Suffering & Inner Peace

What do rejoicing and suffering have in common? Nothing, if you asked someone walking down the street. But the Bible says that the two actually do go together for the believer.

Romans 5:3 “… we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance….”

Suffering, by itself, is no good. But God is able take something bad and turn it into something good, positive and beneficial. Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

The Greek word for perseverance in Romans 5:3 literally means "to handle pressure." Suffering puts us under a tremendous amount of stress and the Bible says that being under stress of suffering teaches you to handle pressure.

You cannot be successful in any field unless you learn how to handle pressure. When we see an NBA star sink a three pointer at the buzzer to win the game for their team, they make it look so easy that we forget that most of us would crack under that kind of heat. You make the shot and you're a hero; miss it and you're an overpaid bum. How do they do it? For them, it's all in a day's work. They have been in that situation countless times, and they have learned from success and failure how to handle the pressure of a close game.

In the story of David and Goliath, at first glance David seems to be an inexperienced kid who appears out nowhere to slay the giant, but that was not really the case. David could handle the pressure of facing Goliath in battle because he had endured similar pressure fighting lions and bears who threatened his sheep (1 Samuel 17:34-35). Enduring those pressure-filled situations gave him the strength to face the pressure of fighting Goliath.

You can rejoice in suffering because, at the very least, your problems will help you develop inner-strength. And inner-strength is one of the virtues suffering produces in our lives. It is the inner-strength that suffering produces that enables us to handle the uncommon circumstances that life throws our way.

We’ll look at another benefit of suffering in the next post.

Suffering: Friend or Foe?

It is interesting how some words look and sound like their meaning. Take the word "Joy." It is a great word that is fun to say. When I say the word, it makes me feel a little better. Happiness is another of those kinds of words. Or take the words "beautiful" and "ugly." See what I mean? Or how about this word: suffering. It just doesn't produce those warm, tingly feelings on the inside, does it?

And regardless how you feel about that word it is a reality that we each must face from time to time. It may be physical pain and suffering or it may be suffering of a broken heart. It may be the suffering of a prolonged season of bad circumstances that drive you to the edge.

There are some who believe that if you commit your life to Jesus Christ that he promises to take away your suffering and your problems. It is the sentiment of him being some kind of Giant Fixer. But the reality is that suffering is a part of our human and Christian experience. Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33, NIV). In fact, the prophet Isaiah said of the coming Messiah, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering" (Isaiah 63:3, NIV).

Unfortunately, many within the Christian community have this idea that when you live for Christ he will reward you by making your life trouble-free.

This simply is not the case. In fact, scripture promises just the opposite. Consider these passages:

Philippians 1:29, NIV
For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him....

1 Peer 4:12, NIV
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.

Matthew 5:45, NIV
God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Everyone's life is filled with sunshine and rain. Sunshine isn't always evidence that God favors you--even the evil get some sunshine. Rain isn't evidence that God is punishing you--even the righteous have to face the rain. Suffering is a part of life that everyone must endure. However, when it comes to suffering, Christians have some advantages. The obvious one is that God will help you through hard times. A second advantage is that no matter what kind of problems you face, God has promised to use them for your benefit, and for his glory.

The Bible says, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28, NIV). So when you suffer, whether it is illness, mistreatment, job problems, relationship problems, money problems, or whatever it may be, it is crucial that you approach your suffering with the right attitude, so that you will ultimately benefit from the problems you face. What is the right attitude? The Bible says, "... but we also rejoice in our sufferings..." (Romans 5:3, NIV).

This is the attitude that we must have whenever we face hard times. An attitude of rejoicing. Now, don't misunderstand me. Our attitude doesn't have to be some kind of phony, Pollyanna way of thinking that says, "Hooray for me. I am suffering! I'm in pain and my life is coming apart at the seams. Aren't I lucky?" This is not what the Bible means. We don't rejoice because of our sufferings, or for our sufferings--we rejoice in spite of our sufferings. This would sound like crazy advice, except there are two factors that make rejoicing in suffering a reasonable idea: First, God will help you through the problems. Second, your problems themselves will help you too, and work to your advantage.

Think of it this way. Pretend that you are prisoner of war and you have an evil taskmaster who tries to make you weak and powerless by forcing you to carry a heavy boulder on your shoulders all day. Some of your fellow prisoners give in under the strain, and stop trying, and let the boulder crush them completely. But you keep carrying the weight. Soon you discover that carrying that boulder isn't making you weaker, it's making you stronger. Eventually you have the strength to cast the boulder aside and overpower your captor and earn your freedom.

This is exactly what your problems can do for you. You can give up and let your problems destroy you, or you can use them to become a stronger and better person. No one in their right mind would choose to suffer, but when it happens, we can rejoice in the fact that the suffering isn't going to beat us; we will eventually win the battle.

This is why we rejoice in suffering; because there are certain benefits that we can claim whenever we are faced with it.

In the next few posts, we're going to try and answer the question, "What good is suffering? There are three advantages to suffering that we'll look at and I hope you'll find them helpful. By the end I hope the "S" word won't look so ugly.

"Why Believe in a god?" Ad Campaign

I just saw a new AP story about a new add campaign from the American Humanist Association which is intended to cause people to question their believe in a deity. The group's spokesman Fred Edwords says, "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds." Well, at least they are honest. Here is the story in its entirety.

You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.

In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas.

You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday.

In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas.

"We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group. "Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

To that end, the ads and posters will include a link to a Web site that will seek to connect and organize like-minded thinkers in the D.C. area, Edwords said.

Edwords said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."

The group defines humanism as "a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism, affirms our responsibility to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity."

Last month, the British Humanist Association caused a ruckus announcing a similar campaign on London buses with the message: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

In Washington, the humanists' campaign comes as conservative Christian groups gear up their efforts to keep Christ in Christmas. In the past five years, groups such as the American Family Association and the Catholic League have criticized or threatened boycotts of retailers who use generic "holiday" greetings.

In mid-October, the American Family Association started selling buttons that say "It's OK to say Merry Christmas." The humanists' entry into the marketplace of ideas did not impress AFA president Tim Wildmon.

"It's a stupid ad," he said. "How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world."

Also on Tuesday, the Orlando, Fla.-based Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian legal group, launched its sixth annual "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign." Liberty Counsel has intervened in disputes over nativity scenes and government bans on Christmas decorations, among other things.

"It's the ultimate grinch to say there is no God at a time when millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Christ," said Mathew Staver, the group's chairman and dean of the Liberty University School of Law. "Certainly, they have the right to believe what they want but this is insulting."

Best-selling books by authors such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have fueled interest in "the new atheism" — a more in-your-face argument against God's existence.

Yet few Americans describe themselves as atheist or agnostic; a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll from earlier this year found 92 percent of Americans believe in God.

There was no debate at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority over whether to take the ad. Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said the agency accepts ads that aren't obscene or pornographic.

I have a few thoughts on this matter that I'll save for another post. In the meantime, I'm interested in your honest and respectful thoughts about this.

Merry Christmas!

My Thoughts on the Abortion Discussion

One of the issues I’ve been following in recent months is the discussion about abortion as it relates to our current political season. I have been surprised to learn that there is growing divergence of views among Christian people and leaders. There is growing emphasis among certain segments of the Christian community that has abandoned the traditional “pro-life” views and has adopted a “pro-reduced abortion” view. What I have been reading has motivated me to put my own thoughts out there. So for those who are interested, here they are.

As a pastor, I’ve talked with broken-hearted women who have had an abortion. One lady came and talked to me 25 years after the fact. Besides her doctor and her then husband, I was the only other person she had told. At the time of her abortion, she was in a difficult life situation and she made a choice she has regretted ever since. It is conversations like these that have made me have utmost compassion for women who have made similar decisions.

Unfortunately, the historically uncompassionate reaction to unwed pregnancy from the Christian community has fueled many young women to seek abortions so as not to be rejected or punished by their families, friends, and church. This is not to condone the actions that lead to unwed pregnancy; it is simply to say that those of us in the Christian community should respond with mercy and compassion and support for a young girl thrust into motherhood by poor choices.

When I was in high school a girl in my church became pregnant by her boyfriend. She decided to go away to a home for pregnant teenagers to avoid the embarrassment she thought she would receive. I was thankful that she changed her mind and stayed at home with her parents and remained an active part of our youth group. Because of her pregnancy she couldn’t get a date to prom. So I asked her to go with me. We had a lot of fun. I’m sure people “talked” about us going to prom together, but I really didn’t care. She was a friend. By the way, she had a beautiful baby boy and eventually married a pastor. She and her family now live in Indiana and we remain friends to this day.

With all of that said, I believe abortion should be ban with limited exceptions: one example is to save the life of the mother. I wish all Christians and pro-lifers could agree at least at this level. Unfortunately the current law and Court ruling on this is inclusive of the mother’s “health” and therefore is accepting of abortion on demand for basically any argued reason. Some in the “pro-reduced abortion” group have suggested that laws do not change hearts and that only Christ can change the heart. I suppose they are willing to give up on the overturn of Roe v Wade as a result. My question is: Since only Christ can change the heart does that mean we should strike all laws from our books and have a law-less society?

It seems to be trendy for those who support abortion to place a heavy emphasis upon “reducing the number of abortions.” If memory serves me correctly, it was Bill Clinton who, in the 90's, popularized this growing trend we see today. I simply don’t understand the logic behind the “fewer abortions” argument. If you really want fewer abortions, how is lifting ALL restrictions on abortion, as some elected officials want to do, going to reduce the number of abortions? How does the Freedom of Choice Act, which some elected officials would like to pass, reduce the number of abortions? How does letting the Hyde Amendment expire, as some elected officials would like to do, reduce the number of abortions (the Hyde Amendment has blocked nearly all federally funded abortions since 1976)? How would ending the federal funding of pregnancy crisis centers, as some elected officials would like to do, reduce the number of abortions? How can those who support Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton legitimately claim that their pro-abortion policies are going to drastically reduce the number of abortions? Seriously, how would a fiercely pro-abortion executive branch teamed with a pro-abortion congress drastically reduce the number of abortions? I'm concerned that under our fiercely pro-abortion executive branch we will see a push toward the federal funding of abortions and we will have judicial appointments that would ignore the right to life of the unborn. How do these realities drastically reduce the number of abortions?

If you want to really reduce the number of abortions, then you must do the things that actually restrict and limit abortions. Is it really in doubt that the single greatest thing to “limit the number of abortions” is to over-turn Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton? It is true that reversing these Court decisions is not the only thing that can and must be done to “reduce the number of abortions” but reversing these decisions would be the single most effective thing.

It should be noted that a president does not write the laws; that’s the job of congress. The only thing a president can do is to sign bills or veto them. The president can’t interpret laws or determine legal precedents; the judicial branch does that. Among the most important things a president can do to limit the number of abortions is appoint judges who value the right to life of the unborn. Sometimes I think people forget these realities and limitations of the presidency.

And let’s be honest about the so-called Litmus Test issue for judicial appointments. Every president has a litmus test for the appointment of judges; they just can't admit to it publicly. Pro-abortion people WANT their pro-abortion president having a pro-abortion litmus test for any potential judicial appointees. And pro-life people WANT the same kind of thing from a pro-life president.

Some have expressed concern that if we ban abortion as we know it now, that women would go to “back-alley clinics” and that the rate of botched abortions would severely increase the risk to the health and life of the woman. My question is: What about concern for the life of the unborn child? Are we saying we don’t mind taking the life of the unborn baby, but we wouldn’t dare want to harm the mother’s health or infringe on her “rights” as defined in Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton? That’s a difficult argument for me to understand.

Others make a comparison between a ban on abortion and the prohibition against alcohol. In my opinion, this is not a very good argument. That comparison is between the life of the unborn and a non-essential drinking beverage. Are they really the same? In my opinion, they're not even close.

It is true that our educational system in America is doing poorly. Some argue that the reason it is doing poorly is largely because of a lack of funding from the terrible Republicans. This is untrue. We spend more money on education than ANY nation on earth! And the charge that pro-life Republicans, as some make, really don’t care about children after they're born (i.e. really aren’t pro-life) because they supposedly “underfund” education and do not mandate health care is an equally untrue and, dare I say, unfair charge. Lack of money is not the problem in our educational system. Our broken education system, in my humble opinion, is a parenting and family issue. To date, no federal politician (Republican or Democrat) has been able to make significant headway with policies and educational funding alone. Could targeted educational funding significantly improve our educational system? No, not significantly. Significant improvements in our educational system won't occur until we effectively address the breakdown of the family unit. It sounds compassionate to want to give unlimited amounts of money to the educational system but to date it hasn’t produced the positive, educational results we all desire.

It is troubling to me that some national religious leaders are trying to redefine “pro-life” by saying that the REAL pro-life people are those that 1) say they believe there should be fewer abortions, 2) desire taxpayer funded, government mandated universal health care for underprivileged children, 3) are anti-war, 4) support virtually unlimited funding of our broken educational system, 5) are concerned about global poverty and disease. This effort from some national figures threatens to dilute the definition of pro-life to include these other things and will have the unwitting result of muzzling those defending the silent voices of the unborn.

To me, pro-life is about defending the right to life of the unborn. Practically speaking, pro-choice is about silencing the right to life of the unborn in deference to the will of the mother. As a pro-lifer, I cannot separate the right to life of a baby in the womb and the right to life of a birthed child. Just because a baby is unborn should not give the mother the choice to end the life of the child pre-birth. The right to life of the unborn should be protected just like every other person’s right to life. Life is equally sacred in and outside of the womb.

Just for the record, there are 42,000,000 abortions worldwide each year. Think about that staggering number. There are 1,370,000 abortions in the U.S. each year. What other cause of death among children comes close to that in America? Let’s have a healthy discussion about war, education, poverty, and disease (by the way, who is for more wars, bad education, increasing poverty and disease?). But equating those issues with the issue of abortion weakens the traditional pro-life stance and undermines their efforts. Remember, we’re actually talking about 1,370,000 unborn children in the U.S. who could live if we protected their lives. They are, without a doubt, the most innocent and defenseless among us and as such deserve laws that protect their right to life.

Let’s find solutions to our educational woes, but let’s not mix those issues with the right to life of the unborn. Let’s find ways to assist the health-care issue of underprivileged children, but let’s not mix those issues with the right to life of the unborn. Let’s pray for peace and work toward peace, but let’s not mix those issues with the obligation of government to fight (when necessary) just wars and the right to life of the unborn. Let’s come together to fight global poverty and disease, but let’s not mix those causes with the right to life of the unborn.

Every year, there are 1,370,000 unborn children in the U.S. who are depending on us to defend their right to life. Let’s not lump them in with every other noble cause. If we do their voices will be silenced forever.