Created to Crave: Part 15

Jesus is the Light

The presence of evil in the world makes all of us pause and consider the purpose of life.  If there is no bigger purpose and if there is no reason for our creation then the evil around us the pain of life renders life meaningless.  That is why our souls cry out: "What is the purpose of life?"

One day Jesus and his disciples ran into a man who was born blind and this encounter prompted the disciples to ask Jesus a question: "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ question helps us make sense of this world.  How does his answer help us?

Video: Joy and Suffering Within Worship

Daily Thought: Suffering Educates

Suffering educates sympathy; it softens the spirit, lightens the touch, hushes the tread; it accustoms the spirit to read from afar the symptoms of an unspoken grief; it teaches the soul to tell the number of the promises, which, like the constellations of the arctic circle, shine most brilliantly through the wintry night; it gives to the spirit a depth, a delicacy, a wealth of which it cannot otherwise possess itself. Through suffering he has become perfected.

F. B. Meyer, The Way Into the Holiest, Olive Tree Bible Software

Linkage: The Point of the Book of Job

We understand that the book of Job is about suffering, but there is a lot in it that is hard to understand.  I know that there are times when I have read it and I have found myself agreeing with Job's friends only to remember that God was not pleased with what they had to say.  Greg Boyd in this essay seeks to help us understand the book of Job a little more clearly.

The point of the book of Job is to teach us that the mystery of evil is a mystery of a war-torn and unfathomably complex creation, not the mystery of God’s all-controlling will. 

Given how Christians are yet inclined to look for a divine reason behind catastrophes and personal tragedies, I think it’s a point we have yet to learn. 

In this essay I’ll flesh out my reading of this incredibly profound book. 

The Prologue
The genre of this book is epic poetry. As is customary with epic poems, it begins with a prologue that sets up the story line (chs 1-2). In Job, this prologue serves as a literary device to give the reader a perspective that the characters in the story lack. This is important, for the point of the whole narrative, we shall see, is to expose the vast ignorance of the characters involved.

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Sunday Quote: At the End of the Day

"Paradoxically, then, even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God is the only solution to the problem of evil. If God does not exist, then we are lost without hope in a life filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of evil, for He redeems us from evil and takes us into the everlasting joy of an incommensurable good: fellowship with Him." ~ William Lane Craig; Hard Question, Real Answers; p. 112

The Good Side of Pain #5

Pain isn’t always a bad thing. Pain is positive when it tells us to stop doing what we are doing, like sticking our hand in the fire. Pain is positive when God uses it to shape us into the people He wants us to be. Pain is positive when it teaches us to trust on God. Pain is also positive when it get us to take the focus off ourselves and minister to people who are suffering as well.

As much as we would like to have a purpose for our pain, the reality is that much of the time our pain and suffering will be a mystery. If we are fortunate we will be able to look back on our lives and notice that our suffering helped mature us in our faith, but we have to be ready in case we never get an answer to “WHY?”.

It is when we are left with more questions than answers that we must turn our attention to Jesus and the cross, for at the cross we realize that God also experiences pain and suffering. As we focus on the cross it should also remind us of two great truths that should help us when we experience the pain and hurt of life.

The apostle Paul in Romans 8:31-39 wrote:

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NLT)

1. The Cross of Jesus reminds us the God didn’t spare His Son. (Romans 8:31, 32)

Sometimes we forget that Jesus’ life was not a walk in the park. It was anything but easy. Jesus experienced the death of his father Joseph, the rejection of brothers and sisters, the death of his friend and cousin John the Baptizer, the struggle of temptation, the rejection of his closest friends, and he experienced pain that few have known when he was beaten and whipped and finally nailed to the cross.

This is Jesus, the Son of God, and the Almighty did not shield Jesus from any of it. When bad things happen in our lives, when life doesn’t turn out the way it should, it is not because God who has failed us, but because our understanding of God has. The Cross reminds us that Jesus experienced pain just like we have pain.

2. The Cross of Jesus reminds us of the extent of God’s love. (Romans 8:39)

Only those who are parents can even come close to understanding the love God has for us. God allowed His Son, a part of Himself, to suffer and die for rebels. It is not like we were doing God any favors, we were in rebellion against His authority, and He still sent Jesus.

We are God’s creation, uniquely created to have a relationship with Him. He loves us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us, in order that the problem of our sin may be dealt with. The cross is a great symbol of God’s love for mankind. When we start to feel like God doesn’t care, all we have to do remember the horror of the cross so that we can be reminded that He does.

Pain can be a valuable part of our lives. God uses pain to create us to be the people He wants us to be and to give us a desire for Him. But the reality of it is that if we want to understand why there is pain or why suffering is part of our lives, we will never find a satisfactory answer. God’s ways are different from our ways and we will never understand everything that He does. When we look at the cross we should remember that God also suffers pain. The cross reminds us of the fact that Jesus experienced pain, suffering and death. The cross also reminds us how far God is willing to go in order to have a relationship with us. The cross of Jesus is evidence that God lives and that He cares for you. When you start doubting God’s love or His existence, look to the Cross and be reminded about the truth of who God is.

The Good Side of Pain #4

We will not always have the answers to the pain that we suffer or the struggles that we are forced to go through. In fact, when we are in the midst of hardship there are no answers that can comfort us or make diminish the pain that we feel. It is in the middle of suffering that we need to have faith. So how can we have faith in the midst of pain? We look to the Cross of Christ.

The Cross needs to be at the very center of our discussion of pain and suffering. The Cross is the greatest symbol of pain that we can have. It is because of the cross that we can know that even in the midst of the greatest tragedy of our lives, God is still there, loving and caring for us. The Cross symbolizes that even God experiences pain.

I am not talking about the pain Jesus suffered when he was crucified. Don’t get me wrong, that was real and immense pain that Christ experienced for us. No, the pain I am talking about is the pain the whole Trinity experienced because of the Cross, the pain God knowingly experienced in order to have a relationship with us.

When God decided to create people with free will He set Himself up for pain. God wanted creatures that would love Him. Love cannot be created, love has to be chosen, and so God created people with the ability to choose love. That also means that God created people who could choose to reject Him and to love themselves or something else. For God to be loved He had to take the chance of being hurt.

The cross symbolizes God’s effort to extend His love to people. The cross should remind us the cost God paid to create people who have the ability to choose accept His love or rejection Him. The cross also symbolizes the hurt God experienced when fellowship amongst Himself was interrupted. The Father, Son, and Spirit had always experienced fellowship. When Jesus died, taking on our sins that fellowship was interrupted, because of the sin Jesus bore He couldn’t have fellowship with God.

Consider Matthew’s account of Jesus’ death:

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,* lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”*

Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah. One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. But the rest said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”*

Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.

The Roman officer* and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:45-54; NLT).

I believe this provides evidence that God was hurt when Jesus died. The death of Jesus was much more than Jesus dying physically. As the praise song Here I Am To Worship says; “I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.”

God has not insulated Himself from pain and suffering. He created us with the full knowledge of what it would cost Him, and He still chose to give us life. What this means is that God decided that pain was an acceptable cost for the relationship He wants us to experience with Him.

The Good Side of Pain #2

The reason that pain is such an important part of God’s molding process is because it gets us to redirect our focus. So many of us have our focus on other things besides God. We may be focused on the money we will be making on what we will spend it on. We may be focused on a romantic relationship, and we put in so much effort to make it work. Our focus may be the upcoming football season and winning the state championship. It could be on getting good grades so you can get into a good college. Whenever our focus is on something other than God, we are cheating Him of what He deserves. As long as our lives are good and problems are small and manageable we are not going to change our focus. For many of us, the only way we will learn to focus on God is to have our worlds rocked and our dreams shattered, in a word, Pain.

Dr. Larry Crabb in his book Shattered Dreams wrote; “But we almost always mistake lesser pleasures for this greatest pleasure (an encounter with God) and live our lives chasing after them. We’re not in touch with our appetite for God” (p. 5). God allows pain in our lives to help us get in touch with our desire for God.

If we were honest with ourselves we would admit that many times the only way God could redirect our focus is to take away the thing that distracts us the most. When our dreams shatter or when our lives are turned upside down the result is pain. Having our lives disrupted is not be a pleasant experience, it does hurt. This is the second reason why pain is valuable in our lives. Pain is valuable because it is an opportunity to trust God.

The apostle Paul wrote about a particular pain he suffered in 2 Corinthians 12:6-10. This is what the Apostle wrote:

If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (NLT)

Pain can be valuable in our lives, but only if we learn the lesson that God wants us to learn. So often we miss out on growing in our relationship with God, because we miss the opportunities God has given to us. The next time you go through a trial or some great pain enters your life, ask God this question, “God what is it that You want me to understand or do?” If you do that I am confident that you will make the most of the pain that is in your life.

Though I believe pain can be valuable, I also believe that not every situation will fit neatly into these two reasons. Sometimes we have to realize that we will not understand that pain and suffering that is happening. Think about the grandmother with Alzheimer. How is that disease valuable to her? How can her character be developed when her mind isn’t functioning? How can she focus on God when she can’t even remember the names of her grandchildren? We will not always understand why God allows pain into the lives of people, especially into the lives of His children. It is a mystery that we need to learn to live with.

The Good Side of Pain #1

After losing his wife the late Christian thinker CS Lewis wrote a book entitled A Grief Observed. The Following quote is taken from that book:

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away.

C.S. Lewis had a difficult time dealing with his wife’s death. It presented him with a crisis of belief, because the pain was real and immense. But C.S. Lewis’ experience is not any different then the rest of humanities’ experience. Everyday people experience pain and suffering, crying out to God and finding no answer.

Let’s be honest, when tragedy happens, when pain enters our lives, God doesn’t always feel close by. Where was God when the World Trade Center was burning in New York? Where was God when a drunk driver killed your friend? Where was God when your parents got divorced? Where was God when your brother got involved with drugs? Where was God when my uncle got cancer and died?

If we were all powerful like so many people claim God to be, then we would use that power to make the world right and good. When we see a friend of ours hurt and suffering we want to do whatever it takes to fix the situation. We love them, and want their lives to be good. Haven’t we heard that God loves us and wants our lives to be good? If that is the case why does God allow suffering to happen?

I know that pain is not a pleasant experience. It hurts! You are out there thinking, “Thanks for pointing out the obvious. I knew that before I came to this class.” Here is my point, even though pain hurts, it is valuable to our lives. One of the worst Star Trek movies made, is Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier. The only redeeming part of the movie is a line the Captain Kirk has. The crew meets up with Spock’s half-brother, a Vulcan who has discovered how to take away the emotional pain that we all have. Imagine what your life would be like if all the emotional baggage you carry could suddenly be taken away. You simply forget about that time you father yelled at you and called you sissy boy. You forget about the deaths of your grandma and of your dog Spot. You don’t remember the betrayal by your best friend when she stole your boyfriend. The fact that you other kids call you fat vanishes from your mind. Wouldn’t that be great!? This Vulcan offers to take away Kirk’s pain, and the Captain looks at him and says, “No! I need my pain. My pain makes me who I am.” Pain is valuable to our lives because it shapes our character. Though to be honest, it isn’t the pain that shapes our character, what shapes our character are our choices, suffering is the environment in which we have to make those choices.

James 1:2-5 says, Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking (NLT).

I want you to understand something, God’s greatest concern in your life is not your happiness. God does not intend for His people to constantly go through life feeling like they are on the top of the world. Why? Because that type of life does not create the type of people God wants us to be. If God immediately took away our pain and struggles we would never know what it would be like to trust Him. Pain and suffering often forces us to rely on God in ways we would never have before.

The struggles, trials, and pain of life is what develops Holiness in our lives. That is God’s greatest concern in our lives, that we be holy. We are created to be holy not happy. Because happiness is not the goal God uses pain to create us to be holy. Rebecca St. James wrote, “God really wants to mold all of us -- male, female, young, and old -- into what He created us to be.” Pain, trials, and struggles are one way God molds us into what He created us to be.

The Good News of Suffering

One of the books I have been reading is Unveiled Hope by Scotty Smith and Michael Card. The book is a devotional look at the book of Revelation and highlights the eternal encouragement found in Revelation. It has been a very good read so far, one that I would recommend if you have plans to read through the last book of the Bible.


As I read through chapter 6: The Hope of Purposeful Suffering (which covers Revelation 6:1-8:1) this morning there was one paragraph which jumped out at me. This is what Scotty Smith wrote:

“How many of us consider suffering an expression of the grace of God? We live in a day in which the gospel has been so corrupted that some teach that the only reason Christians suffer is because of a lack of faith. What an affront this is to the thousands of Christians who die every year because of the faith! The fifth seal brings encouragement, not just to those Christians suffering in John’s day, “because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained,” but also to Christians of every generation” (p. 115)

What happens when the fifth seal is broken in Revelation 6:9-11?

When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony. They shouted to the Lord and said, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us?” Then a white robe was given to each of them. And they were told to rest a little longer until the full number of their brothers and sisters—their fellow servants of Jesus who were to be martyred—had joined them. (NLT)

One of the truths that is very difficult for us to understand is the reality that suffering is not evidence of God’s punishment. This is the core issue of the book of Job. Job’s friends constantly told him that his suffering was due to the fact that he had a secret sin that God was punishing him for. I think Job was struggling because he knew his suffering was not because of a hidden sin, but he had no other frame of reference to evaluate his suffering. He could not understand the purpose of his suffering

What we discover in the New Testament, and Revelation 6:9-11 supports this thought, is that through suffering God purifies us. We are given the white robes because of our faithfulness in the difficult times of life. Suffering is never fun, but God is so powerful that He uses these terrible experiences to mold us into the people He desires us to be. That is why suffering is a grace. It is not something that we would choose, but it is a reality in this world that we live in, and God will not allow the pain and suffering we experience to go to waste.

Yet, when it comes to suffering we also need to keep in mind the big picture. We are reminded of the big picture when we focus on the Lamb who broke the fifth seal. Do you remember what the Lamb looks like? Revelation 5:6 gives us the description. The first thing that John notes is that the Lamb had been killed, in other words the marks of His death were visible on the Lamb. The big picture that we need to remember when it comes to suffering is that God the Father allowed His Son to suffer and die at the hands of sinful men and women so that He could save us from the kingdom of darkness. We are purified, first and foremost, because of the suffering of Jesus. It is the suffering, the death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus that gives meaning and purpose to our suffering.

While suffering is always difficult, let us face it with hope because we know God is using it to make us into the people He wants us to be. In the grand scheme of things that is great news.

Sunday Quote: The End Will Be Glorious

"To those of us who are Christians and faithful, when we are 'made alive in the spirit' we shall be living with our heavenly Father forever. Hence, regardless of the sufferings we may have to endure here, the end will be glorious." ~ Bruce Oberst, Bible Study Textbook: Letters From Peter, p. 90

Blaming God For Suffering

"What is less often asked is why our modern Western world, which has seen a decrease in human suffering unparalleled in human history, seems less able to deal with pain and more quick either to blame God for evil and suffering or to deny his existence altogether—or, as contradictory as it may seem, to do both at the same time. We seem to have lost our ability to adequately wrestle with this most persistent of problems; instead, with each decade that passes, we grow more and more angry with God, even as we believe in him less and less." ~ Louis Markos; Lewis Agonistes; p. 91

Shattered Dreams: Part 4

"‘The Scriptures remind us that God has graciously invited us to come to Him on a personal level. He reaches out to every man, woman, and child and says, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28).”~ Ravi Zacharias; Cries of the Heart

What are God’s dreams for us? If God’s dream from our lives is where we will discover true joy, then isn’t important for us to identify that dream? How do we discover God’s dream for our lives?

We do not relate to God by formula, and God does not reveal Truth to us through a formula. Through history God has used different methods to call and reveal Truth to people. These methods are unique and fit a person’s character and personality. Though all this is true it does not mean that God has not revealed general knowledge through the Bible. We can understand what God’s dream for our lives looks like through the pages of Scripture.

I believe in John 13-17 we can discover five characteristics of the dream we will discover when our dreams for our lives shatter.

1. God’s dreams will call us to be servants: ‘And since I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done’ (John 13:14, 15; NLT).

Jesus has just humbly taken on the role of a servant and washed His disciples’ feet. The command Jesus gives is not a call for us to be foot washers, but for us to be servants. Jesus expects from our lives, not acts of service, but a lifestyle of service. While we will dream of a life of being served; God’s dream for us is to be servants.

2. God’s dreams will call us to love each other: “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my friends” (John 13:34; 35; NLT).

Jesus loved people no matter who they were or what they had done. But Jesus showed His love most to His disciples, to the people who were with Him all the time. This call to love is first and foremost a call to love other Christians. It is through how we treat each other that we separate who we are from the rest of the world. Through loving each other we learn to love the rest of the world. While we will dream of a life of being loved, God’s dream for us is to love other people.

3. God’s dreams will call us to abide in Jesus: “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5; NLT).

Jesus knew the weakness that is inherit in people. We are victims of our flesh, not having enough strength to do what is right. Sure we will have moments of unselfish behavior and right living, but we are not strong enough to live the life God has for us on our own. This requires remaining in Jesus. We have this by being committed to Bible Study, prayer, worship, fellowship, and communion. These things help take the focus off ourselves and put it on Jesus. We will dream of a life of doing our own thing, but God’s dream for us to be surrendered to Jesus.

4. God’s dreams will call us to be led by the Holy Spirit: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not be presenting his own ideas; he will be telling you what he has heard” (John 16:13; NLT).

Jesus experienced the numerous different voices telling Him what to do. He has Satan offering Him all the Kingdoms of the Earth if Jesus would but bow and worship Satan. Jesus had the masses of people who called Him to be a King and deliver them from Rome. We are faced with all these voices, and often we are torn, not knowing what to do. Often we do what seems logical or reasonable rather than seeking the Counsel of God. Our dreams for our lives will be living a life of reason, but God’s dream for our lives have us following the Holy Spirit.

5. God’s dreams will call us to be united: “My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father—that just as you are in me, and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me” (John 17:21; NLT).

Jesus accomplished His mission only because of the relationship He had with His Father. Jesus’ mission was not just about Jesus, but it was about the love of the Trinity for His creation. Jesus wants His followers to work with each other and depend on one another. We will dream of a life of being the “Lone Ranger,” but God’s dreams for us have us being united in love and purpose.

Shattered dreams are painful. Most of the time that pain is needed to wake us up to the temporary dreams we have lived for and see the eternal dream God has for us. When we decide to live for God’s dream our lives will discover the joy and purpose we have longed to have in our lives.

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Shattered Dreams: Part 3

“When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy.” ~ C. S. Lewis; The Problem of Pain

Very rarely do our lives turn out as planned. Most of the time life happens and we get pushed and shoved to places we did not want to go but have no chance of escaping. The life we dreamed of having slowly slips through our fingers as we are forced to deal with the reality of our lives.

Joseph was a man who understood what it means to have shattered dreams. So often when we talk about Joseph in a Biblical context we think about Joseph of the Old Testament. He was a person who experienced shattered dreams. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, accused of a crime he did not commit, and forced to live in prison for years. The dreams he had of becoming great seemed to constantly dwindle away. Though we know now that God used those painful experiences to prepare Joseph for the great task that was ahead of him Joseph lived his life totally unaware of the big picture.

While Joseph, the son of Jacob, could teach us many lessons about shattered dreams that is not the Joseph I want to focus on. I want us to focus on Joseph, the husband of Mary, and the earthly father of Jesus. With all the other characters involved in the beginning of Jesus’ earthly life Joseph is often overlooked, but I want to suggest to you that Joseph experienced the pain of shattered dreams only to discover God’s great dream for his life.

Matthew 1:19 reads: Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly (NIV). We are told that Joseph was a “righteous” man. This description is basically all we know about the character and faith of Joseph. Though it is simple it reveals a lot about who Joseph was.

We have our own ideas about what it means to be righteous. We think of someone who is moral and religious. We picture a good person who tries his/her best to live out their faith in their lives.

For the Jew of that time period to be considered righteous meant that you were a lover of the Law, or the Torah. Joseph was not a Pharisee or a disciple of some rabbi. He was an ordinary hard working Jew. That meant he lacked the extensive religious education of the religious leaders, but he was still trained in the Law and had been brought up to love it. For Joseph to be considered righteous meant that he showed passion in studying and following the Torah. He was on path to be respected by the people of the community and to set as an elder. It was the dream most males of that strict religious culture had.

Yet things did not turn out the way Joseph had dreamed they would go. Instead his young fiancé surprised him with her pregnancy. Joseph knows the child is not his and Mary makes the outlandish claim that no man is the father. I think even on this side of Jesus we can understand Joseph’s doubts about Mary’s explanation. The way Joseph sees things is that Mary is pregnant and the baby is not his. That leaves him with just one alternative: she has been unfaithful.

I want you to think about the implications this realization had for Joseph. What did the Torah say about unfaithfulness? Unfaithfulness was punishable by death. If Joseph was a lover of the Torah what would he demand be done? Laws are no good if the punishments are not carried out, and Joseph knew the punishment that Mary’s “sin” called for.

We have our own idea of what righteousness means and that is probably the reason the NIV uses the word “because” in verse 19. In the translators view it was because Joseph was a righteous man that he looked for an option so Mary would not have to go through he public disgrace of stoning. That lines up real well with our view or righteousness.

I would like to suggest that a better way to translate verse 19 is with the word “although.” It wasn’t because Joseph was righteous that he looked for a way to help Mary avoid stoning, but it was in spite of his righteousness that he sought to help Mary. The righteous part of Joseph wanted justice to be done. God had commanded that adulterers be stoned and so we see that this was a perfectly acceptable punishment in God’s eyes. Joseph would have been within his rights to see Mary punished.

Why didn’t he? I would assume that there was a force greater than righteousness working in the heart of Joseph. That force was love. Joseph loved Mary and he did not want to see anything bad happen to her, even though he thought she had betrayed him.

There is very little we know about Joseph and Mary’s relationship. We know that engagement for these ancient Jews was much more binding than our simple little promise and ring giving, but how well the two knew each other is uncertain. What I am confident about is on the day Joseph learned Mary would be his wife Joseph chose to love her and her alone. As he prepared the place in which they would live together he had fantasized about what life would be like. He thought about the family they would have and all the other things a man dreams about before getting married. Joseph loved Mary, and because of that he did not wish to see her public disgraced.

Who does this sound like? Doesn’t it sound like God? If what I am said is true then Joseph would have a God like quality about him. Remember God’s righteousness demands justice, our deaths, but His love seeks to save us from the horrors of being separated from God.

To divorce Mary quietly Joseph would be able to spare Mary’s life and he would admit her guilt. Joseph could still work on his dream of becoming a righteous man.

Why didn’t Joseph just marry Mary? To me the most noble and loving thing to do would be to still go though with the wedding in an attempt to save Mary from making more bad choices.

We have to understand that if Joseph went ahead and married Mary his reputation would be ruined and his chance at being an elder and a Lover of the Torah would be gone. In the small town of Nazareth everyone would find out about Mary and her illegitimate son. They would talk and Joseph would lose both business and his reputation because it would seem like he was accepting Mary’s sin. To marry Mary would demolish all of Joseph’s dreams.

After wrestling with what to do, God finally sends an angel to Joseph to explain to him what to do. God wants Joseph to do the very thing that will make it impossible for him to achieve his dreams.

Why does God wait? Why doesn’t he send Gabriel to Mary and Joseph on the same night? After all Gabriel is in the area it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Could it be that God wanted Joseph to really examine the price he was going to pay to take Mary as his wife? Joseph knew that to take Mary as his wife would cost him his reputation, his business, and standing in the community. Joseph needed to examine his life and come to an understanding about what he cared most about.

God’s dream for Joseph’s life was not about a life built on the reputation of being a lover of the Law. God’s dream for Joseph’s life was to be the primary teacher of the law and ethics to Jesus. Joseph raised the Messiah! While the people around him probably thought he was crazy Joseph knew that true righteousness is found in doing God’s Will and not being merely a student of His Law.

Through his life Joseph was able to be an example to Jesus. I know that it sounds crazy that a mere human could be an example to the Son of God, but I think Joseph was an example. Think about the example Joseph was when he loved Mary, even though people whispered about her being an adulterer. Think about Joseph’s example when he accepted and loved Jesus, even though the town continually talked about Jesus not being Joseph’s son. Think about how Joseph struggled to find work because he was no longer seen as a righteous man in the eyes of the people of the community. Jesus’ family would have been treated as sinners, even though the sin people thought was committed never happened. Doing those important years of life Joseph would have been an example to Jesus about love and doing the right thing in spite of the negative consequences,

Joseph’s dreams were shattered when Mary came to him and announced that she was pregnant. His life was not made easier because he accepted God’s dream for his life, but it was made better. Joseph dreamed of having a reputation, but God dreamed of Joseph having an influence. The influence of Joseph on Jesus’ life, and thus on the world, will probably not be understood until heaven. Often the dreams God has for us we will not see in this life, but in the life to come.

Our dreams, even though they seem religious and good, only get in the way of what God wants to do through us. Only when we accept God’s call on our lives will we find the life we were created to live. Let go of your dreams and let them shatter so you can pick up God’s dream.

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Shattered Dreams: Part 2

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” ~ C.S. Lewis; The Problem of Pain

Shattered dreams hurt. It is painful to watch your marriage crumble. It hurts to know the job you love is no longer needed. It aches to have to move from the home you have grown to love. It stings to be rejected by a person you adore. When our dreams shatter we feel it in the very depths of our heart.

It is a great understatement to say that we hate pain. Pain makes our lives uncomfortable whether it is physical or emotional, because it constantly throbs reminding us of its presence. We might be able to find brief moments when we can get away from the pain, but it always seems to come back.

Life, we think, would be so much better if we didn’t have to feel pain. The reality is that pain is a necessity of life. Take for example Ashlyn Blocker. Ashlyn is a young kindergarten girl and she has CIPA (congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis); a rare genetic disorder that makes it impossible for her to feel pain. Her parents and teachers have to be constantly aware of what she is doing. She will eat hot food and not know it is burning her mouth. She can be cut and bleed and not realize she is hurt. Pain serves as a reminder that things are not what they should be. Pain tells us that something is wrong with our body. Without it we wouldn’t know something is wrong.

Our emotional pain serves the same kind of purpose. Emotional pain tells us things are not what they should be. The big reason for this is because we live in a fallen world and the reality of sin and death means pain is going to be our companion at least some of the time. Pain reminds us that we are not in Heaven yet and that things are not how they should be. God is able to use pain to get out attention to think about the deeper issues of life. Without pain most of us would never take the time to think about the reason for life. God wants us to live the life He has dreamed for us, but we will never find that life when we are so focused on our dreams. Painful circumstances are often what it takes to get us to focus our dreams on God.

We can understand that pain serves a purpose, but we still do not like it. We don’t understand how God can care for us so much, yet do nothing when excruciating pain is present in our lives. After all, if we saw a person we love in pain we would do whatever we could to make the pain go away. God can make the pain go away, but He doesn’t. Instead, in the midst of our pain, we hear nothing from God.

That is what makes the problem of pain so hard to understand. Is God ignorant of what pain feels like? Does He understand the feelings of sorrow, hurt, loneliness, and a host of other feelings that penetrate our hearts when our dreams shatter? God doesn’t seem to care about us the way we would care for our loved ones.

God is not ignorant of the feeling of pain! Jesus Christ is a testimony to the fact that God knows what pain is. Jesus, the Son of God, experienced the pain of rejection, physical beatings, and crucifixion. God experienced the emotional pain as the fellowship the Trinity was torn apart as Jesus took on our sin. Jesus, His life and death, reminds us that God knows all about pain.

When we experience pain it might seem like God does not care, but the testimony of Jesus tells us otherwise. God cares about us, and when we forget this the pain of shattered dreams will be unbearable. Knowing God loves us will help us bear enormous pain. The millions of Christians who have been persecuted and martyred are proof of what a person can endure when they are certain of God’s love.

The pain of shattered dreams doesn’t mean God has abandoned us. It is through this pain that God is able to show us the temporary nature of our dreams and how much better His dreams are for our lives. Pain is not proof that God doesn’t love us; rather it is proof that life is not what it should be.


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Shattered Dreams: Part 1

“I know, I know—we’ve been told that we matter to God. And part of us partly believes it. But life has a way of chipping away at that conviction, undermining our settled belief that he means us well. I mean, if that’s true, then why didn’t he ________________? Fill in the blank. Heal your mom. Save your marriage. Get you married. Help you more.

“Either (a) we’re blowing it, or (b) God is holding out on us. Or some combination of both, which is where most people land.” ~ John Eldredge; Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heat Fully Alive

Think for a moment about the different dreams you have had for your life. What were your dreams for a family, a job, friendships, a house, and whatever else you can think of? Isn’t true that we have these expectations for what life should be like? I would imagine for most of us the life we are living right now is not the life we dreamed we would have.

On the one hand this isn’t a terrible thing. The life we dreamed of when we were younger was filled with many unrealistic expectations. In fact if we achieved those dreams our lives may have turned out for the worse rather than the better. Think about the life of the sports or rock star. Would we be able to live a life which pleases God if we were surrounded by the temptations and pressures they face everyday? What if you married the first crush you ever had; would reality be like the fairy tale you dreamed? We recognize that it is not a horrible thing that all our dreams go unfulfilled.

Yet on the other hand we have dreams which we believe are essential to our happiness. The single person might begin to believe that the one thing which would make his/her life truly happy is to be married (while a married person might wish for the freedom of singleness). Or a person might believe a certain job or possession is essential for their happiness. When these things do not come our way or are taken away from us our dreams of a happy life are shattered. We shake our fist at God and shout; “Don’t You care about my happiness? I thought You loved me!” More often then not God’s answer to us is silence. We pray and pray and pray and God remains unresponsive.

God does care about us. 1 Peter 5:7 reads; Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you (NLT). So we are left with a dilemma. Either the Bible is lying and God doesn’t care about us (or doesn’t even exist) or God wants something different from our lives.

I am convinced that God has a wonderful life for us. The problem is that our dreams of what a wonderful life looks like and God's plan for our lives look nothing alike. We dream of being served, and God's dream has us serving. We dream of winning the lottery, and God's dream has us giving so much it hurts. We dream of being recognized for all the wonderful things we have done, and God's dream has us quietly working behind the scenes. The reality is that in order to discover His life for us God has to allow our dreams to shatter. God allows life to happen to us so that we might one day wake-up to discover His dream for our lives.

Until we realize the insignficance of our dreams we will always put more effort into achieving what we think will make us happy rather than on what will make us holy. That is the main difference between God's dream for our lives and our dreams. We dream about a happy life. God dreams about holy lives.

God has to allow our dreams to shatter so we will wake-up to the reality that He has a totally different life for us to live. If we never re-adjust our focus we will always live a life that is not in line with the best God has for us. Shattered Dreams are not the end of life, but are the beginning of the best life to come.

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