I may write some posts on how not to deal with those who are suffering. This could be the first of a few or just by itself. I must warn you that this is a rant.

When praying for those who are suffering, or anyone for that matter, there are often things they ask for prayer for, but there are also other things we may pray for that are the ‘hidden things’ that we pray but don’t necessarily mention. These things are ideally things that God has given you insight into or that you’ve just noticed about them. You pray for them but don’t necessarily tell them that you are, especially if they are weaknesses they may have, or you just want to let the Holy Spirit work and see what happens.

Then there are things where someone says, “I’m praying for you for your difficulty and also that you will…” This is no longer prayer. It’s a suggestion. You’re telling the person what you think they should be doing, or what would make you feel good so you’re “suggesting” that they do it also because of course it would make them feel better too. These usually aren’t spiritual things, so they may or may not be God’s will. And now you won’t know if the person does these things because you suggested them or because God is strengthening them to be able to do them, if they even want to.

As an example, you may say, “I’m praying that you’ll get out and get more sun (because vitamin D will heal you), that you’ll see your friend more and that you’ll play that sport you used to play.” Well, maybe they’re taking medication that makes them extremely sensitive to the sun (which is actually the case with me), maybe that friend isn’t a friend anymore or isn’t good for them to be in contact with. You may think they should be more social, but sometimes God wants a period of time where He just wants us for Himself. Who knows. They may not have the energy to play that sport anymore or they may not be able to play it well enough for it to be enjoyable any longer.

Often when people are suffering, people feel they have the right to tell them what they think they should be doing. All the while this person is probably doing other activities they enjoy that require less energy or that they’re better able to handle and they may be actually growing a lot more spiritually because of their suffering than the person giving them the “advice”. I don’t know if there is a name for this phenomenon, but it happens all the time. Ask anyone who suffers chronically.

If I may make a suggestion: pray for things they’ve asked for prayer for. If you receive insight from God or from your own senses, use it privately and carefully, not to judge but to lovingly intercede for them. (There is a great quote by Oswald Chambers on this that I can’t find.) Pray for things that are definitely God’s will. You will find them in the Bible. And realize that they aren’t you and you aren’t them and conventional “wisdom” isn’t always the way to go. They don’t enjoy suffering and are doing more than you think to get out of it or to cope. And at some point when your turn comes up, you may actually be asking them for advice on how to grow spiritually or cope with suffering.

The two things people need the most are listening and prayer.

I hope that wasn’t too curmudgeony and I hope it helps someone see things from a different perspective. And those who are suffering need to “make allowance for each others’ faults and forgive anyone who offends them. Remember, the Lord forgave you so you must forgive others.” (Colossians 3:13) We need to use this as an opportunity to grow all the more.

I would rather be in this chair knowing him, than on my feet without him. And that’s the truth, I have no regrets, absolutely none… everything else, everything worldly pales in comparison.

–Joni Eareckson Tada, No Regrets, Joni and Friends

Philippians 3:8-11 NLT
Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

I have this passage memorized, and whenever I review it, which comes along at least once a week, I think about what I used to be able to do and enjoy that I can’t anymore because of depression, chronic fatigue and back pain. But in all of this God has intensified my zeal for knowing Him and has greatly sped up sanctification (being made holy and maturing as a Christian) by leaps and bounds, still with infinite room for improvement. This has given me joy along with helping me to cope. If I were to be asked it if it’s all worth it, I suppose it would depend on what kind of day I’m having. At its worst, when I just want to die, I’m not so sure. I’d still be a Christian otherwise. Unlike Paul, I haven’t come from a different religion where I went through a lot of training and now find it worthless. But what I’ve gained is truly incredible and obviously God working, because spiritually He’s taken me the exact opposite way I’ve gone in almost every other way. This assures me of salvation and shows that God is doing His will and I need to stay with it. We need to persevere (Hebrews 10:36) but it’s God who keeps us (Psalm 55:22, 1 Corinthians 1:8).

I’ve been frustrated with quite a few things this past week but they haven’t really gotten me down. Then today the deeper depression switch got flipped on (Bipolar) and everything felt much worse, with a sinking stomach, dark feeling and thinking things like, “I’m frustrated with everything.”

I happen to be reading the little book Christians Get Depressed Too, which is better than I thought it would be. I’ve been at this a long time and have been working on my thinking for many years, although physical type stuff is always there (yes, always) too. ”I’m frustrated with everything” shows me that I’m engaging in false extremes as the book puts it. I think I call it all or nothing thinking but that might not be the best term.

So how do I work this out Biblically? Obviously I’m not frustrated with everything in the whole world but more importantly, not nearly everything in my life. I’m not frustrated with my wife or cats or a whole bunch of other things. So I’m magnifying my frustration. I can think about 2 Cor 4:17 to put it into perspective.

2 Corinthians 4:16b-18 GW
Though outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are renewed day by day. 17 Our suffering is light and temporary and is producing for us an eternal glory that is greater than anything we can imagine. 18 We don’t look for things that can be seen but for things that can’t be seen. Things that can be seen are only temporary. But things that can’t be seen last forever.

(By the way, this is one of the many great things about Scripture memory.)

The frustration won’t last forever, it’s not that bad in these cases and I need to see things from a godly spiritual perspective and take refuge in Him. I need to think more about the things that will last forever and less about the temporal (Col 3:1-3). Easier said than done.

For now, the sinking, dark feeling is still there but the switch will get flipped again and the depression will be more moderate as it usually is. (For me it’s chronic.) The improvement in thinking will help the mental aspect of it hopefully and help me to persevere (James 1:2-4) for when the bigger things come along, which they will.

Comments welcome.

Until today I hadn’t seen this book. It looks very good. The description at Amazon makes me want to read it.
To Those Who Suffer: Understanding God’s Purpose and Pathway Through Pain by Sean Nolan

There is a sample chapter and interview with the author at Living For God (Warning: sound will play on that page).

Quite a statement. And strangely enough, it comes from Joni Eareckson Tada (MP3 and transcript), who is still a quadriplegic, and isn’t talking about her future. What is she talking about?

How about Jesus in Matthew 13:15: “For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes–so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.’”

Joni Eareckson Tada is talking about heart and soul. About receiving God’s joy, happiness and contentment.

Jesus is talking about spiritual healing–giving us eternal life, which is knowing God and Jesus Christ (John 17:3), and being at peace with God by His forgiveness through believing in His death and resurrection, even though we’re sinners and deserve His wrath, much less being in His presence.

Certainly God heals physically all the time. When on earth Jesus healed physically nearly everywhere He went. These were called signs and wonders to point us to His authority to forgive our sins and heal us spiritually, forever.

Many have the priorities backwards. How much more important it is for Joni Eareckson Tada to be healed spiritually, as great as it would be for her to be healed physically, whether miraculously from God or miraculously through medical science. Hopefully it will happen.

Because of living with mental health difficulties, chronic fatigue and chronic pain, I can especially understand how my mind and body are “wasting away” at an accelerated rate but I’m “being renewed day by day”, as we all are. (2 Corinthians 4:16 TNIV)

I pray for physical and ‘mental’ healing, but spend so much more time praying for all of the ways I can be healed spiritually. That’s something that could be spent all day, every day on. This is something God is doing at, I know, a much more accelerated rate than if I didn’t suffer from these things. I’m not yet ready to call it a gift, as I’ve read some older and mature suffering Christians do, but I can call it an opportunity. I pray that someday I will be mature enough and that God’s joy will outweigh the suffering so much that I can call it a gift. When it’s at its worst, it’s difficult to think of it positively at all, although I thank God for what He’ll do through it (Romans 8:28-29; James 1:2-8).

Those who concentrate on and promise physical healing, possibly thwarting God’s will, especially if you give them money, should be mocked, discredited and excommunicated. They are deluded and have no business preaching and teaching because they don’t know the first things about what Jesus is about. They should be sent to an island with only the Bible, for their own good, and not let out. It’s what people desperately want, understandably, but these heretics don’t show them the value of spiritual healing. And people in their denominations or circles don’t speak out against them enough. Giving “seed money” to be healed or having to speak in tongues in order to be saved isn’t seen as a bad thing in some of these circles either.

Real life is spiritual. Let’s keep our eyes on it and want it more than anything.

Colossians 3:1-3 ESV
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  2  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  3  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

1 Timothy 6:17-19 ISV
Tell those who are rich in this age not to be arrogant and not to place their confidence in anything as uncertain as riches. Instead, let them place their confidence in God, who lavishly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good actions, to be generous, and to share. 19 By doing this they store up a treasure for themselves that is a good foundation for the future, so that they can keep their hold on the life that is real.

When someone has cancer or other chronic ailments, there are often people who care deeply about them and don’t shy away from asking the person with that condition how they are doing and wanting to hear details so they can pray and be updated on their condition. This is a great thing. But many times the discussion can get stuck on the physical (or mental) illness and spiritual matters are pushed to the side. This can be a little frustrating if the condition is not changing and might be something that won’t change. (Can you imagine if a blind person constantly gets asked if they can see yet? Not that it can’t happen.) Sometimes it’s the spiritual aspect that the person would like to talk about, or what God is using the illness for. Here is a quote by David Powlison from the book Don’t Waste Your Cancer by him and John Piper that I read in the book If God Is Good by Randy Alcorn.

People will often express their care and concern by inquiring about your health. That’s good, but the conversation easily gets stuck there. So tell them openly about your sickness, seeking their prayers and counsel, but then change the direction of the conversation by telling them what your God is doing to faithfully sustain you with 10,000 mercies. Robert Murray McCheyne wisely said, ‘For every one look at your sins, take ten looks at Christ.’ He was countering our tendency to reverse that 10:1 ratio by brooding over our failings and forgetting the Lord of mercy. What McCheyne says about our sins we can also apply to our sufferings. For every one sentence you say to others about your cancer, say ten sentences about your God, and your hope, and what he is teaching you, and the small blessings of each day.

If I could only always remember this, not to mention doctors and well-meaning friends.

Evening Devotion
Sunday, August 14, 2011

“I know their sorrows.” (Exodus 3:7 KJV)
The child is cheered as he sings, “This my father knows”; and shall not we be comforted as we discern that our dear Friend and tender soul-husband knows all about us?

1. He is the Physician, and if he knows all, there is no need that the patient should know. Hush, thou silly, fluttering heart, prying, peeping, and suspecting! What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter, and meanwhile Jesus, the beloved Physician, knows thy soul in adversities. Why need the patient analyze all the medicine, or estimate all the symptoms? This is the Physician’s work, not mine; it is my business to trust, and his to prescribe. If he shall write his prescription in uncouth characters which I cannot read, I will not be uneasy on that account, but rely upon his unfailing skill to make all plain in the result, however mysterious in the working.

2. He is the Master, and his knowledge is to serve us instead of our own; we are to obey, not to judge: “The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth.” Shall the architect explain his plans to every hodman on the works? If he knows his own intent, is it not enough? The vessel on the wheel cannot guess to what pattern it shall be conformed, but if the potter understands his art, what matters the ignorance of the clay? My Lord must not be cross questioned any more by one so ignorant as I am.

3. He is the Head. All understanding centres there. What judgment has the arm? What comprehension has the foot? All the power to know lies in the head. Why should the member have a brain of its own when the head fulfils for it every intellectual office? Here, then, must the believer rest his comfort in sickness, not that he himself can see the end, but that Jesus knows all. Sweet Lord, be thou for ever eye, and soul, and head for us, and let us be content to know only what thou choosest to reveal.

Below is a fantastic quote from the free chapter of Joni Eareckson Tada’s book, A Place of Healing. I have three of my own comments inserted in there between brackets [] and in italic where there are similarities.

I wish everyone who was determined to get someone healed or think it’s their loved one’s right to be healed because they’re a ‘good’ Christian would read this. I’ve been very blessed in that I haven’t been in a position where people have told me I don’t have enough faith or say that I must be doing something wrong or not claiming God’s promises. My blogging friends have also been great. But I do get the feeling that many people think it’s just wrong for people to suffer chronically, especially with more than one condition as I do (and she is now also dealing with cancer in addition to paralysis, fatigue and chronic pain), and if they just pray long enough and hard enough, or give the right advice, that amazing healing and happiness and success is just around the corner.

We believe that God can use healing and/or suffering to glorify himself and change us into his image. In addition to praying for outright healing, which we know God will do for his people in his own timing, in this life or at the end, please don’t do people a disservice by not praying for spiritual growth of all kinds. We can find this in prayers in the Bible and know that this is God’s will for everyone. Sticking with them over time is much more difficult and rewarding than praying for them once, finding them not healed and just end up disappointed. Pray for coping, provision and endurance. Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in their spiritual growth by leaving this out.

Continuing to mature through trials gives us hope as God changes our character. (Romans 5:3-4)

It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and services were over. I was wheeling across the church parking lot toward my van when a handsome young man, who introduced himself as David, stopped me.

“Are you Joni?” he asked.

I smiled, nodding yes.

“Oh great!” David exclaimed. “I’m a visitor here, and I was hoping I would run into you today. I’ve really been praying for you.”

My eyes got wide. “Really? What about?”

“Your healing. I’ve been praying for you to get out of your wheelchair.”

At that point, my spirit hesitated. David was a visitor. He came to church hoping to see me, and he wanted to see me healed. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met over the years who’ve done the same thing. In churches, on street corners, in convention centers, and in busy shopping malls. Some of those encounters have been a little overwhelming-almost frightening.

But not on this day, with this young man.

Still, I had to fight off eerie feelings. Several times, years ago, a group of men showed up at our farmhouse door in Maryland, all having been led there by the Holy Spirit to either heal me … or marry me! So perhaps you can understand my reticence.

“Well, I never refuse a prayer for healing,” I assured David. [I sincerely say the exact same thing.]

This guy wasted no time in getting down to business, launching into what sounded like a prepared speech. “Have you ever considered that it might be sin standing in the way of your healing? That you’ve disobeyed in some way?” Before I could answer, David flipped open his Bible-both of us still in the middle of the parking lot and read from the gospel of Luke, “Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus” (Luke 5:18-19).

He closed his Bible and reminded me that the paralyzed man in the story was healed. And I could be, too, if only I would but confess my sins and have faith to believe. He added, “Joni, there must be some sin in your life that you haven’t dealt with yet.”

I told him that my conscience was clean before the Lord (he looked a little skeptical about that) and reiterated that I always welcome prayers for healing. I thanked him for his concern but told him I didn’t think this was a matter of faith.

For David, that just didn’t add up. According to what he had been taught, if I was a Christian, and if there was no known sin in my life, and if I had faith that God could heal, well, then … I would be healed. Didn’t God want everyone healed? Didn’t Jesus want everyone well? Of course He did! It was so obvious!

“Joni, you must have a lack of faith. I mean, look at you. You’re still in your wheelchair!”

I thought for a moment about the biblical account he had just read me and asked him to open up his Bible again to that same passage, Luke 5. “Okay,” I said, “you’re right about one thing, David. Right after they lowered the paralyzed man through the roof and to the floor in front of Jesus, he was healed. But look at verse 20. It says that when Jesus saw the faith of those four friends, the man was made well.”

“So?”

“Don’t you see? He didn’t require anything at all of the disabled man. What He was looking for was faith in those men who had lowered him through the roof. God doesn’t require my faith for healing. But He could require yours. The pressure’s off me, David. If God has it in His plan to lift me out of this wheelchair, He could use your faith! So keep believing, friend; the pressure’s on you!” [I also rely on others to have faith for me.]

David didn’t like that point of view. Again, it wasn’t according to his script. It wasn’t what he had been taught. According to all his teachers, if a person wasn’t healed, it had to be a problem with him, with his faith.

Faith, however, is not the focus.

The focus is always on Jesus Christ and His will for those who suffer. [God has been teaching me this more and more which is very difficult to explain to some people.] To possess great faith is to believe in a great Savior, and Scripture welcomes the faith of anyone who believes in Jesus’ will to heal. In the days to come, that “anyone” could well be David.

COUNSELING ONE ANOTHER

In the Books and Stuff – Ebook section he mentions a Kindle book titled Working Through Depression that costs .99 cents. Edit: This is only an introduction and may not be worth reading. I can’t find out how to get the whole book.

I think that one of the more difficult thoughts that we have to overcome is that as Christians we can fall for the often told, or implied, lie that as Christians suffering will no longer be a part of our lives. And if it is, it is because of some moral failure, some lesson that we have to learn, or that it is something that just happens and God is somehow going to make things all right. I think that when we frame suffering in this way we are left with a deficient theology of suffering and in many ways we undermine God’s character. Not only that, but all are terrible alternatives to a Christian’s response to or understanding of suffering. I think that they are shallow, hurtful and inconsistent with the what the bible says. What makes matters more amazing is that we have not investigated deeply enough what God, Jesus, and the writers of the Old and New Testament have to teach us about suffering.

–Victor Scott, Why Not Me?: Rethinking How and Why We Suffer | Part 3, also see Part 1 and Part 2

There are a lot of quotable quotes on these and I think it’s a valuable read.

The Gift of Suffering – I confess I haven’t listened to this yet but I wanted to pass it along.

These would have gone on the old Suffering Christians blog, which merged with this one.

Trials, we must distinctly understand, are a part of the diet which all true Christians must expect. It is one of the means by which their grace is proved, and by which they find out what there is in themselves. Winter as well as summer–cold as well as heat–clouds as well as sunshine–are all necessary to bring the fruit of the Spirit to ripeness and maturity. We do not naturally like this. We would rather cross the lake with calm weather and favorable winds, with Christ always by our side, and the sun shining down on our faces. But it may not be. It is not in this way that God’s children are made “partakers of His holiness.” (Heb. 12:10). Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Job were all men of many trials. Let us be content to walk in their footsteps, and to drink of their cup. In our darkest hours we may seem to be left–but we are never really alone.

–J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John, volume 1, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987], 338,339. {John 6:15-21}

Taken from: J.C. RYLE QUOTES

If you don’t like The Message Bible translation, please ignore. Which would also mean no need to comment. Every once in a while I find an interesting one.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 The Message
3 All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel!4 He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.5 We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort-we get a full measure of that, too.

This is taken from Reformissionary:

John Piper’s verbal biographies are wonderful. I’m listening again to his bio of Spurgeon and just had to throw up a few quotes. They are rocking me today in the midst of all the stuff our family is going through. Here’s the Piper audio, and the manuscript [1995].

It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.

Another…

I dare say the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness … If some men, that I know of could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God’s grace mellow them marvelously.

I haven’t been writing much and wanted to at least pass on a couple of new (to me) blogs.

Forward Progress

I like the post on Should You Make Your Kids Go to Church? (Sorry I can’t remember where I got this from.) Not because I have kids but because it makes me think about why we should do things. Many people talk about feeling led (notice the word feeling–it’s such a common term we often don’t even notice that) to do something* or doing things with the ‘right motivation’. I think it’s important to do things firstly out of obedience to God. Hopefully this would stem from love for God, which would be right motivation, but lack of (right) motivation shouldn’t keep us from anything. I’ve done plenty of good deeds I didn’t feel led to do and didn’t have the right motivation. But it met someone’s need and is almost certainly something God predestined me to do. That may sound like a Calvinist joke, but see Ephesians 2:10.

I won’t write more on that now because I want to get back to reading If God Is Good where I found the next blog.

Life Together

In the book, Randy Alcorn mentions a post titled Justin, Dustin, and God’s Lessons in Suffering.

*People often say at the end of a meeting to pray if you feel led. What if I don’t feel led but planned on it beforehand? What does it feel like to feel led? What if somebody is really nervous and can’t feel anything? What if I feel led but don’t have a single thing to say? O, these feelings.

1 Peter 4:19 NRSV
Therefore, let those suffering in accordance with God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator, while continuing to do good.

Do you ever even consider the possibility, that maybe, the Creator’s sense of justice is actually more developed than yours?

-Francis Chan, in a sobering video, for us all, related to his forthcoming book, Erasing Hell

This is just a small quote I wrote down that I liked, but it’s well worth watching the whole nine minutes for so many reasons.

The Cross: the pinnacle of God’s wrath and grace occurring all at once.

–Chad Williams on Twitter

10 Things Submission Is Not
HT: Bryan Lilly on Twitter

Making the Bible Sound Like the Bible

Holding Onto Hope an interview with David and Nancy Guthrie

Starting the Day Off Right – Devotional principles passed down from father to daughter

New (to me) Blog:
Underdog Theology

Job 42:10-11 NRSV
And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him;

The last part being the unpopular part. Although it was Satan that caused it, without God giving him permission it wouldn’t have happened.

Lamentations 3:37-38 NRSV
Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?

• on the problem of platitudes
• Matt Chandler: Suffering
• Don’t Stop Believing – If you are interested, Michael Wittmer will be writing about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins and his own book Christ Alone on his blog
• Christianity Explored – “I found this new site very hard to leave. It’s meant to help unbelievers.”–John Piper
• A Portrait Of Jesus With Photography and Pastels – Of course this isn’t Jesus, but it’s interesting, especially for those who know their way around software for photography
• Robert’s Greek Grammar – Edited and Republished by Donald L. Potter

• Luther and Suffering | Commentary on Romans 5:4
• Resisting Consumeristic Temptations
• Why the Debate between Formal Equivalence and Functional Equivalence is Deceptive
• Uncle… Uncle! – see the last part of the post–the lists