Tag: grace

Contentment in Weakness

“‘My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ …. Therefore I am content with weaknesses….”

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Last night, I was texting with a good friend who asked me if was OK.  The back story is that my wife of almost 40 years decided she was not happy in our marriage, and she left me about two years and three months ago. I tried for about 6 months to seek reconciliation with her, but she had made-up her mind.

Since she left, I have gone through cycles of grief, depression, and numbness. I have battled anger, bitterness, and resentment. I have alternately gravitated between guilt and in self-justification

She filed for divorce a month ago, but I have been in limbo for over 2 years. I have felt out of sorts, off balance, and stuck. Neither of us can afford to keep the house and maintain it alone, so I have been clearing out 40 years worth of stuff, and I am living right now in a house with very little in it but boxes, two cats and a dog.

Though it was clear that she didn’t want to try to salvage our marriage, I hoped that we wouldn’t have to involve lawyers. I was hoping we could talk and come to an agreement on how to unravel ourselves without lawyers, but she stopped communicating with me (for the most part) when she left. 

My attempts to open channels of communication have largely not been reciprocated, other than short, incomplete answers. Thus, I have felt stuck for over 2 years. Now the lawyers are involved, and it is out of my control (not that I was ever in control to begin with).

I have continued in my daily Bible reading. I could write very little for a long time, and whatever I wrote was a labor and a chore. I have continued to be faithful to the local church I attend, attending weekly small groups and Bible studies, as I can, and I continue to be involved in Administer Justice, a faith-based legal aid organization. I have continued to lean on God and lean into his presence in my life (more or less successfully at times), so I am doing OK

Thus, when my friend and sister in Christ asked me if I am doing OK, I said with honesty, “Yes, but I feel like I need to move on, and I need to regain my footing. I have been in limbo for over 2 years. I wish I could be content in my circumstances, but I am not there.”

As God would have it, read the following passage in my daily reading plan for the year this morning:

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ So then, I will boast most gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NET

As I sit here stunned by the timing of this reading, I am struck that contentment is a choice that we make. It doesn’t just happen to us. We choose to be content in our circumstances. 

Perhaps, it doesn’t mean that we must feel contentment. Perhaps it simply means that we choose to be content, to stop complaining, to stop waiting for things to change, to “seize the day”, as the popular saying goes, to let go of the excuses for why I am not doing everything I can do to be who God made me to be today.

I got out of bed this morning after reading these things and meditating on them, and I chose to worship God and praise Him instead of listening to a podcast, as I often do, while getting ready for the short ride into the office. God was with me as I offered a “sacrifice of praise”.

It was a sacrifice of praise, because I didn’t feel like praising Him! I often don’t, and it’s easier to occupy my mind with podcasts and music. There is nothing wrong with that, but I realized this morning that I need to be more intentional. I need to choose to be content and to praise God even when I don’t feel like it.

Favoritism in the Bible, The Here & the Hereafter

God’s mercy shows no bounds, and He is equally merciful to all of us.

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“Now in those days, when the disciples were growing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Greek-speaking Jews against the native Hebraic Jews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.”

Acts 6:1

Even in the early church led by the 12 apostles who lived with Jesus and learned at his feet, the Church was susceptible to favoritism. The early church embraced a radical, communal life in which they pooled their resources, and everyone in need was taken care of. More or less!

The native, Hebrew widows were being taken care of, but the foreign, Greek-speaking widows were being overlooked. Things were not perfect then, and they never are. People are people, and we tend to fall short, even in our best moments.

People naturally tend to look after our own. “Me and mine”, as Pete might have said in the iconic Coen brothers film, O Brother Where Are Thou?

This human characteristic is not all bad. It prompts mothers and fathers to care for and look after their own children. It inspires family members to look after other family members and friends to look after friends.

At the same time, this human characteristic causes us to care more for our own children and families than for others and to care more for our friends than for our neighbors. It causes us to “take care of our own” to the exclusion of “others”, and that can lead to things like racial discrimination, nepotism, and a failure to have empathy for strangers.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, also deals with favoritism in his letter to the early Church. (James 2:1-13) He called the Church to account for showing “special attention” to men “wearing fine clothes” by giving them the best seats while making the poor churchgoers stand or sit on the floor. (James 2:1-4)

James called favoring the wealthy over the poor sin in no uncertain terms! (James 2:9) He described it as breaking the law of God – the law of loving your neighbor as yourself. (James 2:1-2)

James was clear that this kind of favoritism has no place in the family of God. If any favoritism is sanctioned by God, it is the kind of favoritism that focuses on the poor, the less fortunate, and the people that are marginalized by our human tendencies to show favoritism for our own, personal benefit.

When our favoritism is motivated by selfishness, it is sin. James was particularly strong in his condemnation of favoritism motivated by selfish desires. If we “favor” the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the ones who have less influence in this world, we do it without expectation of personal benefit, and we follow in the example of Jesus.

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The Way of Righteousness and the Holy Command: The Way

We escape the corruption of the world by the way of righteousness and the sacred command. But, what if we lose the way and don’t know the sacred commandment?

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I started this short series focusing on the second epistle of Peter where Peter warns his readers about false prophets with “eyes full of adultery”, greed, and depravity who are slaves to their own sin. These people seduce the unstable and entice others by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh. Peter says,

It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

These are fearful words of warning. Anyone who might feel enslaved to sin has likely felt angst when reading this words.

In the previous article, I note that the actions Peter describes are the fruit of people who have “known the way of righteousness” and the “sacred [holy] command” and have turned their backs and walked away. The fruits are the symptoms, not the cause.

The important thing for us, therefore, is to know the way of righteousness and the holy commandment, and not to turn our backs on them! In this follow up to that introductory article, I will focus on the way of righteousness.

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The Surprising Value of the Concept of Sin

The idea of sin makes people feel uncomfortable, and people blame sin for making them feel bad about themselves.

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Many people bristle at the Christian idea of sin, and many people fault Christianity for its emphasis on sin. Richard Dawkins criticized Christianity in his book, The God Delusion, that it’s all about sin, sin, sin. His sentiment seems to be a popular one.

As a long-time Christian, I have a “robust” view of sin not just because I have robust respect for the Bible. I see sin in myself, and I see it in mankind, generally. I see it as a fact, like gravity, that makes sense of the foibles, failures, and futility of people and human systems I see in the world.

Not that people are incapable of doing good. Even who do not believe in God can do good. Even in doing good, though, I believe most of us do it good “selfishly” – because it makes us feel good; because of peer pressure; because we want people to honor us; because we want other people to be nice to us; or simply because of the utilitarian ideal that it makes the world a better place for me and my tribe to live in.

Most people, I assume, would be uncomfortable with my assessment. Maybe what I see in myself shouldn’t be “projected” onto other people. Maybe I am right, though. I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t think it is a fair assessment.

I think one issue people have with the idea of sin is that they don’t know what to do with it. It doesn’t fit into an evolutionary paradigm that celebrates the progress of humanity from primordial ooze to ape to rational being.

Absent a cosmic redeemer, people have no “solution” for sin. Reject the One, and the other makes no sense. Many people don’t want a cosmic redeemer interfering with their self-determination (even people, ironically, who believe we have no self-determination, because we merely dance to our DNA).

People don’t see any “value” in sin. The idea of sin makes people feel uncomfortable. They blame the concept of sin for making them feel bad about themselves. When people measure their goodness against others, they either feel shame or self-righteousness, because they see themselves as better or worse than others.

People blame judgmental attitudes, intolerance, lack of empathy for others, and a host of other evils on the Judeo-Christian concept of sin.

On the other hand, do people who have rejected the Christian concept of sin stop feeling bad about themselves or stop being self-righteous? In my experience, no, they don’t.

Abandoning the idea of sin doesn’t seem to help people not feel bad about themselves, and it doesn’t stop people from being self-righteous. People still compare themselves to others. People still struggle with self-image, and some people still seem to think themselves morally superior to others even after rejecting the concept of sin.

The Christian vocabulary that includes sin has no place in alternative cultural constructs, like cultural Marxism, and the host of critical theories that flow from it. Judgment of others, however, is baked into those constructs, and virtue is signaled for group approval in ways that seem, to me, just as inimical as any bad church environment.

People are shamed and labor under judgmental attitudes perfectly well without the help of Christianity. In fact, I believe the shame and self-righteousness is even worse because other cultural constructs lack the Christian concepts of redemption, grace, and forgiveness.

But, I believe in sin simply because it makes sense of all my experiences and everything that I see in people and the world that is run by people. I have never thought of sin as a value proposition, other than to think that sinfulness is generally bad. I have certainly never thought of the idea of sin as good!

Until now.

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Justice, Mercy, Sin, Forgiveness, Jonah and the Cross

“Correct me, O Lord, but in justice; not in your anger….

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“Correct me, O Lord, but in justice; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.” Jeremiah 10:24 ESV

This is my cry today. At some level it is the cry of everyone, or should be the cry of everyone, because we are sinners. We are saved only by God’s grace.

Sometimes, like today for me, we are keenly aware of our sinfulness. Some days we aren’t.

Though I gave myself to God as my Lord and Savior many years ago, I still find myself climbing onto that throne in my heart and taking back control. I may be mindful and submissive in the morning. By evening, I have taken back that position I promised to God in the morning.

Like a bird caught in a snare, I find myself entangled by the old, sinful threads of my life that tangle easily around my feet. I gave them to God once for all time. Only I find myself going back to them, like a moth to a flame. Then, I must turn to God… once again… and again… and cede control again.

I am 61 years old. I have been a believer for 40 years. I know better.

Shouldn’t I be further along in the process of personal holiness and sanctification? Why am I so weak to deal with these things that have plagued me since I was young?

How many times will I fail? How many times will I repent? How many times will I fall? How many times will God forgive me?

I ask myself. I ask God.

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