Are you exhausted by ________? Perhaps what exhausts you makes you angrier, lonelier, a bully, fearful, defeated, or high on the heroin of self-righteousness. Perhaps it causes you to divide people into camps (the “us” and “them” camp), and lose the ability to see the other as a sinner in need of Jesus.
In 2014 the National Science Foundation conducted a survey of 2,200 people asking, “Does the Earth go around the Sun or does the Sun go around the Earth?” Shockingly, 26% answered incorrectly that the Sun goes around the earth. We know that to get something like this wrong has huge consequences. We can’t understand things like gravity or the movement of the stars if we think the Sun revolves around the earth. Perhaps God designed the solar system like this to teach us something about ourselves.
What does a phrase like Phil. 1:11 mean: “to the glory and praise of God.” Similarly, what does the beginning of the Westminster Shorter Catechism mean: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” It means, whether you like it or not, know it or not, understand it or not, you were made for the glory of God. Now, what does that actually mean?
Yet, I want to offer hope to you. Reading an ordinary blog or listening to an ordinary sermon on Mark 10:13-16 (or some other text of the Bible), from an ordinary guy, on an ordinary day, is part of the solution. It is precisely what our communities, cities, and country desperately need.
Great stories, really the best stories, involve a bad guy getting taken out. This is why Taken is the greatest documentary ever made with the greatest line delivered to the bad guy in the history of story: “I will look for you, I will find you, I will kill you.”
Jocko Willink, a retired Navy Seal commander, has become a best-selling author, top podcaster, and frontline business consultant. If you want to be a better, at anything, read his books and listen to his podcasts. Along with his helpful, seasoned insights, Jocko is known for his discipline, grit, and toughness. In one of his podcasts, he recounts what he would always tell his subordinates who came to him with a problem. When a subordinate would come explaining some problem or issue they had, Jocko would respond with…
Now, Psalm 13 does not end with God giving a solid answer or taking the pain away or defeating the enemy. How it ends is fascinating and shows us what we need in the midst of pain. We need the King over pain, the King over sorrow, the King over the enemy, to say…
But we are not to treat the death of Jesus in isolation, pretending it was not followed by a resurrection; pretending it was not actually a victorious accomplishment of the King. In other words, we must never stop at mourning, we must make our way all the way to the Good News of the death of Jesus…
Right now, perhaps more than ever, you and I hope in, question, and wonder about God’s will. There is hardly a person on the planet that would say, “It is my will that COVID-19 keeps spreading and these ‘shelter in place’ orders remain longer.” It is normal for us to have our own plans and do what we can to execute them. It is normal for us to evaluate the way things are going in our world and the world around us and think, “I’d make things unfold differently if I had the power to change things.”
Pain pushes us to pray. But pain also steals our words. In our distress and pain we often don’t know what to pray. Even in the best of times we don’t know what to pray sometimes…
