Hoping for Something to Hope For

            “I have told you these things, so that in me you might have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

-John 16:33

            “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

- Romans 8:18

           

            “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

- Psalm 34:18

           

            “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”

- James 1:2

            If people were not meant to experience suffering, Scripture wouldn’t have as much to say about it as it does. When faced with a difficult experience, many people’s default question is “Why?”

Why did he have to die?

Why did she walk out on us?

Why can’t he just stop?

Why wasn’t I enough?

Why didn’t I say something when I had the chance?

            Suffering is a difficult topic to explore, because everybody feels it differently, and everybody reacts to it differently. The only piece of advice that I’ve been given that is universal in any kind of suffering is this:

Don’t go through it alone.

            I need you to remind me that I’m not the only one in the world experiencing pain. I need you to be real with me, to tell me what’s going through your head and your heart so we can help each other out in the mere understanding that we are not alone when we think life sucks.

            I’ve always thought it was cliché when I would hear phrases like “Love alone is worth the fight,” because I never really understood what it meant. I think that when we really learn to love each other, to put other people above ourselves, and to live in community with one another, we’ll get one step closer to understanding why seasons of life can be so difficult.

“If you have a problem, and I love you, then that’s my problem. If you have a joy, and I love you, that’s going to bring me joy.”

-Aaron Weiss

            That is not meant to be an easy solution to pain, or even a solution at all. Maybe it’s just the way I’ve learned to make sense of everything. When I’m not in a very good spot emotionally or spiritually and I share it with my older brother, he always says, “Go help someone.” Sometimes that’s the last thing I want to hear. Other times, it’s the only thing that brings me back to the reality that we’re all lost and broken people seeking some sort of peace.

            We need each other to remind each other that we will never walk alone.

            We need each other to remind each other that our stories matter.

            We need each other to remind each other that we are loved

            Cherished

            Valued

            Significant.

            In the mean time, I am encouraged because of the hope that there is for a world with no more pain and no more suffering, and I cannot wait for the day that we all come together as one to celebrate it.

            “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

-Revelation 21:4

In Everyone We Meet...

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done,

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done,

What effect is without a cause?

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done.

Now lay your faithless head down

In necessities Cotton Hand,

There’s a love that never changes,

No matter what you’ve done. “

            At one point in my life, I met a lot of people that I never would have expected to be changing the world in the way they were doing it. A former gang member turned pastor, working with people that he used to call family, trying to help them find a way out. Or an old junkie that just can’t seem to be set free from his addiction becomes a slave to righteousness and helps others find the same path. A girl struggling with depression figures out that even though life sucks a lot of the time, it has a purpose, and she strives to help others find their purpose right alongside her. At one point in my life, I very ignorantly came to the conclusion that these kinds of people were the last kind of people I would expect to see become a part of the Body of Christ.

            I expressed my amazement that I had at the transformation in these people’s lives to somebody I look up to a lot, and his response was this: “If we read the Gospels, really read them, enjoy the stories and think of the characters, those people are exactly who we should expect to find Jesus. Where did we miss this?.”

            Those words really resonated with me at the time that he shared them, but they soon lost their value when I entered into a different context with different problems. I’m finding that there are plenty of things in life that I need to be willing to re-learn, and come to grips with the fact that I will never understand what it means to its fullest extent. This is one of them.

            Church is its own culture. There are social norms that are different for each one. In some, you can drop an f-bomb here and there and nobody will bat an eye. In others, if you don’t carry the right translation of the Bible with you into the building, then you can’t possibly know who Jesus is. I’m not saying that either of those is right or wrong. What I’m suggesting is, maybe our priorities fall into the wrong places too easily.

            The lyrics above are from a song called “Allah, Allah, Allah” by a band called mewithoutYou. The first verse says:

In everywhere we look,

In everywhere we look,

In everywhere we look,

In everywhere we look,

In everywhere we look,

In everywhere we look,

Allah, Allah, Allah

In everywhere we look.

            I can listen to that song and think about the fact that it says Allah instead of Jesus or even just God and be upset about it. I can listen to this song and get frustrated because I thought there was finally a group of decently normal Christian guys writing music that’s honest and true, but now because they talked about Allah in one of their songs I can come to the conclusion that they must not be Christians anymore.

           I hope you picked up on that sarcasm in the above paragraph, because even though I can choose to do those things, I find that when I stand in a room full of a bunch of sweaty people who are just as lost and broken as I am, it is only then that I come to a real understanding of the beauty and truth that are in a song like that. When hundreds of people join together in singing that one song, whether they know it or not, they are being led in a ballad to their Creator, and he can use that ballad to speak truth into their lives in any way he wants.

            To say that it’s extra inspirational when God saves a prostitute isn’t fair, or to say that a song or idea needs to be deemed un-Christian because it takes truth that is also found in other great teachers is very narrow minded. For me personally, all it means is that my God isn’t big enough to break through barriers set up by Satan and the world around us, and if that’s my attitude towards things, then my war is over before it even starts.

            

My whole point?

Maybe God is a lot bigger than we let him be, but I’m not sure if we’ll find out if we keep him in a box that isn’t even big enough to fit my pet lizard.