Category: Uncategorized

Categories
Uncategorized

The Good in Grief

My son recently asked me, “Why do you work out as much as you do?” “So I can do the things I do at my age,” I replied. Later, the real reason returned to mind—I began a regimen decades ago, determined to spare my family from the bitter agony of loss. My own father had died suddenly and prematurely, leaving his young family emptied of his presence, insecure without his provision, and longing for his love. How could I let my wife and son experience such pain? I would stay fit and ask God for long life.

The Old Testament book of Ruth is a beautiful (and brilliantly written) short story of redemption, the rescue from loss and restoration to fullness at great cost borne by another. Yet the account is every bit as vivid a depiction of inner transformation, in this case that of Naomi, the mother-in-law to Ruth, by way of the painful path that wends through grief. Losing her husband and two sons had rendered Naomi bitter and blaming: “the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.”1 We’ve been there ourselves, and we’ve stood beside many Naomi’s in our life, speaking the kind words of silent presence.

Yet in His sovereignty, God commands even death to serve His good purposes for our life, for grief brings us to an unavoidable encounter with real thoughts and deep feelings now exposed before us. We appreciate more fully the unique beauty of those now gone, though frustrated in our inability to proclaim it in their presence. Left behind, we carry the heavy load of unresolved guilt, or we lay it before God in the cleansing power of confession. We find our love was stronger than we had known, and perhaps our hurts deeper. We draw nearer to God in reliance on Him, or we distance ourselves in resentment. And in the clarity of loss, God is there, meeting us wherever we are, eager to embrace, patient to wait, and faithful to heal.

The apostle Paul wrote that “suffering [leads to] perseverance … character … and hope,”2 and it is in the context of suffering that he penned the familiar verse, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”3 But these are words more apt for another day. For now, Naomi sobs, she questions; survival is aspiration enough. And though we will not say today what she cannot hear today, we know it to be true—that God is at work in her even now, commanding her pain to work for her good.

Father, there is no sting worse than death; sustain us in our grief. Strengthen us to persevere, command our pain to build our character, and sustain us in the sure and certain hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. In his name, we pray. Amen.

1 Ruth 1:20, 21
2 Romans 5:3, 4
3 Romans 8:28

Categories
Uncategorized

The Larger Legacy

Frank Mickes was an inmate at Marion Correctional Institute when Christine Money became its new warden. Until that turning-point, the place was “drug-infested, gang-infested and on the verge of rioting, a bad situation to be in as a young man,” he recalls, now a few decades older and free. But Mrs. Money brought to MCI a new approach from a heart “driven by God,” in Frank’s words. She invited inmates to attend a Kairos Prison Ministries weekend, 42 men at a time, and the population soon began to see change—“a feeling of inner freedom,” is how Frank describes it—in Kairos participants. The new warden also lived out her Christian faith inside the prison, listening, caring, acting and building trust. Over time, MCI became known among Ohio’s incarcerated community as “God’s house.”

Over the past few weeks, we have celebrated a Samaritan woman made new by grace before the compassionate Christ—hope dispelling disillusion, honor replacing shame, joy overcoming pain. Yet her personal change was only the beginning of a larger and lasting legacy, for her story surpasses herself. Made new in the power of grace, she returned to her people in the boldness of freedom: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did,” she beckoned, “Could this be the Christ?”1 John narrates their precious response: “They came out of the town and made their way toward him.”2 No dialogue needed, the remarkable scene speaks for itself. “I tell you,” Jesus said to his disciples as they watched, “open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper … harvests the crop for eternal life.”3

Does anything demand our notice as much as a life made new? It trumpets a triad of good news in gentle decibels to the soul: Jesus is real; He lives today; there is hope! So it was that the Samaritans of Sychar came and heard for themselves this man who claimed to be the Christ. To the woman they said, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”4 From one person’s change a community was transformed. Then who knows our impact when we tell of our own encounters with Christ? We may think our testimonies to be ineffective, but the Spirit of God works through them to spread grace, stir hope and speak life all around us. People will be changed, and God will receive the praise. Be willing, be eager; speak, and watch.

Lord God, change us for a purpose—to trumpet new life and glorify you. May people see you in us and come before you to see for themselves. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

1 John 4:29
2 John 4:30
3 John 4:35, 36
4 John 4:42

Categories
Uncategorized

An Honest and Good Heart

There is good news we welcome; there is exciting good news we share; and then there is teeming good news, the kind that rises up and spills over our deep, polished containers of propriety. What, though, hastens us as heralds of good news even to our antagonists, those who exclude us with cold shoulders, judge us with pointed fingers or dehumanize us through indifference? What raises us to a place higher than pride, purer than resentment, and stronger than fear? Grace does.

Her destination was a well—a pit, she called it—perhaps an apt metaphor for a life of deepening failures and darkening hope, and she was there to draw still more, yet again. This noonday, though, grace awaited her there, an appointment set before the beginning of time. She, like so many through the ages, had awaited the Messiah—“When he comes, he will explain everything to us,”1 she said—and now He was here, seeking from her a drink from the pit and offering living water from an inner well—a spring, He called it—sourced in Himself and rising up to eternal life. She came to the well defined by her failures and left as one renewed by grace. Teeming with good news and unable to contain it, she returned to her villagers, including her detractors there, saying, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”2 What confidence! What purpose! Such transformation!

Grace is like that: it sends us spilling over with good news of undeserved favor. Freedom is like that: it releases us in relief with the proclamation of pardon. Jesus is like that—He flows from us like streams of living water, even to those who don’t love us. He rises up in hearts made new in Him—in people “who have heard the word in an honest and good heart … hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.”3 And if fruitfulness is its measure, I think we can safely say the Samaritan woman went back to her people with a new heart, “an honest and good heart.” For as John writes, “They came out of the town and made their way toward him.”4

At times, we don’t feel new, but if in faith we drink from the “spring of water welling up to eternal life”5—Jesus Christ, himself—we are new and our failures define us no more. Ours is to embrace what is true, rest in Him who makes us new, and with honest and good hearts, persevere. The fruit will be there; He will see to it.

Father in heaven, you have given me a new heart, and your Spirit lives in me through faith in Christ. Grace me to go and bear fruit with an honest and good heart. Amen.

1 John 4:25
2 John 4:28-29
3 Luke 8:15 NASB
4 John 4:30
5 John 4:14