Alone: A Reoccurring Theme These Days

The feeling of abandonment is at the root of many complaints against God about the evil of the world. Why do you put up with injustice and oppression?  Have you just left us alone?  The prophet Habakkuk called out many years ago:

"How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or
cry out to you, 'Violence!'
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds" (Habakkuk 1:2-3).

The life of our beautiful friend, Donna, is absolutely spiritually inspirational every time Bettyann and I have opportunity to visit with her in her parents home.  Donna is in her fiftieth decade presently.  However, what, at birth could have been a time of great joy at birth was immediately overshadowed by the news that she had Hydrocephalus.  The medical community pronounced she had six hours to live, then six day, then six months.  At one appointment her specialist promulgated his estimation of six year.  She began school and graduated high school. Began writing hymns that; as she told me:  “just come into my head.” Her entire life she has required a great deal of medical care traveling some seventy miles to receive medical attention.  Her loving parents have kept her at home for these many years, providing the care, attention and prayer for her healing.  She witnessed to me that she has never been alone.  Most of her youthful life here father worked, sometimes a thousand miles from the house, always travelling back and forth several hours to be of help to his wife, and all his children.  Donna’s mother hardly has left her side. I have personal witnessed Donna and her entire family’s inability to understand the spiritual, emotional and physical suffering, as she experienced one painful procedure after another, unable to understand the 'what' or the 'why' of her pain, her parents have loved her, made tough decisions, and prayed for her life. All the time by her side. Sadly, now, when her father and mother, in their eighties, ought to be enjoying a fruitful time of retirement and easier way of life, are struggling with various aspects of physical aging issues.  Thankfully, Donna’s siblings are up to the challenge of being presesupporting, caring and loving on Donna, Mother and Father.

In the face of tragedies like this one, I want to cry out against God for not fixing things, or at least to call out and demand answers—why? But this experience has reminded me again of one of the beautiful truths of Christian faith: that although I do not understand the 'what' or the 'why' of all of my pain, I am not left alone either. My God is like a father watching over his child, like a mother longing for my healing and bearing my pain as if it were her own. My God does not abandon me to my fate, but has come along side me, to be close and intimate enough to experience the very depths of my condition.

It remains costly for God to be with me in this way, just as it was and is costly for my friends to be so close to the pain of Donna. But my thought this mornings is: when I love deeply, I want to be with the beloved, whatever the cost. And since I live in pain, brokenness and sin, God's coming along side me means descending into the depths of that pain, brokenness and sin. Now, like Donna, I find assurance in that I am never alone, that even when I do not understand the suffering in my life, I do not bear it by myself. And even though my friends are unable to heal their child, my God promises ultimate healing and resurrection to them, me and all my family, friends, colleagues, and to anyone in the world who will receive it. I’m thinking of the angels announcing, Jesus's birth is good news of great joy for all people.

The manger and eventually the cross are the supreme reminders of God's involvement and intimacy. When I turn to cry out in abandonment to God, I find myself face to face with a tortured, bloody man on a cross, in whose death I am an accomplice. Before I can even utter the words, I hear him cry them first: "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" I am further thinking that while I have rarely ever know the answer to this question—'why?'—the very fact that Jesus asked it is meaningful. It was not about information. Jesus knew more about the reasons for his suffering than I ever will. Information does not take away the pain anyway. However, if I believe that God has truly come to me in the person of Jesus Christ, then Jesus's anguished cry tells me something far important about God. Jesus's cry tells me that even in feelings of ultimate abandonment, I am not alone. And you are not alone.  I’m encouraged today and my desire for you to be also.  My hope is that you will see the gospel message—that God has come among us—is absolutely transformative. There is no longer any place where God is not because this God has gone with you and me all the way. Even in the deepest moment of abandonment, we meet the one who is called “God With Us.”

A Brief Thought On Poison

A common claim made by many atheists is that religion causes evil, suffering, division and war. A recent recognition of this was when an acquaintance at the bugle house we both frequent brought to my attention, on his iPad, a Munk Debate in Toronto involving Cristopher Hitchens arguing against Tony Blair. Religion, Hitchens claimed, causes sectarianism, division, strife, disagreement, war, poverty and a host of societal evils. In his best-selling book, God is Not Great, Hitchens even wrote that "religion poisons everything."

My friend and I discussed, at short length and off the cuff, how each of us responded to the debate. Then, I, on my own, have pursued the question, a bit more in depth, recognizing first of all there’s a major problem with Hitchens' argument. I can very well remove the word "religion" from his statement "religion poisons everything" and replace it with many other words. Politics, for example. More so in this political circle.  I’m noticing, more than ever that politics causes division, bloodshed, argument, and war. Politics poisons everything. Or then, what about money? Money causes crime, resentment, bloodshed, division and poverty. Money poisons everything.

I see the problem being that atheists like Christopher Hitchens have built their worldview on the idea that human beings are essentially good and that the world is getting better—a kind of naïve utopianism. Is it any wonder that the far left Democratic presidential runner and the Republican nominee are so popular, I ask myself?  No. It seems to me that both, in their own ways are saying they are the one who can provide leadership in making America a utopia, again (as it ever was).       But I don’t see the world like that. Rather, it seems to me to be the case that whatever human beings lay hold off, they use to cause damage. That applies to money, politics, government, science—and religion. The problem is not with religion, politics, or money. Nor is the problem not out there somewhere, the problem lies in here, in my human heart.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian novelist and political commentator, who survived the Russian gulags and wrote with amazing insight into the human condition, once famously said this: "The dividing line between good and evil runs right through the middle of every human heart." What the world needs, as an answer to violence and injustice, poverty and pain, is not a clever philosophy, not a religious system, not a new politic, not more money, more education—none of these will fundamentally change anything. Rather, it needs individual transformation, a radical transformation of the human heart. Only Jesus Christ offers that possibility if I am willing to surrender my life to him.

I have only one atheist friend that I know of and in my brief moment the other morning I made the effort to point him to the fact that Jesus himself was also anti-religion. He regularly clashed with the religious leaders of his day because he saw empty religion as powerless, damaging, and enslaving. Ultimately that stance led to his crucifixion. I've never surveyed any other believers in Christ, but I can well imagine that most cannot talk about suffering and evil, pain, and violence, without talking about the example of Jesus, one to whom violence was done. His example has inspired millions if not billions of Christians to give sacrificially, to love their neighbors, to engage in peace making. I still remember one of the most power examples of my lifetime is the Amish School Shooting in 2006. Not only did the families of the victims publicly forgive the perpetrator and offer pastoral support to his family, they set up a trust fund to help the wife of the shooter, who had killed himself too. Without embracing the total Amish religious thinking, in my opinion, Jesus Christ is the only One who offers the transformative power that makes that kind of choice possible.