Friday, November 24, 2017

Why me?

Oakland Independent Article November 22, 2017

When something bad happens to you, do you ever ask God, "Why did this happen?" or just "Why me?" Often we want an answer for why God allowed some hard circumstance like an illness, death, or conflict into our lives. We can easily think it is unfair of God to allow so many bad things to happen to us.

How often though have you ever turned the question around and asked God "Why did this happen to me?" when you get something good?

Why God do you . . .

. . . paint the beautiful sunset with so many colors.
. . . make steak so tasty.
. . . make a smile from my wife so enjoyable.
. . . make coffee smell so good.
. . . make a baby's giggle so infectious.
. . . make a day hunting with friends and kids so memorable.
. . . make a world filled with so many daily pleasures they are hard to count.
. . . use the hard things to help us appreciates the good things and teach us character.
. . . love me even when I don't love you.
. . . offer grace and mercy through the work of Jesus to sinners like me.
. . . promise an even better, everlasting world to those who will accept your gift.

When trouble comes into our lives it is easy to focus exclusively on them and forget all the past, current and promised blessings. When we focus on the trouble it seems overwhelming, but when we focus on the blessings, we will be overwhelmed with gratitude. Furthermore we end up getting happiness as an added benefit. Dennis Prager, a radio talk show host, dedicates an hour of his show every week to happiness, and he has come to the conclusion that key to happiness is learning to be grateful for the many blessing in our lives.

Johnson Oatman, Jr., the writer of the hymn, "Count Your Blessings" understood this, as he wrote . . .

Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
  1. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done. 

During this week of Thanksgiving, remember that thanksgiving should not be done just one day a year, but rather should become a lifestyle. Then when struggles come (and they will!), we will see more clearly that they are not the main point of life.  If we ask, "Why me?" in all circumstances, we will come to understand it is because God loves us,  and wants us to live with Him forever. He is using the good and the bad to draw us to Himself, so that we can experience His goodness all the time!

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

How Kids Help Us Grow

Here is an article I wrote for the Oakland Independent in December 2016. 

Children are a gift from the Lord: they are a reward from him . . . Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Psalm 127:3 & 5

Much of our focus during the Christmas season is making it a special time for kids. From buying them just the right present to going to Christmas programs, we spend lots of time and money on our kids. At various times kids may seem like blessing or a burden, but recently I have seen how God has used my kids to help me grow. Here are some of those lessons:

From the first smile on a young babies face to a preschooler bunny hopping across the stage at the Christmas program, kids bring great joy to our lives. Experiencing life with them lets us return to the carefree times of having fun without the burdens of adult life. I love to get down on a kids level and have fun with them. It puts a smile on their face and on mine.

But kids are not all smiles, hugs and bunny hops. Often they are downright naughty, and God can use this to teach us patience and perseverance. I have become convinced that it takes about 100 times of repeating some correction for a child to finally learn a new behavior or boundary. If we give up on try 90, the child suffer and so will we. They will not learn to behave the way they should and everyone else will be impacted by their wrong behavior, so for their sake and ours we need to learn to persevere.

Furthermore, in training our kids, we have to constantly be learning. Each stage of child's life requires new ways to teach them and even to communicate with them. You cannot discipline a 16 year old who can now out wrestle you in the same way you did when he was 8. Likewise each child is different, so techniques that worked so well for one child completely fail for the next. If we don't grow in wisdom as parents, we will not be successful in helping our kids live wisely.

Further, if we don't grow in love for our kids, we will not go through the hardship of training them properly. Love is desiring the best for the other person, and kids by their very dependence force us to live for someone other than ourselves. If we resent this and don't grow in love, we become a bitter and angry, which turns our kids against us. On the other hand, if we can learn to love our kids unconditionally many of our imperfections in other areas will be forgiven, and when they mess up they will learn it is safe to confess and restore the relationship.

Finally, even with the best of efforts, we need to learn to trust our kids into God's hands. As much as we may plan, we cannot control the future, ours or theirs, so we should learn to turn them over to Him. He loves them more than we do, so it is safe to release them to Him. I have already released one son to God's hand for eternity, and I know that pretty soon my other four kids are going to grow up and leave home (or at least I hope so!).  We may as well surrender them daily to Him now so that when they leave us we have already learned to trust God with them.

Now some of you reading this may not have any kids of your own or your kids are grown and you need to relearn some of these truth, so I would invite you to invest your life in kids or even adults who need mentoring. Many kids need mentors in their lives, and when we invest our lives in others, God uses them to help us grow.

Friday, November 3, 2017

How do you know when God says no?

The questions

I recently had a conversation with a friend who asked me if God answered my prayers. I said, "Yes", and he asked how often to which I answered, "Always."

He then responded, "What did you mean?" I said that God answers my prayers in one of three ways; yes, no, and wait.

He then asked two questions that I could not answer in simple ways, so instead I am writing this post to go into more detail.

First he asked, "So how would this work for a farmer who prayed for the rain to stop so that he could harvest his crops?"

Next he asked, "How is the 'no' answer conveyed?"

 I do not claim to be an expert in prayer, even Christian prayer in which I as a Christian pastor have some experience and on which I have had numerous times of training. In regular personal practice, I feel very inadequate and not very deep, but because I have had some training, I will attempt an answer to what I will admit are sometimes hard questions about when God does not answer a prayer in the way I want or expect.


The first response


The first way a 'no' answer can be conveyed clearly is simply that the request is not granted or perhaps even the opposite occurs. If we ask God for something definite, whether it is healing, material help, like a new job for example, or perhaps for the rain to stop so that we can harvest, then a yes and no answer is something that we can track in a particular time period.

I recently prayed for a healing for Nabeel Qureshi, a famous Christian apologist, who at 34 years old had stage 4 stomach cancer. In the last month, he died from complications of that stomach cancer just a year after getting the diagnosis. That was a direct 'no' to lots of people praying for healing, who by that meant long-term healing.

When praying for rain to stop, a no answer would be continued rain for long periods of time that causes the farmer not to be able to get the crops out and to suffer losses that year. An answer that perhaps is not a direct no, but is a wait would be for the rain to continue for awhile and eventually stop enough that the farmer can get his crops out. This perhaps comes with some loss of time and money, but not a disaster.

A current situation like this for us is that we have been praying for God to intervene and bring someone to buy our house in Minnesota that has been on the market for over two years. The answer has clearly been no to this point, but it has not been a disaster for us because we have had several renters that have helped us pay the expenses on the house.


But why?


A natural follow up question though is why doesn't God answer my prayers the way I want. Most of the time in these situations, what I or others request from God is not wrong in itself, and it is something that we want or something that we see as the best thing. The Christian God as described in the Bible though is not just a Santa Claus figure who gives us what we want when we want it, rather He is a God over the whole universe with an understanding that is bigger than our particular plans. Sometimes, our prayers might in fact fall in line with His best plans for the universe, but sometimes He knows the big picture better than us.

For example, in the case of the farmer here in America not getting his harvest, we could easily think of poorer farmers in South America who pray the God would help raise the crop prices so that they can survive another year. So God would allow poor weather in one area to help lessen the supply of crops worldwide and raise the prices for those who got crops that year.

In the case of our house, Traci and I have had the opportunity to help out several people in need of a short-term rental.

In the case of the death of a loved one like Nabeel or like my son Micah, I am not sure that we can or ever will (at least in this life) fully understand why they did not get to live a longer life like we would have desired. But God clearly does allow and yes even cause people to die and suffer in this world.

The one clear answer that we have about all suffering is that this world in its current condition is not the final answer. God clearly points to a better, eternal condition and that this world is simply a place on the way. Therefore, God's purposes are not wrapped up by making everything neat and tidy here, but rather by pointing to greater things yet to come.

While we do not always understand the bigger picture, sometimes we do get a better understanding of why God did not give us what we wanted and this leads to another way in which we understand that God has said no to a request.


The second response


After praying, studying and asking for wisdom, we may come to the conclusion that what we prayed for is not what we want anymore. If we are regularly searching the Bible and listening to wise counsel, we may come to the conclusion that what we desired was not what we should have wanted. James 4:3 talks about this type of wrong prayer "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." If we ask for something with the wrong motive then God may not give it to us for our own benefit, and if we are continuing to grow we may come to realize that we did not get it because it was bad for us.

For example, we might desire a better job or a winning season, and come to understand that we wanted those things primarily for selfish reasons. This may lead us to change our lives in response to the prayer rather than continue to focus on the desired thing.

So I think we may say that God answered no to a prayer when the thing did not happen and we realize that we no longer want that thing, so we stop praying for it.


Conclusion


Sometimes a no from God is very clear, while other times it is not as clear. Perhaps God will give us that good thing in time (wait) or perhaps he will reveal that what we needed is something different. In all these cases though, the primary purpose in prayer is for us to communicate with God our desires and learn to trust him with the response. Knowing that the good God who made the world is in control helps us to have peace no matter what the circumstance.

Phi 4:12 — Phi 4:13
I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.