower in that garden of God, and holy love is the fragrance and sweet odor that they all send forth, and with which they fill the bowers of that paradise above. Every soul there, is as a note in some concert of delightful music, that sweetly harmonizes with every other note, and all together blend in the most rapturous strains in praising God and the Lamb forever. And so all help each other, to their utmost, to express the love of the whole society to its glorious Father and Head, and to pour back love into the great fountain of love whence they are supplied and filled with love, and blessedness, and glory. And thus they will love, and reign in love, and in that godlike joy that is its blessed fruit, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath ever entered into the heart of man in this world to conceive; and thus in the full sunlight of the throne, enraptured with joys that are forever increasing, and yet forever full, they shall live and reign with God and Christ forever and ever!”

Soli Deo Gloria