[1-10] [11-20] [21-30] [Nazareth Syndrome]
Day #11: The “Blessing” of ISIS
Read: Psalm 94:16-19
As our van bumped along a winding road through the Iraqi countryside, my new Iraqi friend, Fada, and I conversed about many things. Finally I warmed to my favorite subject, “So, how did you come to know Jesus?”
Fada’s story starts in Baghdad, where she was born and raised. Married now with two sons, she and her family were forced to flee Baghdad by Islamic militants called ISIS. With little more than the clothes on their backs, they landed in the Kurdish-controlled city of Erbil. Though they had been people of means before, paying for an apartment without income from a job quickly exhausted their resources. So it was that on the first day that they couldn’t cover their rent, their landlord put them out immediately.
“I couldn’t believe we were kicked out and living on the street!” Fada said. “I was so angry at God! Why would He allow us to be in such a shameful situation? But by the second day my anger was replaced with fear and desperation. We had already contacted every friend or family member we knew and had no one else to call.
“On the second day, a stranger approached us and asked why we were on the street. When we told him he said, ‘Why stay on the streets? My church will help you.’
“So we followed this man we didn’t know to his church. These strangers took us in and treated us more kindly than our own friends and family! Soon my boys and I started attending services, which is how I found Christ.”
Though her story differed in detail, it contained a common thread I had been hearing in other faith stories from Iraqi and Syrian Christians. The common thread is that it was through the dreadful situations caused by ISIS and Muslim-on-Muslim violence that they found eternal life in Christ. I had heard this so frequently that I had started to think of ISIS, as outrageous as it sounds, as a great “evangelist”!
Wanting to try out the term on Fada, I said, “So, maybe we could say that ISIS is a great–,” and at this point, to my utter surprise, she completed my thought with, “–blessing”.
Yes, her family’s losses were deep and real, but she could honestly affirm that ISIS was a “blessing” because ISIS chased them straight to the church and the waiting arms of her Savior.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) Describe a time in your life when you saw God use a negative, unjust, or even evil situation or event to, in the end, bless you or someone else. What was the good that He brought about in the end?
2) Is this the same as saying that catalyst – the unjust or evil thing itself – is good? Explain.
Day #12: Part 1: Groaning Spoken Here
Read: Romans 8:22-26
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves…groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies…In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness…[interceding] for us through wordless groans.”
Why, in a world which has been groaning since being subjected to the curse, should we be surprised at the amount of groaning we earth-dwellers do?
Romans 8:22-26 describes some of the groaning going on, which extends beyond mankind to the planet, to the entire universe, and even to the Holy Spirit! The word groan in this passage (Greek “stenazo”) carries the idea of sighing, mourning, or crying out (as in anguish). It is sound rising out of deepest human pathos, an emotion so powerful one abandons words while retaining “audibles” described as moans, sighs, and groans.
We groan in sickness and in dying. We groan in brokenness and in pain. We groan in longing and in loss. We groan because we’re stuck in bodies that die a little more each day. Oh, yes, we groan, longing to finally be able to put on our perfect, eternal bodies!
That the Godhead groans is in itself staggering, putting an end to the lie from the adversary that God is disinterested and aloof. The other side of the God-that-groans “coin” – the Happy God of which author John Piper has written extensively – is somehow easier to grasp. Yet the Scriptures present both as equally true as they are mysterious.
Returning to the passage, there is a profound blessing found here that we mustn’t pass over. When the Bible states that the Holy Spirit groans, it is not a groan on human terms, most often accompanied by the rolling of eyes, a “tsk, tsk,” and a “What? Not again!”
No. The groaning of the Spirit comes out of a bottomless reservoir of compassion. This groaning transcends mere feeling and rises to the Father in the form of prayers; not just prayers, but perfect prayers, prayers personally crafted by the Holy Spirit to precisely match both our need and the Father’s will.
Only in the matrix of divine love could groaning be transformed into blessing. Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Read Romans 8:26
1) In the middle of the darkness and pain of great loss, how might the fact that God the Holy Spirit is praying for us impact us? How might this truth strengthen us?
2) What are some words you could use to describe how you feel knowing that God’s Spirit is interceding for you in your “groaning”?
3) Describe a time when you sensed that the invisible hands of God were upholding you. Based on this verse, could this be due to not just the prayers of others but also of the Holy Spirit?
Day #13: Part 2 (Groaning): An Aria Breaks Forth
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; Psalm 86:1-4; Psalm 88:1-2
Out of deepest sorrow can rise a richness and beauty one would never think possible. Timothy Keller tells of a man, Greg, who in the midst of deep brokenness and traumatic loss, likened his deep suffering to an operatic aria. Keller writes, “[Greg] observed how in the middle of many operas there was a crucial aria, a ‘sad and moving solo’ in which the main character turned sorrow into something beautiful. And Greg said, ‘This is my moment to sing the aria. I don’t want to, I don’t want to have this chance, but it’s here now, and what am I going to do about it? Am I going to rise to the occasion?’” (Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, pp 164-165)
This aria can be heard and maybe even enjoyed by others, but can only be fully known, understood, and savored by heaven.
We have no doubt sung our share of such arias and have heard others’ as well. It’s that person who cannot stem the flow of tears each week during church. This is an aria.
It’s someone, like my mother in her later years, who cannot get through even the first phrase of a prayer without getting choked up. They are longing for something. This is an aria.
Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus looked out at those mourning their friend. Though He knew they would soon be elated, their profound sadness moved Him. Jesus wept. This was an aria.
Arias are sung from desperate places such as ash heaps, from the belly of a great fish, or from the end of oneself when asked for an excruciating third time, “Peter, do you love me?”
Often those emerging out of deepest sorrow of soul have expressed, with a tinge of sadness, how they already miss the special intimacy they knew with God when He carried them through the darkest times. These are arias.
Like Greg said, no one wants to sing the aria. Sad arias can only be sung by sad people, and nobody wants to be sad, crushed, broken. But when it’s our turn, the unscripted, unrehearsed song can rise, if we let it, on a cue all its own when it can no longer be held back.
Arias weave sadness into something tender and beautiful. When it is our turn, will we sing?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) Describe a time when you or someone you know chose to “sing an aria” during suffering instead of giving in to bitterness or anger.
2) What impact did the sad but beautiful “aria” have on those “hearing” it?
3) How much, if any, should the knowledge that others are listening and observing us in our grief impact us?
- What could be some negative impacts?
- What could be some positive impacts?
Bad things happen in the freedom that comes with life.”
– Pastor Dr. Jim Bull, Glendale, Arizona
Day #14: Cleaning House — Chaff, Dross, and Dust
Read: Hebrews 10:36; James 1:2-4
A church in Auckland, New Zealand, purchased an old building. Once a jewelry factory, the building had sat empty for years, so the group got busy cleaning. By the end of the day they had a large pile of dust and dirt to discard when someone got the brilliant idea of putting it through a furnace. After all, the dust was collected from the floor of a jewelry factory. Amazingly, the furnace did indeed reveal precious materials, and they walked away with $8,500! The next day they returned with the filthy, matted carpet and this time walked away with $3,500. And why not the ceiling tiles, too? – $350.
This story illustrates a truth from the Scriptures. The Bible likens faith to gold, silver, and precious stones. Mined straight from the ground, these precious materials look like humble hunks of rock. It’s the work of the fire to consume the common materials, leaving behind something beautiful and precious.
But fiery trials do more than purify; they firm up and consolidate. Those precious, tiny bits in the floor sweepings from the jewelry factory had value, but far more so when brought together. Our fiery trials give faith and virtue a chance to “work out” together, strengthening those “muscles” IF we allow it.
An untried faith is weak, reactive, clumsy, and naïve. Honed by the heat and pressures of real life troubles, faith can become strong, measured, agile, and confident. The world of sports provides excellent examples to illustrate.
In NFL football, most teams look like sure playoff contenders in July, as teams practice with their own teammates. The real test comes in September, when they don their pads and play for real against a team not afraid to hit and hit hard. It is here that a team’s true depth is revealed.
As boxer Mike Tyson astutely noted, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
No one enjoys getting punched in the mouth! No one longs for trials and testing to come, but as the Apostle Peter aptly noted, “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold.” (1 Peter 1:7a NLT)
When our time of testing comes, will we rise to the level of patient endurance?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Read 1 Peter 1:6-7
1) What impact do you think Peter intended when he wrote these words to believers passing through dark and stormy times of strong persecution?
2) Look back on a “fiery trial” you have experienced. Could you say that this hard experience ended up purifying and strengthening your faith and trust towards God? Explain.
3) Peter says we can “rejoice” as we suffer grief in all kinds of trials. How might this form of “rejoicing” be similar and also different from the rejoicing we experience at, for example, the birth of a child or another happy event?
Day #15: An Argument from Silence: The Un-Prayer
Read: 1 Thessalonians 3:3-4; Acts 9:16
From the first, Paul was destined for suffering; and suffer he did. Everywhere he went, he and his message brewed up trouble.
The most despicable troublemakers were the Thessalonians – not the common people, but the leaders. Paul’s initial ministry there was going along just fine. It was only when amazing things started happening – when the power of the gospel was unleashed and people responded – that trouble started.
The Jews become jealous when they see people accepting Paul’s message, so they go to the market place and round up unsavory characters and start a riot. Unable to locate Paul, they grab some innocents and have them arrested. That night, under the cloak of darkness, the brothers send Paul on to the next town.
Fifty miles later, Paul is teaching in the next town, Berea, and God is once again blessing his message with great fruit.
Now things get even uglier.
Back in Thessalonica, the haters hear that Paul’s message is having success in Berea. Once again they round up their rabble-rousers and send them off to destroy Paul’s work there, too! These jealous leaders were just like those Jesus warned, saying, “Woe to you, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13-14) They were really bad guys. Wolves!
In perfect contrast to these bad Thessalonians were the good Thessalonians. This church was so obedient, the only exhortation Paul could conjure up was to tell them to just “keep doing what you are doing, and do it more and more.” They were really good people.
Knowing there were ravenous wolves living among his precious Thessalonian “sheep,” Paul’s prayers were extra-fervent. It’s exactly here where the insight on prayer for suffering people is gained, not just in what Paul prayed for them, but especially in what he did NOT pray. He does not pray that they will be spared persecution, but that they would not be shaken by it. Finally, Timothy comes with a positive report after which Paul writes, “You yourselves know that we are appointed to…suffer tribulation. Now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 3:4, 8)
Certainly it isn’t wrong to pray that our loved ones be spared trouble. The point here is simply that this was not Paul’s first reflex as he prayed for his friends in trying circumstances; and this silence says a lot.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) How can the way Paul prayed for his Thessalonian friends be explained? How might it instruct us in praying for persecuted believers?
2) Amazingly, even today church leaders in China and other places often say, “Do not pray that the persecution stops.” Why would they say this?
3) Do you know someone who is being persecuted for his or her faith? Take time now to pray for that person or group in a way that is consistent with how Paul prayed for persecuted believers.
4) If you don’t know believers being persecuted for their faith, find a story at Voice of the Martyrs (www.persecution.com) or Open Doors (www.opendoors.org) websites.
Day #16: No Graven Image (Pt 1)
Read: Romans 3:3-4; Exodus 20:3-4
Author Elisabeth Elliot had both the credibility and the agility of mind and pen to speak concerning suffering. Her first husband was savagely martyred, her second died from cancer, and her third cared for her through a long, debilitating illness which took her in 2015.
Evidence of the hard storyline Elliot’s life took is that a novel she published, which closely mirrored her own story, was met with criticism by the Christian public at the time. The primary complaint about the book entitled, No Graven Image, was that it wasn’t believable; certainly God would never subject one of His choice servants to such adversity!
Obviously those who complained: 1) were not familiar with Elliot’s own story; and 2) didn’t enjoy having their own “graven images” of what God is really like challenged. Elliot welcomed the criticism, which only confirmed the book’s premise: that God is who He is, does as He wills, and answers to no one but Himself; any other god we erect in our hearts is a graven image.
How do our own concepts of God stand against the tests of the Scriptures and of life? Have we built enough mystery into our faith so that we are unshaken by a God who
- tells the Israelites to draw close to Him at the mount and then terrifies them? (Exodus 20:18-19)
- heals Naaman’s leprosy but inflicts it on Elisha’s servant? (2 Kings 5)
- promises to answer prayer (John 14:14) yet sometimes is silent?
- promises to never leave us (Hebrews 13:5) yet sometimes it feels as if He is absent?
- bottom line – allows seemingly bad things to happen to good people?
Have you noticed how the god we erect in our hearts usually looks strangely like ourselves, following our logic, acting as we think best? Then, when we anticipate God will “zig,” but instead He “zags,” we are hurt, disillusioned, even offended. Such responses – and we’ve all had them – are evidence of a faulty view of God, a graven image. Even Job slipped up on this point.
“Let God be true and every man a liar.” (Romans 3:4) Imagine how different life would be if we could be so deeply planted in biblical faith that all God allows – good or bad – were equally met in our hearts with worship and awe, especially when it is different from our expectation.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) What kind of “graven image” do people typically erect about God?
2) How do they respond when He shatters their graven image by responding differently from what they expected (including a response of seeming silence)?
3) What do you think would be a God-honor response to these inevitable “surprises”?
Day #17: No Graven Image (Part 2) – Crises of Faith
Read: Jeremiah 1:4-10; John 6:60-69
Anyone walking in relationship with the invisible God has suffered when their inaccurate conceptions of God – called “graven images” by Elisabeth Elliot – are exposed. For many this constitutes a crisis of faith, of which it could be said that if it doesn’t kill you it will make you stronger. Sadly not everyone’s faith survives.
EARLY FOLLOWERS One time after Jesus taught a really hard lesson that some of his followers didn’t understand, some turned away. John 6:66-68, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” The Twelve were equally as baffled by Jesus’ hard teaching as were those who turned away, but their faith held up. Jesus asked, “You do not want to leave, too, do you?” Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” True disciples survive the test, but usually not without scars.
JEREMIAH Jeremiah’s crisis of faith came when he realized that the task he thought God had given him turned out to be something quite different. He cried out, “O, Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed.” (Jeremiah 20:7) Certainly Jeremiah knew God wouldn’t trick or overpower him, but sometimes what we know and what we feel can differ greatly. At times like these, survival requires a trust rooted not in what we feel, but in who God is and His ability to hold us fast to Him.
MOSES One of Moses’ crises of faith came when God responded in a way Moses didn’t expect. God told Moses He would use him to deliver Israel from Pharaoh’s hand. With the hopes of Israel raised, Moses confronts Pharaoh exactly as God instructed. Imagine Moses’ alarm when this encounter results in Pharaoh increasing Israel’s hardship! The Israelites hearts are now soured toward Moses, who cries out to God, “Lord! Why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me?” Disillusionment… It hurts.
God is who He is, not who we imagine Him to be. He does as He wills, not always as we expect. While clashes between the God that is and the God of our imaginations often go without being resolved in reason, they will always be resolved in a stronger faith in the true God…as long as we don’t let our faith die.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) Can you relate to the experiences of the men cited here, who were disillusioned by God? Describe an experience when the “God that is” clashed with the “God of your imagination”.
2) How did you survive this crisis of faith?
3) What advice could you give others who are in the midst of this kind of crisis of faith?
“Don’t look at God through the filter of your circumstances;
look at your circumstances through the filter of who God is.”
– Stuart Briscoe
Day #18: No Graven Image (Part 3) – Obedience is The Highest Service
Read: Ps. 46:10; Ps. 95:6-7; Ps. 115:3
Elisabeth Elliot eventually wrote an autobiography of her first year as a missionary. The book, called These Strange Ashes, recounts some of the heartbreaking losses marking that year for both her and her future husband, Jim Elliot.
Elisabeth and Jim had surrendered their lives to missionary service, but at the end of that year they felt it was all a waste. Elisabeth spent her year learning an unwritten language, in which she hoped to one day translate the Bible. But every note and language card was lost! Then her language helper, the only person on earth fluent in both languages she needed, was brutally murdered! As for Jim, he spent the year felling trees and making boards for a building project, but every last board was carried away in a flood!
What a waste that year of their life seemed! Or had it been?
Elliot ends her book with an apocryphal story well-known to the early church, indicating that they, too, struggled with “graven images,” i.e. reconciling the God of their minds with the God of reality.
The story goes like this:
One day Jesus said to His disciples, “I’d like you to carry a stone for me.” So the disciples each went to find a stone. Peter, being the practical sort, looked for a small stone – after all, Jesus hadn’t specified about size. With the stone in his pocket, Peter joined the others and off they went when Jesus said, “Follow me.”
A few hours later they were hungry. Jesus waved His hand over them, and behold! Their stones became bread! Peter’s little bit of lunch was consumed in a minute, and there he sat, waiting for the others to finish.
Lunch over, Jesus made the same request and off the disciples went in search of another rock. This time Peter got it! He returned to the group with a boulder-size rock just as Jesus said, “Follow me.” All afternoon Peter struggled to carry the boulder, but looked forward to his payoff at dinner. The sun neared the horizon just as they reached the sea. There Jesus said, “Now, throw your stone into the sea.”
Peter and the others looked at him dumbfounded. Jesus sighed and said, “Don’t you remember what I asked you to do? For whom were you carrying the stone?”
For whom do we carry the stone?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) In this apocryphal story*, how was Peter’s “obedience” actually self-serving?
2) Give examples of ways that, sometimes, our obedience to God might also be self-serving.
3) While we can never fully know our deepest motives, how can we avoid the example of Peter in this story, following instead the example of John?
*possibly used for instruction in the early Church
Day #19: No Graven Image (Part 4) – Which Image Will We Embrace?
Read: John 20:19-21
Yesterday, we read the story of Elisabeth and her future husband Jim Elliot and how they despaired that their first year of missionary service had been a complete waste. In the novel version of her story, entitled, No Graven Image, Elisabeth refers to her disillusionment at that time as evidence of a faulty view of God, a “graven image,” and it stung!
Ten years later, in 1975, Elisabeth’s actual autobiography was published. The title, These Strange Ashes, was lifted from a poem of the same name by Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India whose writings Elliot thoroughly mastered.
The first two lines of Carmichael’s poem are:
But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness,
This baffling sense of loss?
Through her own experience with “baffling losses,” Elisabeth arrives at some profound conclusions, among which are these two:
Conclusion #1: “Faith’s most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.”
We pray, “Lord, we could use a little help here.” The heavens like brass.
“Lord, won’t you please …
…heal?” No healing comes.
…bring my spouse back to me?” Divorce papers arrive.
…restore my relationship?” The wounded-ness deepens
…give us a child?” Another month of No.
Conclusion #2: “It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself.” This truth, fully embraced today, will bring richness and stability to our lives, especially during times of disillusionment. It is in our times of acceptance of what is given – in the disappointment when we realize we still do not know Him as we ought – that God gives us Himself.
The crucifixion represented for the disciples a time when God “zigged” when they expected Him to “zag.” Disillusioned and hurting, they cloistered themselves behind bolted doors. Heads in hands, they must have wondered, “What was all that about? So much for Jesus restoring Israel!” They had been wrong and it was crushing.
Suddenly, “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ … The disciples were overjoyed! Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you!’” (John 20:19-21)
“It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself.” Shouldn’t this be enough?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) What “stunning array of evidence” (“Conclusion 1”) have you experienced in your life as a believer that unbelievers might point to saying it proves your faith vain, worthless, or useless?
2) Describe similar examples of this in Scripture. (Examples might be the disciples on the first two days after the crucifixion, or Job’s wife, or many other stories where the individual was never proven right.)
3) Elliot’s Conclusion 2 says, “It is in our times of acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself.” What does this mean? How is this acceptance different from sighing resignation?
Day #20: Sometimes Knowing What the Reason Is Not Is Enough
Read: Jeremiah 31:20
Yesterday we considered the first two lines of Amy Carmichael’s poem, “These Strange Ashes”
But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness,
This baffling sense of loss?
The next six lines are an answer to this question:
Son, was the anguish of my stripping less
Upon the torturing cross?
Was I not brought into the dust of death,
A worm and no man, I;
Yea, turned to ashes by the vehement breath
of fire, on Calvary?
The full poem merits study, but we focus for now on the stunning truth of these six phrases. As it turns out, suffering is not limited to man; God also suffers.
GOD THE SON SUFFERS
Jesus’ suffering was not limited to His atoning death on the cross. He also suffered in His incarnation, when He forever altered His nature by adding “100-percent-man” to His 100-percent-God nature. He wept at Lazarus’ tomb and mourned because of Israel’s unbelief. He prayed with “fervent cries and tears.”
GOD THE FATHER SUFFERS
In the days of Noah, God the Father “grieved that He had made man…His heart was filled with pain.” Later He would long for errant Israel: “Is not Ephraim my dear son?…My heart yearns for him…”
GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT SUFFERS
God’s Spirit can be grieved by disobedience and hardness of heart. Isaiah wrote, “[Israel] rebelled and grieved [God’s] Holy Spirit,” (Isaiah 63:10), and then the New Testament version, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” (Ephesians 4:30)
The truth that God can be trusted in suffering because He is a participant in it is a main premise of Timothy Keller’s book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. Keller identifies God’s participation in suffering as the “counterweight and the complement to the teaching that God is sovereign and uses suffering as a part of his often inscrutable purposes” (p. 147). His conclusion is that, while we cannot fully understand why God allows suffering and evil, “at least we know what the reason is not. It cannot be that he does not love us. It cannot be that he does not care” (p 121, italics mine).
So while we walk here below, where reasons for suffering are often allusive, can it be enough for now to know what the reason is not, that it is not for a lack of our Father’s love that we suffer?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1) How would you explain the suffering of God to someone else, whether to a believer or not-yet-believer?
2) Is the fact that God suffers a strength of God, or a weakness? Explain.
3) Which attributes of God listed below are evident in His willingness to suffer? Why?
Eternal Good
Never changes Just
All-powerful Merciful
All-knowing Gracious
All-wise Loving and compassionate
Everywhere present Holy
Self-existent Glorious
Faithful and true Immaterial