An Offering of Hope

In response to my last post, I'd like to refer avid readers to some quotes from two of the professors on campus that offer hope in the face of suffering. And since they can say it far better than I, here they are. Here's proof of why they have PhDs and I don't:

First, in reponse to the Oklahoma bombing:

If one continues to believe in God, one retains the hope that even such a
terrible situation as this can be resolved in the end. God can and will
restore the lives of those children. Indeed, no innocent sufferer will be
lost or forgotten in God's final reckoning.

In his recently published spiritual autobiography, Peter van Inwagen
remarked, "I have never had the least tendency to react to the evils of the
world by saying, 'How could there be a loving God who allows these
things?' My immediate emotional reaction has rather been: 'There must be a
God who will wipe away every tear; there must be a God who will repay.'"

Of course if there is no God, such reactions are futile emotions in
an undifferent universe. If atoms, quarks, gluons, and energy are
ultimate reality, then our cries of pain and anger will fall on deaf
ears. But the Christian faith, more than any other religion, gives us
reason to hope ultimate reality is not indifferent to our plight. God
hears, He cares, He has come among us and suffered with us and for us in the
person of his Son. Evil will not have the last word. Every tear
will be wiped away.
~Dr. Jerry Walls, Asbury Herald, 3-5 1995

And another quote offers hope from a Biblical standpoint when it comes to the problem of evil

My friends, if we are to have any hope of resolving this question of suffering and divine justice, we will have to listen to the biblical roundtable. And we will do well to refrain from claiming more than Scripture warrants and more than honest assessments of life can really sustain. We will do well to stake our faith in the cross and know that God is for us, that God loves us, that Jesus died for us...
...The apostles say God isn't just with us, as Job evntually discovered, but He is for us. He cares about us even as we suffer. And, He will, in the end, work His purposes through us. He will lead us to a day when we will know that God is just and our faith has not been in vain. That's the good news of the gospel. And it's no end run on the problem of evil. Let us go, my friends, in the confidence that God will be with us. And, as we give our lives and minds to follow Him, He will accomplish His purposes in us, even in our suffering.
~Dr. David Thompson, Asbury Herald, 6-9 1995

In the Face of Tragedy

Hurricane Rita is making her way through the gulf coast of Texas. Traffic is jammed. People are frantic. Refugees are packing up and fleeing once more with no sure destination. Hard telling where they'll find a place to rest their heads now that their world is being threatened once more. Who knows how much damage this one will do. People don't know whether or not they'll have a home left when they get back. How can these people make sense of this kind of tragedy?
We had an interesting discussion in crisis counseling yesterday about the assumptions we hold about ourselves and the world and what we do when they are shattered by a crisis. We believe that life holds meaning (at least we hope it does, right?). The rest of what we assume is built upon this main assumption that things don't just randomly happen. They happen for a reason, regardless of how we choose to assign the meaning. We can so easily become Job's friends who try to convince him he has unconfessed sin because of what has happened. Even though we may not realize it, deep down we hold onto some of these ideas with white knuckles. And it's okay to reject randomness to a certain extent because it's adaptive.

We believe that the world is good and will continue to be good to us. When combined with the sense of meaningfulness, this becomes a belief in some sort of justice in the world. We acknowledge that there are horrible things that go on in the world but we don't believe they happen in "our world" because that would just be unfair.

We believe that we are good and worthy people and that therefore, tragedies will not happen to us due to this sense of justice. We cannot conceive of something so horrible happenning to us because we cannot conceive of ourselves being bad enough to "deserve" it. Again, this can be adaptive when everything is in place because if we really came to terms with our sinfulness we just might go crazy.

So what happens to these assumptions when something like Katrina happens and people lose everything they have? The victims are most likely wrestling with letting go of these assumptions I've listed above. They've been shattered to peices. How can God do this? How can God let this happen? Why did it happen to me and not someone living in another state/town/etc.? What did I do to deserve this? It could take a lifetime to rebuild them. The outcome could be more healthy or it could be more maladaptive. Who knows.

And while I have no idea what I'd be doing or thinking if this had all happened to me, my heart goes out to them. And not just hurricaine victims, but everyone in this world who has faced that point of crisis when you know you have no more resources to draw from. Your ability to cope with what has gone on is no longer available to you. Maybe they've lost a loved one, maybe they've lost everything they have, maybe they're dealing with disease or terminal illness. These people are all around us, searching to put meaning to their situations.

And I wish that faith offered more answers, but I am not sure it does. I do not believe that tragedy always seeks individuals on purpose. I don't understand this fully though. I don't know why God's lets these things happen. And while faith does not offer answers, I am glad it offers hope. We have hope in Christ that these kinds of sufferings are only temporary and can actually be considered "pure joy" because they help to develop perseverence. Yeah, try telling someone that while they're going through something like this. (I'm sure that would go over really well with some folks). Someone has to have extraordinarily strong faith to have such a mindset. But the truth, when put in an eternal perspective, is that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ Jesus. Not death, not destruction, not sickness, not poverty. I just hope that if such hardship befalls me I will be able to say these things...that I would be able to trust God, embrace the mystery of it all, and bless His name even though I don't understand why it's happenening.

Over the Rhine

Karin Berquist at a free show down by the river
Louisville, KY

Haybales

Camp Nelson Nicholasville, KY

In Too Deep

A few months ago as I was sitting at the switchboard a lady called telling me that she wanted to believe that God loved her, but she couldn't believe. As this is not a crisis hotline, I was completely taken off guard. This lady was looking for someone to counsel her. Slightly annoyed that someone was calling looking for free counseling and completely paralyzed with shock and fear of saying the wrong thing I nervously stumbled through telling her that God loved her. Gee, big help I was, I thought to myself.

Well she called again tonight. Our conversation lasted about 15 minutes this time. Whether or not I did any good for the situation I do not know. She really wasn't in any state to explain what was bothering her, but it had something to do with not being able to distinguish between God and Satan. Frustrated with the fact that she was being so vague and spooky about the whole thing, I had to remind myself that even though the things she was telling me were disturbing me and quite frankly freaking me out, I needed to not write her off as a wacko. What she needed was a friend. A friend who understood her confusion. A friend who would pray for her. A friend who would not look down on her for saying crazy things. A friend who would challenge her to take some kind of responsibility for her own recovery.

I will admit that I am a little uncomfortable talking about spiritual warfare. Do I believe in it? YES. Do I know what it looks like? NO. Who am I to tell this lady what she should do in order to be free from the forces that were at work within her? She wants me to solve her problem for her. I let her know that I honestly don't know how to help her. The only thing I can offer her is prayer and some empathetic understanding. I care about what you're going through, I tell her. I offer to pray for her.

And this all makes me think about humility in the counseling profession. Hopefully none of you by reading this think that I lack it too much for sharing this story. I am not trying to pat myself on the back at all. I am going to have to develop a lot of humility in the next few years if I am going to make it in the profession. This experience reminds me of how nerve-wracking talking to an unstable person really is. When I admit that I don't have the slightest clue what I am doing, that is when I rely on God. And that is the best place to be...both for me and the other person.

I don't want to be a solution-maker for people. People will want to raise me up to a non-human level, asking for things I can't give them. I'll be tempted to offer pat-solutions to "fix" them. But I think people need to make their own solutions. It takes some of the pressure off of me and it also makes people responsible for their own lives. I'm going to be there to help them filter what solutions might be plausible, what might be the most effective...but the truth is that I really don't know for sure. Luckily I think counseling is more about loving the other person than offering them answers. Leaves more room for God's grace to work, now doesn't it?

Center of the Universe...

...or so they say, Tulsa, OK

Downtown

Tulsa, OK

Praying Hands

ORU campus Tulsa, OK

Prayer Tower

ORU campus Tulsa, OK

Peter and JC

Listening Intently

Who Is My Neighbor?

Dr. Seamands gave a talk this morning on holiness. I found it interesting the way he distinguished between personal, communal, and social holiness. Holiness is more than personal. It is lived out in close-knit groups of people and it is also lived out in the world at large. I want a holiness that abandons ME and edifies JESUS CHRIST. That kind of holiness has to be displayed socially. I want to pay attention to Jesus walking the streets of Lexington with nowhere to sleep. I want to pay attention to Jesus in the nursing home with no family to visit him. I want to give where there is need. I want to act when there is reason for action. I want holiness to invade me until it becomes so much a part of who I am I don't notice it's there.

And why do I want it? I want holiness in my life so that people will experience Jesus. I want people to look at me and say to themselves, "There's no way she is doing that on her own. This God of her's must really be amazing. I want what she has."

So the question I've been pondering (for reasons I won't go into here) is 'what role do I play in my own holiness?' Now this can be treading on sticky theological ground here. I've been tiptoeing around word choices such as this all day. I do not for one second want to espouse the idea that I earn my holiness by works or that my own good works make me holy. Holiness comes from God and it is only by his grace and power that I become holy. But isn't some of the responsibility put on me to seek after holiness? I cannot buy into the idea that when I was converted God said (much like Emeril) "Bam!" and I became as holy as I could ever be. I cannot buy into the idea that I need not concern myself with holiness because God forces His holiness on me whether I like it or not. If God worked this way, why did Jesus say, "Be holy as my Father in heaven is holy" ? If there is no choice on our part to pursue holiness then why was Jesus concerned with telling the Jews how they should be living? Why would there be any instruction for life in the Scripture if God is the only one making decisions in our lives?

I have to choose Jesus every day. I have to choose to open myself up to Him and ask Him to refine me. When I was saved I said yes to Jesus and to holiness. But I can't say I've said yes to Jesus everyday since then. I wish I could but I can't. I've seen myself make horrible decisions and my behavior has led to the opposite of holiness. Do people who think I have no choice when it comes to holiness think that God also chooses for me to act against Him and hurt other people? Either that would be true or else I am not a Christian. One of these two must be true if I have no choice.

I am being challenged through meeting new people and discussing these beliefs. I generally have the tendency to shut down when I encounter people who believe differently than I do because I view myself as inept at defending my own beliefs. I fear hurting people's feelings so I retreat and become bitter or disheartened. God is showing me it doesn't have to be that way. Part of holiness is loving my neighbor no matter how different he is from me. Jesus calls me to love those who differ in race, in gender, in socioeconomic status, in personality, in interests, in age, and also in belief. These are all my neighbor. And when disagreements arise in these types of conversations it is important to remember that we serve a holy and magnificent God and we are all still in need of His grace. Our human minds cannot comprehend the magnificence and complexity of His ways but it is important we keep seeking His face.