At the Door of Adversity

It is an unpleasant feeling to wake up to the reality of how dark and dangerous is the world we live in: when the confidence during our childhood fairyland, under the protection of our elders, seems to have fled away and give place to doubt and dread. We hear news or see signs of nearby conflicts in communities, disasters we thought only existed in the movies, and wonder if we are next. Around every corner of life we suspect danger lurks, an accident waiting to spring upon us and our loved ones. And perhaps at the root of our uneasiness is the fear that the universe is governed by chaos, that God is not in control, or else that he is a merciless demon who will bring disaster upon us where it will hurt the most.

But though it may seem God didn't take these fears into consideration when he ordained the Scriptures, I think what we read there shows otherwise.

“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?” (1 Corinthians 11:24-29)

As often as we equate theology with the magi in the ivory tower, we tend to forget the trials that the people of God went through.

“Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (Hebrews 11:35b-38)

“To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.” (1 Corinthians 4:11-13)

And yet they persevered. They ran the race to the end, and at the last received the crown of life.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12-13)

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)

We may not understand yet, and may grow faint thinking about future troubles we may face, but we can pray for peace, and trust him as through our struggles we are “transformed into his image from one degree of glory to another,” (2 Corinthians 3:18), from seedling to sapling, and from sapling into a strong young tree, able to withstand the storms of life that threaten to uproot it, and from there into a mighty oak, unperturbed by the tempestuous winds of trial: a point when we can, like Job, when he learned he had lost everything, do nothing but worship God and praise him.

Not that the winds won't shake us: even Job had his doubts. And Jesus, when in Gethsemane, underwent much stress and struggled in his mortal body. “The spirit indeed is willing,” he told his sleepy disciples, “but the flesh is weak,” (Matthew 26:41). However,

“God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

God will not allow trials to come upon us he will not bring us through, but will patiently guide us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

And he is with us in other ways. It is important to make a distinction between the trials he ordains for his people, and the calamity to which he abandons sinful nations. In those cases, we have the confidence of his unfailing protection.

Psalm 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and a buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—the Most High, who is my refuge—no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

And so whenever the fear comes upon us, let us say with confident assurance: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.” (Psalm 56:3-4)

The Road to Redemption

It is out of the turmoil of the heart a Christian asks, “What's the problem with theology today?” There is not enough of this or that, is our temptation to answer. But at the heart of the situation is the suspicion of its inadequacy: inadequacy to equip us for living in the world as Christians...in fact, it seems to have become, in the eyes of many, a hindrance.

And I can see why. Enthusiasts and thinkers on every side daunt us with their castles and mountains of interpretive framework, many of them differing like night and day, and it seems impossible to climb them, especially when they start dropping their rocks to knock you back to the bottom (unless you agree to accept all their belief to enter the inner circle; if not you must spend fifty hours a day reading all the collected works of Brainiac hoping to to make head or at least some tail of what everyone's talking about).

And yet considering all who God claims to be, from his perspective these mountains and castles must be small hills and toy forts. The word of some old book seems so irrelevant compared with the eccentricities and complications experienced in what has come to be called the modern world (the age of tech, brain, power, and seeming omnipotence)... and yet, are not humans still humans no matter what fancy toys or “ways of thinking” their nature spawns? What comes from man comes from his nature, and God is still his creator.

Perhaps we should see the state of theology this way.

Let's start with the traditional perspective. The knowing parents try to feed their kids the green vegetables they need to eat, while the kids are “bleh!”ing as they dream of the taste of candy, which isn't so good for them. Now suppose Larry Skeptic is more resistant than the rest, and starts to question whether the vegetables really are all that good and the candy so bad, and the parents, after repeated struggles with his creative arguments, finally lose their temper and try to cram the broccoli down poor Larry's throat, and as a result he spits it out and marches off declaring he'll jolly well eat all the junk food he wants. The parents can only shake their heads and remind themselves they've been warned about rebels of the sort.

But there's a catch. Let me stress the fact that junk food is still junk food and veggies are still veggies, but the funny thing about modern food is few things are as they seem. Because of the modern food system, much of what you buy at the supermarket is not completely wholesome. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but though it looks like an apple, your opinion about it may change if you learn what it goes through and where it comes from. Grown from soil steeped in poisonous pesticides, sprayed by the same everyday, picked while still the size of a grape, grown larger with laboratory means, coated in wax to preserve it, stored a year or two while nutrition seeps out through the wax, maybe transported a couple thousand miles to boot, before being dumped into the aisle in the grocery store, mint and shiny, but with no scent, and hardly any taste. But taste a real apple, grown in healthy soil, matured and ripe, picked fresh from the tree, and the music will swell in your brain, making you actually say ”Mmmm!” when you bite it. Then there's conventional meat, which comes from animals packed in large numbers in small confinements called feedlots, where the creatures are fed all kinds of garbage, where dung is piled high, and antibodies have constantly to be pumped into the beasts or they'll die from the myriad diseases breeding and swarming among them, and besides living a life in metal rooms and the dark are slaughtered in terribly inhumane ways. Yet the beef produced pales in comparison with eating that of happy, grass-fed cows raised in broad, free pastures. It's a similar case with a lot of the meat and veggies we buy: produced solely for efficiency and therefore with higher gain of capital for its sponsors, but causing the public to suffer for want of actual nutrition and therefore health. Yes, we've got our meds, yes we've got our energy bars, but these are only band-aids, for when disease and disaster strike like assassins when one seemed perfectly healthy up to this point, we wonder if what we call health nowadays is only a show on a shaky foundation.

I think this can be seen as an illustration of theology today. It looks polished, but on the inside has gotten very sick. Our thoughts about the Word of God are steeped in the pesticides of our categories, premature conclusions jumped to about its teaching, bits of evidence gathered to reinforce these interpretations, coated in wax of fancy speech to make it look nice, certified and taught as foundational truth while truth is leaking out of its words, after which it is put up for sale in books, church teaching, online articles, magazines, TV, and whatever other mediums exist. So while there's all this Scriptural processing, all this debating, all this pointing of fingers, all this anger and pride, closed doors and private circles, denominational and personal conflicts, it seems we who find ourselves in the midst of it can never find the truth, never hope to make any sense of what we believe at all.

But while good food is hard to find, the Bread of Life is still there: you have only to look for it. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” (James 1:5)

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” (Proverbs 9:10)

Perhaps we should ask those who accuse other Christians of not knowing the Scriptures: do you read your Bible? Perhaps we should ask those who condemn others for devising false formulations: do you yourselves truly know His words? We all have difficulty keeping our human outlooks from clouding the Gospel, but past the struggle, in finally surrendering all that we presuppose, we listen past our prejudices to His voice...because God is real, not just a mascot or an echo of man's inner voice.

Psalm 131 (A psalm of David)

“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.”

“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Luke 18:17)

Too often we are made sick of the Bible by those who exploit it to control people or advance their own interests. But even if they do not, we should still live as true Christians ourselves, and obey Christ even if it seems we would be the only ones on the planet to do so, for he is greater than they.

“The Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” (Isaiah 8:11-13)

What does that mean? It means don't be daunted by the hubbub of theological arguments and clashes of pop wisdom, don't be afraid of the criticism of humans, but instead serve Christ. No matter what They do; no matter if They say do or don't; “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Even if it means you'll be treated an outsider; even if some calling themselves Christians shut the door to you; even if friends and family members scoff and write you off as weird, even condemn you; even if the wise ones of this age wanna logic you off the planet...listen to what they say, weigh it with God's words, and continue to walk with Jesus.

And what does it mean to walk with Jesus? By listening to and living his words.

Matthew 22:36-40

“”Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

What does it mean to love God? Listen to what the apostle John wrote:

“We love God because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 4:19—5:5)

And never say, “I cannot.” Never say you can't walk with him because you are in a wheelchair, or are bedridden; don't say you are too unhealthy or busy a person. God calls us to live his words every moment of our day-to-day lives wherever we are. “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Do favors for family and neighbors; If you can't walk, encourage others; if you can't talk, pray for others. Joni Eareckson Tada is mostly paralyzed, but she paints beautiful pictures with the paintbrush held in her mouth, for the glory of God; and even if she couldn't, with the love she has spread with her ministries, she would still be running the race better than a great athlete runs his; and it would not have been the same had God not allowed her accident and injury to occur. Present yourself as a living sacrifice to him, and he will never leave you without a part to play.

And so comes the challenge: will we enter by the narrow gate?

“For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14)

Are we prepared to go the distance?

“For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” (Luke 14:28)

Will we stick by him through thick and thin?

“After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” (John 6:66)

Are we prepared to lay all that we are, everything we call our own, all our dreams and ambitions, before Christ, to use and transform according to his purpose? Will we run the race to the end even if things gets hard?

Against all odds, will we follow Jesus?

John 3:16-21: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we peach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)