Strength from Heaven

It's hard to love.

It can be tiring to be godly.

Where can we find strength to be loving and godly? By remembering that soon enough we'll be reunited with God in heaven. This difficult time on earth won't last forever, and when we come into the full presence of our Father, we'll be glad to have been as loving and godly as possible in this life, and it will all be worth it.

(Col. 1; Tit. 1)

Sovereignty and grace

God demands complete control over our lives. The bad news is we cannot do as we please. The good news is that when God chooses to love and redeem us, the matter is set for eternity.

Gospel obedience

God doesn't want us to obey Him because we have to.  He wants us to obey Him because we want to. 2 Cor. 5:17

weak prayer

It's an amazing blessing to have a baby, but also an amazing challenge to my faith because I don't know how you entrust a baby's well-being to God.  But, this mornining I prayed 'I believe, help my unbelief,' which has been one of my lifelong prayers.

Part of the Gospel, I suppose, is that God accepts such weak prayers.  I think He accepts my weak approach to Him because I have no other way of approaching.

Jesus snorting with anger

One temptation I've faced as I've prayed for Joshua's healing is to think of God as disinterested in Joshua's health.  I wonder if perhaps it is God's will that he not be healed.


Thankfully, I heard this sermon, The Fragrance of New Life:


http://gracepca.com/index.php/sermons/

In case you don't get to listen to it, the punchline is
this:  Most English translations relate that Jesus was "deeply moved"
when he stood before Lazarus' tomb. The sermon says that here "deeply moved" really
falls short.  Literally it reads that Jesus "snorted with anger" or
was full of "indignation."  BB Warfield described Jesus as full of
irrepressible anger at Lazarus' death.  Jesus was not just sad but
offended at the death of Lazarus because God made people for life, not
death.  Death (and the various effects of sin) is a great assault on
God's rule.

For me, this was helpful in praying more confidently for health.  I am
tempted at times to imagine God being passive or deistic or
disinterestedly saying "My will be done."  This sermon was a really
encouraging corrective, and lets me understand where God stands on
issues of life and death.  


It offends Him and He opposes it.

For God so loved the world

Once when I was praying for Joshua, I was struggling with whether God cared for my son.  It felt like if God had cared,  He wouldn't have let him be born unable to breath and feed.  If God cared, He would act against Joshua's suffering - yet here we were in the hospital with our one-day old baby in the intensive care unit.

But then I was able to see something.  I saw Jesus dying on the cross for Joshua.  I saw God giving his Son for the very purpose of saving my son.  And any question of whether God cares for Joshua was resoundingly answered by the fact that Jesus went to the cross for us.

Joshua's theodicy

As most but not all readers of this blog know, my wife recently gave birth to our son Joshua.  There have been some health complications, which appear to be resolving, but that's all to explain why I haven't been blogging.

When I found out that Joshua had some serious health problems, I went and prayed.  I immediately was struck by the notion that Christianity was obviously false and meaningless in light of the suffering of my baby.  It was absurd to be looking to a powerful, benevolent God for mercy on my son; if such a God existed, He wouldn't have put my son in this situation in the first place.  Faced with the grievous evil of my suffering baby son, belief in God seemed like a cruel joke.

But soon something struck me about this great evil.  The reason it was so evil was because my baby was so wonderful and good.  It would not be so bad for a rock or stick or even a car to have a defect.  But a baby is so wonderful, that any problem with it is heinous.  The magnitude of the evil in my son's suffering was based on the magnitude of the good of his existence.

I've heard this argument in the abstract before.  Even evil proves the existence of God because evil assumes a standard of good.  If there were nothing good, there would be nothing evil.  But, we do experience unquestionable evil.  And while evil's existence in a universe created by God is a profound mystery, nevertheless, it clearly points to a standard of good that can only come from God.

So, in the depths of my woe and doubt, God met me, and though at He did not resolve all questions about this situation, He reminded me that He exists, and that He is the source of miraculous good like my baby son Joshua.