Life's Inanities and Ironies

Before I begin today I want to wish my son Joshua a very happy 30th birthday.  Love you Joshua    "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye." — Psalm 32:8 Beloved brother or sister in Christ, the first truth we must settle is this: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has not gone silent. He has not retired from the care of His flock. He has not left His redeemed children to wander by chance, by personality type, or by the latest method for “finding your purpose.” The same Lord who led Israel by a pillar of cloud and fire still directs those who belong to His Son. Fundamental Christianity rests upon the character of God before it ever rests upon a technique. He is sovereign. He is personal. He is faithful. Because He is sovereign, nothing in your path is accidental, and no enemy of your soul is unsupervised. Because He is personal, He deals with you as a Father, not as a distant force. Because He is faithful, His ...

  Healing is not forgetting. Meaning is not a tidy moral. Ministry is not a demand that you be grateful for the wound. “…a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.” — Isaiah 61:3 Jesus reads this passage in Nazareth and applies it to Himself. The Messiah’s work includes binding up the brokenhearted. The exchange does not insult the ashes. It grows a future out of them without pretending they were never ashes. What healing is—and is not . Healing is not the day you stop missing them. That day may never come. Healing is more like this: the loss becomes a room in the house rather than the whole house. You can enter the room. You can also leave it and cook dinner. A better Christian phrase than “moving on” is “moving with.” The gospel is a religion of remembrance. Christians should be the last people to treat memory as a problem to solve. Providence without cruelty . Romans 8:28 is true. The “good” i...

  Hope is not the opposite of tears. Hope is what keeps tears from becoming the whole language of the future. “…that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Christian hope is not optimism. Optimism is a weather forecast of the personality. Hope is a promise with a name attached. We are born again to “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). If the tomb still held Him, Paul says we would be of all people most to be pitied. What happens to those who die in Christ. They are “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). That intermediate rest is real comfort. It is not the end of the story. The great hope is resurrection: “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Jesus is the firstfruits. His glorified, scarred, recognizable body is the pattern (Philippians 3:20–21). Love is not wasting itself on a person who has been deleted. Reunion will be in a redeemed creation, in bodies that ca...

  The body of Christ is not a theory. It is a casserole, a silent chair, a name spoken correctly. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” — Romans 12:15 The New Testament treats grief as congregational. “If one member suffers, all suffer together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). “Bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). Isolation in grief is often a second wound. What helps—and what harms. Job’s friends were at their best for seven silent days. Then they tried to make the math of the universe come out even. Helpful: “I am so sorry. This is painfully wrong. I do not know why. I can sit with you. I will come Thursday and take the trash.” Unhelpful: “At least…” “God needed him.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “I know exactly how you feel.” Even true doctrines become weapons when they close a conversation God has left open. Practical mercy. Grief depletes executive function. The church’s gift is concrete: meals with a plan for the dishes, childcare, lawn care, estate...