Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

18 September, 2007   comments: (0) Resource Spotlight   "Why Me God?" (The Problem With Pleasure) We've all had our fill of megachurch power-pastors posting on their blogs about the 'cold' or muscle cramps that they just got over. I made up my mind early-on that I would not waste my blog space on "personal news" like that. I'm not hiding anything; I always try to communicate through email with people who want to know more about me, but I hate using blog posts for that. In this one however, I'll break from that tradition, and I'll also introduce you to somebody who has carried a greater burden than most of us can imagine (no it's not the guy in the picture). If you struggle with a "Why Me?" attitude when things go wrong, this post is a must read. Some of you know that I have a genetic condition that causes my bones to break rather easily. In fact I've been hobbled this whole summer with quite a nasty spinal fracture that hasn't been healing as it should. I'm currently fighting off doctors who want to drill a hole in my spine and inject bone cement in there. Through the years, I've found myself having lunch with acquaintances who make the mistake of changing topics to "war stories" of injuries and surgeries that everyone has had, almost as though it were a competition of some sort. I just grin and say, "guys, you CAN'T win this one" :-) In fact, according to this list - I even have the great two-wheeled wonder beat by a large margin (though I think that fracture count is way low for him). Coming out of a denomination in which "divine healing" was emphasized and even expected, I remember going up to quite a few Altar Calls for healing. I recall standing in line at one of them, with a bunch of fractures, waiting for a "healing specialist" to pray for me. He was supposed to have a special gift of healing, and when I wasn't healed through his prayer, he seemed genuinely surprised. After some more prayer, he told me that God spoke to him and told him that my healing was something that was being held back by me, and when I would finally realize how much God loves me, then the healing would come. A major problem for me in those days, was that I had some really horrible theology. I actually thought in the back of my mind that God owed it to me, not only to save me, but also to heal me. It wasn't until years later, when I read this booklet by John Gerstner called The Problem of Pleasure that I started to think more scripturally. It turns out, I was asking the wrong question when I would think "Why did this bad thing happen to me?", when the question that I should have been asking was about all of the other good and pleasurable times. In other words, "Why would anything good happen to me?" is the right question to ask. That's a shocking thing to hear if you are coming from a church that teaches man-centered Christianity; you might fight against what I just said, but that's one of the reasons why we have a comment section below, so that we can reason together from the scriptures, much as the Apostles did in the book of Acts. When you understand what the late Professor Gerstner is saying in that booklet, and as God gives you grace to sustain you in hardship, you will be thankful towards God even in the midst of incredible suffering. Your attitude won't sound like the "Why me?" that went through my mind, but instead it will sound more like this man, who I especially want to introduce you to today. His name is Johnny Farese, and his God-glorifying attitude is a true gift of God: That's a clip from CrossTV's video series on The Sovereignty of God, which was instrumental in helping me come to a more biblical understanding of suffering, and even more importantly - a better understanding of salvation. When the pain starts to get overwhelming I often think of not only what the martyrs went through, but also one of Jonathan Edwards' resolutions, in which he resolves when he's in pain to think of what it must be like to suffer through the agony of eternity without Christ. But with our earthly sufferings, let us look past today's chipper churches and their Wonderful Plan gospel, and look instead to the God who sustains us through both the good times as well as the bad times. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.779   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism