When I Am Weak, Part 3

Final reflections on a season of unexpected sickness

This turned into a 4-part miniseries: part 1, part 2, part 3, and a coda.

Clearing the altar of the future

These challenges have confronted Allison and me with questions about the future that we’ve never had to ask. How much will my body and voice recover, and how long will that take? What normal husband things and dad things am I still going to be able to do? Will I ever finish a bowl of oatmeal in under 30 minutes again?!

But while there are valid questions, on the whole I’m trying to avoid them. And the reason why is best summarized by this passage from The Screwtape Letters, which is one of my all-time favorite books.

Before you read the quote, important! The Screwtape Letters is written from the (imagined, obviously) perspective of demons. It’s a senior demon advising a junior one on how to tempt his “patient” toward hell in modern England. So “The Enemy” is God and “we” are the demons. Just to avoid confusion ;)

[The Enemy] would have [humans] continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

…

It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities.

We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

The (earthly) future is uncertain to us. (Remember the My Plans / 2020 memes?) As far as we’re concerned, it’s literally un-real. I can make informed guesses to the questions above, but I cannot know the answers. And obsessing over them, whether in worry over bad things that might come or in wishful thinking over good things, means “living” in a world that isn’t real. It’s heaping time and mental energy on an altar to nothing. And if I really give myself to wishing or worry about the future, it will turn me either bitter about my real life now (because I don’t have my wishes), or just blind to real life because I’m worrying about imaginary fears.

Clearing the altar of the future doesn’t mean despair. It means living in the two “times” that are actually accessible to me: eternity and the present. Rather than wishing or worrying, I’m trying to live in the present – “obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.” I still have a soul to steward before God’s face. I still have kids to love, feed, and teach. I’m still a husband, dad, and pastor. I have a life filled with blessings. Allison and I celebrated our twelfth anniversary this weekend, and we had a wonderful time just enjoying breakfast, great coffee, and a bookstore together (my parents gave us the gift of keeping our kids overnight ;) ). I’d be missing all those things if my heart was set on future worries or wishes.

What of “eternity (which means being concerned with Him)?” Where is God when I am weak?

I’ve already talked about experiencing God’s grace through the love of others, which is an absolutely vital comfort. We’ve heard Jesus’s voice and felt his hands in the words and support we’ve received.

I’m finding three other concepts helpful for reflecting on God in this time. I didn’t mean to alliterate them, but I grew up Baptist and sometimes I can’t help it.

Providence: God’s fatherly hand

I actually just remembered these when writing my the last meditation piece, but they’re from the Heidelberg Catechism:

Q 27. What do you understand by the providence of God?

A. God's providence is His almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand.

Q 28. What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by His providence?

A. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love; for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without His will they cannot so much as move. [emphasis added]

God’s original design for the world has been marred by sin, chaos, and death. Providence doesn’t mean all things are good (the authors of the Bible lament!). But providence does mean that mysteriously, God is in control even over the chaos, and when we become his children, both the beautiful things and the chaotic ones come from his fatherly hand. Jesus modeled this for us by becoming a patient, obedient, suffering earthly Son when he was already a perfectly happy heavenly one, and somehow, mysteriously, the perfect son was made more perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10). I’m trying to let the doctrine of providence teach me patience.

There’s an amazing hymn about God’s providence called “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” and my friend Matt’s version is my favorite musically (his art choice is unforgivable though, don’t hold it against him).

Presence: God with us

Five or six weeks ago, we were in the thick of this and as yet had no prospects of seeing a specialist to really help us medically. In worship, we sang “Jesus Paid It All,” which opens with these lines:

I hear the Savior say, “Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray; find in Me thine all in all.”

I spent the rest of the service overcome, tears streaming down my cheeks (which Allison can attest is an extreme rarity – emotionally disconnected Stoic, remember?). But I wasn’t overwhelmed with grief or fear; I was overwhelmed by a sense of God’s presence and God’s goodness. He didn’t heal me; but I felt him with me.

God’s providence is a comforting truth, but it’s all “above us” – God exercises his providence from his throne. But that’s not the only comforting truth in Christianity: simultaneously, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, God is present with us in hardship too.

Paul writes these amazing words to the Romans:

Likewise the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

Paradoxically, this hard providence has led to some of the deepest experiences of God’s presence in my life. Not all of them have been joyful like that worship time. Sometimes we experience “the glory of the groan” (an excellent sermon you should listen to). But knowing God is present in hardship is so comforting.

Promise: The end of the story

Suffering is sometimes treated as a philosophical problem: if this world is governed by a good and powerful God, how can there be suffering?

But Christianity reframes the question. We’re not in a problem with no obvious solution; we’re in a story (or a war) that hasn’t ended yet.

Here’s how the story ends:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:1-5)

God has promised that he’s going to call the end of “earthly time” – this uncertain future – like the end of a football game. He’s going to re-create the world without the corruptions of suffering and evil. He’s going to re-unite heaven and earth. And he is going to re-create everyone who has trusted him in this present life without corruption as well and be re-united with them for eternity on this restored heaven/earth.

This is always our true home, and it should always set our true goals – not heaping the altar of the future, but preparing ourselves for this promise. I’m on the shallow end of the pool of suffering, and have reasonable expectation that I’ll get better over the next months. But even if not, I’m trying to use this as an occasion to remember my true hope, and to live more faithfully in the present with that home in mind.

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)