When Life Doesn't Make Sense, Part 2

I had a situation about six or seven years ago that wasn’t just like a month or two but it was a journey of a few years.

I had made a really big decision, at least on our part, to leave where I was comfortable and move to Atlanta and join an organization that I had thought a lot of.

I had a great experience, but just shortly after I left the bottom fell out of the market. Remember the whole dot com bust? As a result, the organization that I teamed up with loss their major donors and all the money disappeared.

Six or seven months into it, Living the Edge went and it was healthy and had enough funds. I remember when our Chief Operating Officer, at the time, called me and said, we have three days left of cash and we’re going to have to close the doors.

On the way there I could give you a long litany of things like the car that was shipped there was in a wreck; my wife had oral surgery and it didn’t work; her mouth got infected and she was in pain; she had another oral surgery; and it didn’t work and it was infected.  I got a wife that’s crying herself to sleep. I’ve left all my kids and all my family for what looked good.  For six or seven months, everything is down and to the left.

I remember being in my basement and I wasn’t crying like Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.  I was just crying. I remember thinking, God, what? What’s the deal?  As far as I know there’s not sin in my life. I left a comfortable situation. I trust you by faith.  I started listing all the reasons--every single thing that could happen relationally, financially, health wise--it was so downhill and so low. I, with palms up, just said, “Okay.”

In my heart of hearts I felt like, I have only one of two conclusions to make. Either I cannot hear God’s voice anymore and this is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made and I took a wrong turn.

Or, this is the will of God and there’s something in this window of time that in his love and wisdom and goodness and kindness he’s going to do in me.  There’s something to learn and something he’ll reveal to me about himself that right now, intellectually and emotionally, I do not get.

I’m going to hang on to the end of the rope of hope and I’m not letting go.  But, I could sure use some help.  It was during that time I was reading through John 11.  I’d never seen this passage like this before.  I read John 11 one day and I read it the next day. Then I read it the next day. Then I read it the next day and I read a little something else. Then I read it the next day.

I can’t tell you how long, I just lived in John 11 and what I realized and wrote in my journal is rather than solving the problem in the life of Mary and Martha, he revealed to them the author of life.

No one in the New Testament apart from James and John at the Transfiguration ever gets as direct, clear revelation.  The Pharisees hear this and even John the Baptist is told some Old Testament passages and report what’s happening.  They have to figure it out, but he looks at this woman and he says, you don’t think I love you. Let me tell you-I am life and resurrection. I love you, Martha.  I’m for you and I will supply, in me and me alone, plus nothing.

Do you believe this?

Notice her response. There was something about his eyes and his words. Yes, Lord, she told him. I believe that you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God who has come into the world. And after she said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The teacher is here,” she said. “And he’s asking for you.” He’s coming to them. That passage in James of drawing near to God-this is the picture.  In the midst of your pain and you don’t know what to do and you struggle draw near to God.  He’ll draw near to you.

When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and she went to him.  Now Jesus had not yet entered the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. He’s waiting. He’s waiting for her to come.

When the Jews who have been with Mary in the house comforting her noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.  When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you’d been here, my brother would not have died.

What’s her response? This is the second time. It’s, I thought you loved me. I thought you cared.  I’m the one.  Remember?  I was wiping your feet with my hair and with the perfume.  I’m devoted to you.  I sat at your feet.  Remember?  If you would have showed up, you could have fixed my life.

Then, notice Jesus’ response to her hurt and to her pain. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

Here’s what I want to remind you. It may be hard; you may not understand it; it may be difficult; but I’ll tell you one thing I learned when I was crying in my basement--Jesus was crying with me.

He had not abandoned me.  He loves you and he’s for you.  He may not turn the switch and fix the problem; remove the cancer; give you your house back; cause your marriage to come back all at once; find the person you’re looking for; or, give you the job that you’re always wanted.

In the midst of what you can’t understand, if like Martha and Mary, you’ll come and be honest and talk to him, Jesus will meet.  Your pain elicits the heart of God.  “Where have you laid him,” he asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied.

And then you have this short, powerful verse. Jesus wept.

God’s purposes are bigger than fixing my problems and your problems and getting your life to work out and my life to work out when and how we want.  Its way bigger, but he cares deeply.

But some of them said, could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying? What are they basically saying?  Well, yeah, it seems like he really cares and he’s crying now, but if he was really compassionate, he’d have been here four days ago and helped the guy.

In the midst of our difficulty, our temptation is to begin to believe that God doesn’t really care.  I got a letter from a lady. I never know how God does all this but it came in the mail yesterday and she’s a listener to Living on the Edge.  She identifies herself as an r12 school teacher.  She went through the Romans 12 study like we did.

She writes, I continue to get down on my knees in my classroom and I pray each morning for each of my students.  Since last year, we’ve joined a Bible teaching church with community groups and my marriage has been restored.  That’s no small accomplishment on God’s part since we buried a teenage son and both of us are recovering from addiction.  Our son, Chris that we lost, died of leukemia. He was diagnosed when he was ten years old. At the time there were no books out there for children with cancer.

As you read the whole story, you find a woman who has had a really, really difficult, painful life that doesn’t make sense--a ten year old boy gets leukemia and they go through a journey to his early teens.  If you know anything about what happens when you lose a child, over 80% of people that lose a child end up in divorce.

In the journey and the pain, as they were trying to deal with those things, they found that alcohol would relieve some of the pain.  Both she and her husband become alcoholics.  Somewhere along the way she began to listen and ponder and seek after God.  She realized that she needed to draw near to him and she got in a good Bible teaching church.  She began to seek after God.  Then she had this dream that maybe God could use this difficult painful thing with her son to help others.

She said she tried for two years to get a publisher for her book. She titled it, The Bald Headed Princes. You get it? You know when you go through chemo and you lose all your hair?

It was a book about dealing with it as a child. Eventually she got discouraged and surrendered it to God.  She asked God to teach her whatever she was supposed to learn from that experience.

Do you see the process God takes us through? Martha surrendered; Mary surrendered; you surrender; I surrender.  Do you see a theme here?  Surrender.  Believe.  Do you believe?  Do you trust me?

In the letter she writes, one special day I received a phone call from an interested publisher. They wanted the book and the day they called, it was our son, Chris’ birthday.

God was telling me that he has the perfect timing for everything.  He knows how impatient I am.  He wants me to trust him and have faith in him even when it seems like nothing is working out.  Since last year I’ve been reading the Bible daily and I came across Hebrews 11:1. Now, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  I am certain that our Chris is in heaven and that God will continue to use my writing to help others.

See the journey? God doesn’t always show up and wave the magic wand of answered prayer to take us out.  Sometimes he delivers us through it.  His purposes are beyond. If you never begin to look at life through the lens of eternity, you will never be able to make sense of this life now.  God’s purposes are bigger. And his love is greater.

Notice what happens now. Jesus decides, in this case, he’s going to go ahead and solve the problem.

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.  It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. But, ever the pragmatist, Martha, the sister of the dead man said, by this time, there’s a bad odor for he’s been there four days. Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”  So they took away the stone and Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe (Circle it) that you sent me.”  When he had said this, Jesus called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and as a cloth around his face and Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

Now, did you notice how Jesus chose to solve this problem? What’d he do?  Did he touch him?  He spoke.  In the midst of your pain, he speaks. When we talk about life in Christ--BIO: Before God, In community, On mission--this is it.  In the midst of your pain and hurt you end up living in the Psalms; you live in the gospels and you say, God, this doesn’t make any sense. God, I hurt.  God, I want this to be fixed.  God, I want her to come back.  God, I want him to change from this addiction.  God, do something with one of my kids.  God, you know I’ve been single. Oh, God, I need a job. God, turn my house around.  Through all that you draw near to him and he draws near to you.  I will tell you, he speaks life through his word.

David followed him and in Psalm 119 would say, “If your word had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”

I do not understand how it works, but I will tell you its living and active; a two-edged sword piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of joint and marrow.  God’s Word is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It’s a written word but in the heart of a person, who is desperate and hurting, it will become the living word and the spirit of God will take the word of God and it’ll begin to give you promise and hope.

By the way, it’s not hope for next week. You know, when you have thoughts like, I can’t take this. I can’t do one more week like this. God says, absolutely not. You can just do the next ten minutes.  Grace comes tomorrow for the pain that you feel when you get to tomorrow. But, God is in the tomorrow. All you have to do is say, I don’t know how but I’m going to hang on. I’m going to hope. I want to meet you.

What’ll happen is, God will speak.  Often instead of solving or fixing your problem or making your life work out, or mine, the way I want, when I want, he’ll begin to reveal himself to you in ways that you never dreamed.  He will reveal things about you to you that you never dreamed and in that process a transformation occurs.

The Apostle Paul would take this same truth in Romans chapter 5 and say it this way, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” He says, you know, because of the great thing that God did we can exalt or rejoice in this amazing new life that we have.  Not only in this but we exalt in our tribulation or our difficulty, our pain, our adversity knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance. And perseverance brings about character and character brings about hope and hope doesn’t disappoint because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.  

When it’s so difficult there’s nowhere to go.  The will of God is you just don’t give up.  You don’t give in.

What happens is that perseverance produces a character change.  It is a level of trust and when you see that kind of change you realize there’s hope forever and there’s hope now.

In the midst of that you feel the compassion of God.  He pours his love into your life and your heart.  He does it through his word and you heard he does it through community. He does it through the lives of others.  He does a purging, purifying, supernatural thing through you.

I will guarantee the most loving, kind Christ-like people that you will ever meet in the world have suffered deeply. It’s part of the agenda.

The epilogue is two responses. Therefore, many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and had seen what Jesus did put their faith in him. You can circle that phrase. It’s the same as believe.

They watched them suffer. They watched what happened. They watched Jesus. In the midst of your pain and my pain and our struggle and how we respond, that’s the most powerful thing in the world.

Many people around you will believe, not because, God shakes the magic wand, but they watch you go through the process and not give up hope.

There’s always the other group, the skeptics.  No matter how much evidence, they respond the same.

But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. They’re little tattle-tails.

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. What are we accomplishing, they ask.

Here, this man is performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him.  The Romans will come and take away our temple and our nation. One translation says our place and our nation.

Put a box around “temple.”  Put a box around “nation.”

These are the two enemies of your faith. Now, imagine this. Someone reports, this guy was dead. He was dead for four days. This Jesus, Rabbi guy, you know, the controversial guy, we watched him. He really loves these ladies. He prayed and he wept.

Then he just went and he just spoke words and the guy came out. You know? Like Mummy, the first movie.  They peeled off this stuff and they run, Pharisees, Pharisees, Pharisees! Did you see what he’s doing?

Their response, instead of bowing down saying what more evidence could anyone ever need that this man is God, believes they’ll lose their place, the temple and their nation.

Our place or the temple is your position.  Our nation, you can write, is your power.

They knew that if Jesus reigned and was identified as the Messiah, that their role, their status, their position is going to change.  They knew the Romans would come in and they would change their nation.  They would lose their power. They’d lose their control.

Your desperate attempt to hang on to your position and your power to control your life and your circumstances in your family, home, job, money and self-made security are the things that prevent you from simply believing.

They prevent me. Somehow we’ve grown to believe that unless there’s so much money in some account somewhere; and we own our own home; and our marriages are deep and intimate; and our kids are wonderful and getting into the right schools; and all these little circumstances are lined up, then life is good and God is faithful.  That may pass for 20th or 21st century evangelical American and much Christianity around the world, but it has little or nothing to do with the Gospel or the New Testament of Jesus Christ. God never promised that.

God promised that he’d be with you. God promised that he’s good. God promised that you would have an eternal hope. God promised that regardless of what you go through in a fallen world, he’ll never leave you or forsake you. And, that he loves you.

I need to surrender and ask how I fulfill your agenda, God. That’s what that prayer is-Your kingdom come. Your reign be done. How? On earth as it is in heaven.  Sometimes God lets our problems go from bad to impossible so we believe.

Jesus said, “This is the work of God that you might believe in him, who he has sent. What are you supposed to believe, exactly?  Believe in the depth of his love for us. And second, choose to believe in the extent of his power available to us.

He is the resurrection and the life. He can bring life; he can change circumstances. He can do anything, but he does it to us according to our faith.

So, I would ask you, where in your life do you have a bad or impossible situation? I’d encourage you with a family or friend or in your small group to read out loud Romans 5:1-5.  Read 2 Corinthians 12:9, 10 and realize that people who’ve loved God with all their heart are far more holy than we will ever be.  The Apostle Paul asked God specifically for some deliverance and God said no and told him that his grace is sufficient for him.  God does supernatural, amazing things in our difficulty and our weakness.

I also encourage you to ask yourself who you need in your life to make it through your present difficulty.  God doesn’t want you to go through it alone.  For some of you, you’re sitting here going, I don’t have one of those right now. Then, ask the next question. Who in your network needs you to jump into their life and say could I help you through this? I really want to love you.  I want to be the Christ that will sit with you; cry with you; pray with you.  That’s how the body works.