July 23rd, 2012 by Kristi Stephens

The glory rains last week continued.

The rains poured down, sometimes in heavy sheets, and the thirsty ground greedily drank up all the sky threw down at us.

After the storms passed, I noticed a little survivor shivering on its own.

Drenched and stunned by the unfamiliar rains, the bird barely moved as I and my children crept close. As I drew back, I noticed other birds flying close to their troubled companion. The bird looked young to me – I wondered if its mother still guarded it from a distance. Still it sat, trembling and rooted in place.

Sometimes, like that little bird, the heavy storms catch us unaware. They leave us shaken, stunned, feeling battered and small.

The storms may come in the form of a fallen soldier. Or a job loss. Or a medical diagnosis. Or an unforeseen marriage crisis. Or a lone shooter in a dark theater. The storms devastate and we tremble, rooted in place, unsure of what to do next.

David often felt shaken and small. Disaster threatened to sweep him away as he huddled in a cave and King Saul hunted him like prey. Like that little bird he was devastated and trembling – and he learned to run to the only safe place he knew of.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,
for in you I take refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.

Psalm 57:1, NIV

I crept closer to the little bird by the fence, unsure of what help I could offer but not wanting to leave it so vulnerable outside my door. Suddenly it seemed to be awakened to its circumstances and looked at me nervously, jumping off the sticks and hopping through the grass to safety.

Friday night we watched the experts discuss how to go on in normal life when the places we feel most safe and secure are violent and violated. We were told that we should explain to our children that we live in a dangerous world – but most of the time we are safe. We must learn again to trust the world, the expert said.

Dangerous advice. We do live in a dangerous world – and that surely is not where I can put my trust.

I cannot answer that haunting question of why God allows events such as these. I believe it is foolish to try, for as Job vividly realized – God is God, and we are not. His ways are not our ways, His paths beyond our finding out. But I do know this: we can trust Him, we can find refuge in Him, we can rest in His justice and compassionate heart. We can plead for His mercy and intervention in the lives of victims and their families and, yes, even in the life of a masked gunman haunted by things only God fully understands.

We live in a dangerous world. But we serve a fierce and untameable God who invites us to take refuge in Him, to find rest in His sovereign control and comfort in His perfect justice.

If you are trembling in the aftermath of the storm, please know this: you are not alone, and a place of safety awaits you if only you run to Him. God is good and worthy of your trust – even though this world is not and His justice is not always apparent to us this side of heaven. He is the only safe place. He is the only refuge in the disasters and storms of life.

Psalm 73 is a striking description of the psalmist’s struggle to understand God’s justice. I have written a free downloadable guided study of this Psalm that you are invited and encouraged to use in your own quiet time this week – you can download or print it here.

It is my prayer that we can join the Psalmist in expressing our confusion and fear and trembling heart to the Sovereign One, taking refuge in Him alone.

July 9th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

This weekend my family will be having a funeral for my paternal grandfather.  He lived an incredible life and left a rich spiritual legacy.  I can only imagine how thrilling his time in heaven has been this past week – I wonder if he’s still meeting all the people who are there because of his influence!  We rejoice that he is free from a 93 year old cancer-wracked body and finally in the presence of the God he so faithfully served… but we grieve our loss.  He was a pillar in our family.

I’m sure many of you are either currently in a season of loss or have gone through loss that still pains your heart.  I thought I would repost this (from our “understanding pain and loss” series last fall) for us all to ponder.

Of all the things we face in our broken world, nothing haunts us like death. No doubt, funerals for children and friends in their prime are devastatingly difficult. But there is no good time for death. Solomon’s struggle with the issue of death is one we all can relate to.

In Ecclesiastes 1:1-11 Solomon starts out his book with the lament – vanity of vanities! All is vanity!

[Remember our definition of vanity: futility, frustration, limitation, and ultimately death which every person experiences as a result of living in a sin-cursed world.]

He then points out that generations of people come and go, but the earth remains forever. The sun keeps on rising, the wind keeps on blowing, the water keeps on flowing… and yet humanity dies and is forgotten.

There is something so awful about driving from a funeral home to a cemetery, watching regular traffic and business continuing around you. Don’t they know what happened? Why is life just carrying on? If it’s raining at the cemetery it is miserable, but somehow if it’s sunny and beautiful that doesn’t feel right, either.

There is a reason that doesn’t feel right to us: the physical creation around us is temporal – it was not intended to last forever. However, humanity was created immortal! We were supposed to outlive this earth, not the other way around! Solomon’s observation of the sun and wind and water cycle continuing on through their existence while mankind lives and dies and is forgotten is a tough one to swallow.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. And the thing is, there’s nothing we can do to change it!

In Ecclesiastes 2:12-23, Solomon points out that both the wise man and the fool will meet the same earthly fate – death awaits them both. The wise man might show much greater fruit of his labors and wise living, but he must leave it behind to someone else who might very well be foolish.

Cheery line of thinking, isn’t it?

There’s no getting around it: death is awful. Awful, awful, awful.

Consider the story of Lazarus dying and being raised from the dead by Jesus. This account in John 11 is moving to me, because it gives us a small glimpse of God’s feelings about our sufferings with the reality of death.

In verse 4 we see that Jesus purposely waited long enough for Lazarus to die before going to him. He knew that He would go and raise Him from the dead. The text carefully points out that Lazarus’ sister was Mary, the one who anointed his feet and wiped them with her hair. We are told specifically in verse 5, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” But He let him die.

Once Jesus was approaching their village, Mary meets Him on the way and falls at His feet weeping. She says, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” The next verse is so moving to me – “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” (33) Then we are told succinctly in verse 35 that “Jesus wept.”

Let that sink in. Jesus knew that Lazarus would be alive again in just a few minutes. Why was He weeping? He was troubled when He saw Mary and others who loved Lazarus mourning.

Death is the most haunting part of the curse – it feels unnatural because it is. The fact that Jesus weeps with His friends in this passage is so profound. He knows the end of the story – that not only will Lazarus be resurrected at the second coming, but that he would be alive and reunited with his family within the hour. And yet He wept. Separation and loss through death is horrible, and Jesus knows – He weeps with us.

This story is also the location of a familiar couple of verses – “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26) Jesus’ resurrection changed everything – He was the firstborn from the dead, the promise of our resurrection yet to come. (Colossians 1:18)

As Barbara Mouser states so well, God is redeeming His creation in the order in which it fell. When we rebelled, we died spiritually. The curse and all of its yuckiness reflects that spiritual death and decay in the physical realm. God has redeemed us spiritually, and one day, He will redeem His physical creation, as well. Right now we are caught in the middle.

So, even while we mourn death and disease in this life, it is a different kind of mourning from those who have no hope. Our separation, our loss, our struggle with death is temporary. One day, all will be made new. One day, death will be a distant memory. One day, there will no longer be any curse. (Revelation 21:3-5, 22:3)

We as believers in Jesus have tremendous hope. But death still hurts. It looms around us and steals away those we love. Even while we celebrate the hope that is in us, we must guard against calloused and pat answers which gloss over the real pain we all face.

Even Jesus weeps with us.

All the “understanding pain and loss” posts are indexed here.

Image from http://www.freefoto.com

February 26th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Earlier in this series I posed the question, “is it wrong to serve God because it benefits us?”

We looked at retribution theology‘s conclusion that righteousness should always be rewarded with prosperity.  While living wisely and righteously definitely avoids a wide swath of self-inflicted pain and suffering, it begs the question:

February 24th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

On Monday in Cross-Examining the Witness, we started to look at God’s amazing series of rhetorical questions to Job.

I ended that post with this question: Notice that after this challenge from the Lord in chapter 40, Job seems to give a humble answer.  Why does God start the questioning over again?  What is missing in Job’s statement in 40:4-5?

So today, let’s take a look.

The LORD said to Job:

“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!”

Then Job answered the LORD :

“I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?
I put my hand over my mouth.

I spoke once, but I have no answer—
twice, but I will say no more.”

Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:

“Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

Job 40:1-5

A few observations:

“Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

Job 40:8

Who has a claim against me that I must pay?

Everything under heaven belongs to me.

Job 41:11

“I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.

You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.

“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’

My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

All the posts in this series are indexed here.