The Sun Will Come Out After the Dentist Appointment
There are memorable exceptions, but for the most part, I don't like to write when I'm not doing well. I'm helplessly honest when I write, usually more so than in teaching or even in conversation, and I fear that my transparency will reveal the negativity inside. There's nothing wrong with pouring your ugliness out before God, or before a best friend, but to the whole world via blog or Facebook? I think there's more than enough of that going around. And it probably isn't helping the general public to hear that you're broke, your car won't start, or you are mad at someone.
This is probably what the psalmist Asaph had in mind. At first he complained, "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning" (Psalm 73:13-14). Then he realizes that this private struggle is not exactly ripe for an open forum of discussion: "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed the generation of your children" (v.15). He realizes that some things are better kept to an inner circle of loved ones... At least until enough time has lapsed to grant some perspective to the situation.
That's the topic of this blog, anyway - perspective. Perspective in suffering.
I have been working on writing projects ever since I have moved here to the Central Coast, but yesterday was one of those days I just couldn't write. From morning to evening, everything was going wrong. I woke up with a cold/virus/thing which proved to exacerbate the symptoms of Lyme. I left a bag of my books with my social security card in it in a parking lot. My internet connection mysteriously has ceased to work, and the Office Depot guy couldn't figure it out either. My health insurance decided to increase the price. As the virus/Lyme symptoms escalated throughout the day, so, too, did my faithless outlook. I started wondering why I moved here, why God hasn't healed me yet, why I have to do this awful new diet prescribed by my doctor, and why I really need this and that and blah blah blah. I went to bed pleading with God for a better day, for a smidgen of relief in the cacophony of serial trials.
Today started with a dentist appointment, which promised to continue yesterday's mood. And it was, indeed, unpleasant, as she scraped and poked and scoured with a device that was surely used in ancient Chinese torturing methods. But it wasn't as bad as the last dentist appointment. The teeth-cleaning lady was friendly, and it was less painful than the previous visit.
As the day has moved on, I have noticed that the overwhelming wave of symptoms from yesterday is retreating. The dreaded dental cleaning is over; it's a sunny day outside the Pismo Beach Starbucks. Nobody stole my social security card yesterday; I found it right where I left it, thankfully. Somehow the financial and technological struggles of yesterday are in the back of my mind, I know they will be resolved one way or another.
I took a walk in the sun a few moments ago, realizing what a stark change it all was compared to yesterday. I thanked God, and a quote that I read yesterday surfaced in my mind.
"Have we missed the perspective of the timelessness of the universe?
"Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort? Yet we bitterly complain about a lifetime that includes suffering when that lifetime is a mere hour of eternity.
"In the Christian scheme of things, this world and the time spent here are not all there is. Earth is a proving ground; a dot in eternity - but a very important dot, for Jesus said our destiny depends on our obedience here. Next time you want to cry out to God in anguished despair, blaming him for a miserable world, remember: less than one-millionth of the evidence has been presented, and that is being worked out under a rebel flag." (Philip Yancey, Open Windows, cited in Be Still My Soul by Nancy Guthrie)
On my sunshine filled walk, I began to wonder if the juxtaposition between yesterday's woes and today's peace was a foretaste of a heavenly perspective. What if yesterday is a picture of my bout with Lyme Disease? One short moment in eternity that will soon be forgotten, swallowed up by the pleasures of heaven. That is a happy thought... What if it's true? Could it be that what has seemed so devastating, so life-altering, so painful and long and agonizing, will one day be over, and when it is, I will look back with a shrug and a smile? More than that, to look back and see how beneficial it was in the eternal sense?
Tim Keller has said, "That is the ultimate defeat of evil. To say that our suffering is an illusion or to say we will be compensated for our suffering is one thing. But to say that the suffering we experience now will one day be a servant of our joy does not just compensate for it, it undoes it." (Tim Keller, taken from the sermon "Christian hope and suffering," also cited in Guthrie's book)
It undoes it! How amazing that our pain will not only be left in the dust of history, it will be undone by the glory we will experience in the presence of Jesus in the age to come. It reminds me of Samwise Gamgee's question to Gandalf at the end of the Lord of the Rings series, after evil had finally been destroyed: "Is everything sad going to come untrue?" (J.R.R. Tolkien, Return of the King, p. 283)
The answer is yes - everything sad will come untrue. With his eyes fixed longingly on eternity, the Apostle Paul wrote, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).
It's not even worth comparing; meaning, what is coming is so splendid that it cannot even be measured on the same scales of our suffering in this life. That's good news, friends. It's something to hope for. It's something that will make any sort of pain in this life worth it if we continue to trust in our Redeemer.
It's easy to be negative on bad days, and it's easy to question God's goodness. That's because, as Yancey said, we only have one-millionth of the evidence, "and that is being worked out under a rebel flag"! When we see the full picture - or maybe just a part, like I did this morning on my sunny walk - we will see that God's intentions were better than we realized all along. And according to his timing, everything sad will indeed come untrue.
This is probably what the psalmist Asaph had in mind. At first he complained, "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning" (Psalm 73:13-14). Then he realizes that this private struggle is not exactly ripe for an open forum of discussion: "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed the generation of your children" (v.15). He realizes that some things are better kept to an inner circle of loved ones... At least until enough time has lapsed to grant some perspective to the situation.
That's the topic of this blog, anyway - perspective. Perspective in suffering.
I have been working on writing projects ever since I have moved here to the Central Coast, but yesterday was one of those days I just couldn't write. From morning to evening, everything was going wrong. I woke up with a cold/virus/thing which proved to exacerbate the symptoms of Lyme. I left a bag of my books with my social security card in it in a parking lot. My internet connection mysteriously has ceased to work, and the Office Depot guy couldn't figure it out either. My health insurance decided to increase the price. As the virus/Lyme symptoms escalated throughout the day, so, too, did my faithless outlook. I started wondering why I moved here, why God hasn't healed me yet, why I have to do this awful new diet prescribed by my doctor, and why I really need this and that and blah blah blah. I went to bed pleading with God for a better day, for a smidgen of relief in the cacophony of serial trials.
Today started with a dentist appointment, which promised to continue yesterday's mood. And it was, indeed, unpleasant, as she scraped and poked and scoured with a device that was surely used in ancient Chinese torturing methods. But it wasn't as bad as the last dentist appointment. The teeth-cleaning lady was friendly, and it was less painful than the previous visit.
As the day has moved on, I have noticed that the overwhelming wave of symptoms from yesterday is retreating. The dreaded dental cleaning is over; it's a sunny day outside the Pismo Beach Starbucks. Nobody stole my social security card yesterday; I found it right where I left it, thankfully. Somehow the financial and technological struggles of yesterday are in the back of my mind, I know they will be resolved one way or another.
I took a walk in the sun a few moments ago, realizing what a stark change it all was compared to yesterday. I thanked God, and a quote that I read yesterday surfaced in my mind.
"Have we missed the perspective of the timelessness of the universe?
"Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort? Yet we bitterly complain about a lifetime that includes suffering when that lifetime is a mere hour of eternity.
"In the Christian scheme of things, this world and the time spent here are not all there is. Earth is a proving ground; a dot in eternity - but a very important dot, for Jesus said our destiny depends on our obedience here. Next time you want to cry out to God in anguished despair, blaming him for a miserable world, remember: less than one-millionth of the evidence has been presented, and that is being worked out under a rebel flag." (Philip Yancey, Open Windows, cited in Be Still My Soul by Nancy Guthrie)
On my sunshine filled walk, I began to wonder if the juxtaposition between yesterday's woes and today's peace was a foretaste of a heavenly perspective. What if yesterday is a picture of my bout with Lyme Disease? One short moment in eternity that will soon be forgotten, swallowed up by the pleasures of heaven. That is a happy thought... What if it's true? Could it be that what has seemed so devastating, so life-altering, so painful and long and agonizing, will one day be over, and when it is, I will look back with a shrug and a smile? More than that, to look back and see how beneficial it was in the eternal sense?
Tim Keller has said, "That is the ultimate defeat of evil. To say that our suffering is an illusion or to say we will be compensated for our suffering is one thing. But to say that the suffering we experience now will one day be a servant of our joy does not just compensate for it, it undoes it." (Tim Keller, taken from the sermon "Christian hope and suffering," also cited in Guthrie's book)
It undoes it! How amazing that our pain will not only be left in the dust of history, it will be undone by the glory we will experience in the presence of Jesus in the age to come. It reminds me of Samwise Gamgee's question to Gandalf at the end of the Lord of the Rings series, after evil had finally been destroyed: "Is everything sad going to come untrue?" (J.R.R. Tolkien, Return of the King, p. 283)
The answer is yes - everything sad will come untrue. With his eyes fixed longingly on eternity, the Apostle Paul wrote, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).
It's not even worth comparing; meaning, what is coming is so splendid that it cannot even be measured on the same scales of our suffering in this life. That's good news, friends. It's something to hope for. It's something that will make any sort of pain in this life worth it if we continue to trust in our Redeemer.
It's easy to be negative on bad days, and it's easy to question God's goodness. That's because, as Yancey said, we only have one-millionth of the evidence, "and that is being worked out under a rebel flag"! When we see the full picture - or maybe just a part, like I did this morning on my sunny walk - we will see that God's intentions were better than we realized all along. And according to his timing, everything sad will indeed come untrue.
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