Loss And Overcoming: Rethinking Story

I’m reconsidering what it means to live a good story.  Dream and fame; couch and comfort, a nice city in a picketed community---the image in my head.  I’m on this road now where I’m paying attention to different stories.  A married couple in their twenties face the wife’s massive brain stem stroke; a popular preacher faces the death of a five-year-old daughter from sudden asthma attack (one day here, next day gone); the teen dives into shallow water leaving her a quadriplegic.  The good story isn’t in the loss.  The good story is in the overcoming.

I don’t know if it’s the age I’m at or the age I’m living in but all around me people are facing difficult personal trials.  Friends with cancer, parents with cancer and children with cancer startle me at every turn.  I can easily name friends that live in pain from the moment their feet hit the floor in the morning until their muscles settle down under the sheets at night.  On top of that friends face income issues and aging parent issues.  All of these bring with them unique battles for spiritual perspective; prayers for peace in the midst of soul-shaking storms.  Some simply endure while others pursue the best of stories in less than perfect circumstances.

Life is a process of re-calibrating.  I just reviewed some previous blog posts.  There is a honing and sharpening of my perspective and my direction; sharpening the point of life while it pushes in to sharpen me.  I say sharpen but life pushes in with tremendous pressure.  God does whatever sharpening He wants.  I try to submit and learn.

Good story isn’t the perfect life.  It’s the unexpected kidney punch life gives.  It’s how the hero deals with the unforeseen circumstances—character forged in the journey.  Finally, it’s God’s grace we see in the overcoming.  As MercyMe sings; “like a hero who takes the stage when we're on the edge of our seats saying it's too late, well let me introduce you to grace, grace God's grace.”

When He Has Tried Me I Shall Come Forth As Gold

“Behold, I go forward but He is not there,And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him;He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.“But He knows the way I take;When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Here’s the lie; “If you develop an image of success, health, abundance, joy, peace, happiness, nothing on earth will be able to hold those things from you.”  That’s a quote from Joel Osteen.  Here’s truth---from the Apostle Peter, “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing…”  The Biblical truth grounds me; lies like that from Osteen hurls me into spiraling chaos.

Job persevered because he knew that his suffering had purpose.  The knowledge that a sovereign God ordained his pain allowed for hope and final victory.  What if Job was an Osteen follower?  Not that it has to be Osteen; the lie has always been the same; God wants you happy, God wants you rich, God wants you pain-free and all your desires maximized.  Can’t you hear Satan whispering the same message through the ages?

Personally I’d be dead or on psych meds if I thought my personal trials were meaningless.  I've fallen into that thought process before and it leads to either self-destructive behavior (porn and women in my case) or depression bordering on a clinical not-gonna-get-outta-bed level. 

Perseverance, proven character and hope are brought about through trials.  That is the consistent truth spoken throughout the sixty-six books of the bible.  Pain has purpose.  “Suffering provides the gym equipment on which my faith can be exercised,” says Joni Eareckson Tada.  In her book Pain and Providence she writes, “God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependency on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away.”

I don’t understand how people persevere apart from belief in a sovereign, loving God.  How does the recovering alcoholic keep at it if he’s only trusting in a ‘higher power?’  If that higher power isn't Christ; didn't bleed for him, then what?  If there’s no guarantee that ALL things are working for his good; then what?

In the context of a life lived in God; pain has purpose.  So I can say through everything, “When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Importance of a Personal Mission Statement

“Years ago I wrote a mission statement for my life, and the mission statement is simply “I want to be God’s best audio-visual aid of how His power shows up best in weakness. ….God seems to delight in taking the ill-equipped, untrained, unskilled, and unprofessional and placing them to do a job so that the whole world would know that God is God.”---joni_eareckson_tada_oscar_nod_is_incredible">Joni Eareckson Tada in an interview with World magazine.


I was powerfully struck in two ways by Joni’s mission statement. The idea that individuals should have a mission statement rattled my brain a bit. Joni is living out her statement. It is evident in her life and her ministry (a false dichotomy really). She was a leading voice for the Americans with Disabilities Act and leads a ministry that for 35 years has provided a hundred, thousand wheelchairs to people worldwide and touched disabled and hurting humans everywhere---including myself.

In reflecting I see specific benefits to a mission statement. Primarily it sets a parameter for purpose. Let’s say your mission statement was to be an expert on movies. You are not going to spend your weekends reading---unless you are reading film reviews. You are going to watch one or more movies. You might subscribe to IMDB. Your time and your energy is shaped and motivated via your mission statement. It directs you in what you do and helps inform what you need not do.

Mission statement allows you freedom to flesh out options. Joni is invested in a myriad of ways to fulfilling her mission. Her ministry provides wheelchairs to many, she has a radio show, she writes books and she teaches on God’s purpose in suffering. These are not mutually exclusive areas but all fit in with her personal statement to be used as an audio-visual aid.

One can hone in on one’s own statement by thinking about those things that set you afire. What topic makes you hot under the collar? What stirs your heart? Focus there and you will be on the path to your own statement.

Fine and good but what’s my personal mission statement? Christian legalism gets me fired up. Hearing and reading about people who are oppressed by others or other governments breaks my heart. I write a blog with an emphasis on “coming alive.” It’s a work in progress but my own mission statement is, “To encourage and exemplify freedom and grace in Christ and in the fullness of life.”

I hope that you are provoked to ponder your own life and create your own mission statement. In it you’ll find freedom to run down the path your heart desires and peace in saying “no” to those trails that beckon but lead to bad investments and bad ends.

Five A.M. Radio and God's Faithfulness

 I drive to work before the sun is up. I’m not awake so I don’t listen to radio. It’s just quiet. I’d left my radio tuned to the local Christian station this morning. I was in a bad frame of mind. I had the thought that I should leave it on; that I needed to hear something positive.


Joni and Friends airs at five a.m. Today she talked about Stephen Saint, son of Nate Saint, whom was martyred in 1956. I’d just watched a series put together by Stephen Saint, Walk His Trail, at my church. Crucially, I’d been connected to his story going back to Elizabeth Elliott’s book, The Shadow of The Almighty. That book changed the way I thought about God and missions; changed my life really.

Turns out that Mr. Saint was in an accident in 2012 and became a paraplegic. He’d been through plenty already, a murdered father, the death of a daughter and now this. If anyone should be bitter he should be---but he isn’t.

Three personal takeaways from this:

• God knows that Stephen Saint is a hero of mine as is Joni Eareckson Tada. So He knew the radio program would have an effect. He is faithful to encourage me even if I’m not faithful to have the right thoughts or attitude.

• God uses people but doesn’t keep them from terrible trials.

• I must be willing to trust to be used according to His choosing.

“My motto has been, ‘Let God write your story,' and that's what I have always done. Opportunity comes in strange formats,” Saint said. “You have a lot of people, nowadays, who want to write their own story and have God be their editor, when something goes wrong. I decided long ago to let God write my story.”

Trial By Fire

I’ve read enough stories of suffering to know this isn’t unique. In an interview regarding her documentary “Trial by Fire” Megan Smith-Harris said that if given the choice of having had the experience or not all the victims would still choose the experience. Not that they would choose the pain all over again but that the depth of character forged via the trial was worth it.

Joni Eareckson-Tada has said in her testimony that she would rather be in a wheelchair with Jesus than healthy without Him. God has developed in us some bizarre hard-wiring. On the surface we want the life of ease and comfort. Still the conviction expressed in every biography, every good story, is that suffering produces strength of character that doesn’t come from a life lived at leisure.

This truth is difficult for me. I want the big house, the huge garden, the Sunset magazine kitchen and the Bill Gates pocketbook. I am the first to cry to God when hit by hard times. I want my ducks in a row and when God moves them it bugs me. The knowledge that God uses trials to deepen my character and to grow Christ like attitudes in me makes me cringe. It’s the Romans 7 principle. I know what is best for me but my flesh wants to live in comfort and self protection.

I want my cake and Christ’s character. It’s all I can do to recognize the principle and cast my frustrations on God. Mentally I must acknowledge, reckon in the old English, that God’s best for me will come down paths I have no desire to walk. The battle is to always ‘reckon myself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Or as Peter puts it, “even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ…”

Fragile Circuitry

Most people never hear the timers. The coffee spot I work in has timers that go off to remind us to change out the creamers and coffees so that they stay fresh and at right temperature. As I waited on this customer the timer began beeping. As the beeping grew in pitch and intensity I could see her face grow tight, her eye lids raise and her eyes get more focused. She covered her ears and said seriously with a touch of panic in her voice, “What is that beeping?” She went on to explain that she had a brain injury recently and she has become sensitive to noise.

When I worked as a disability claims manager I had some clients with Lyme disease. They could not function at their jobs because the lights and noises affected them so significantly. Sufferers of Lyme disease also experience tinnitus, inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain (meningitis), temporary paralysis of one side of the face (Bell's palsy), hallucinations and hearing loss.

It is surprising that we live reasonably healthy lives. I could have suffered some serious damage myself having been in a bicycle accident at 16 in which I skid on the pavement for ten feet without a helmet. Beyond that I had fallen off swing sets and out of trees. Despite having blacked out in those accidents I suffer no affects mentally or physically (though some close friends may argue this point).

We take credit for our health. We take vitamins and try and eat right. Scientists tell us this will stave off certain sicknesses and cancers, cancers which science now tells us are carried about in certain genes from birth. Certainly we can sway the statistics but the odds remain significantly against us. It seems obvious that what happens to us physically is out of our control.

There is no guarantee that we can prevent cancer or stop accidents from affecting us. Certainly we can not prevent death. Our only hope is to rest in a certainty that a wholly good God works things out for His glory and our best. Joni Eareckson Tada has stated that, “I relearned the timeless lesson of allowing my suffering to push me deeper into the arms of Jesus. I like to think of my pain as a sheepdog that keeps snapping at my heels to drive me down the road to Calvary, where, otherwise, I would not be naturally inclined to go.” Going into the arms of Jesus seems the only place to go in the throes of our pain and fragility. May we be willing to enter his embrace when life breaks us.

Following In Their Footsteps

Some of mine are dead, some, obviously, living.  John Piper claims his are dead overall.  Hero's of the faith; those saints that we look to as our examples when our own framework of dust and bone doesn't provide context enough.  I look to Joni Eareckson Tada for inspiration and a bunch of dead guys; C.S. Lewis, Biblical saints and Spurgeon to name a few.

Life is difficult.  No surprise there.  When I throw my little pity parties (because it's all about me) it helps me to remember that Joni has had to have somebody dress her in the morning for the last 45 years.  Yet she remains one of the most positive and Christ exalting people I know.  Job lost it all yet maintained a perfect faith in God's goodness and holy character.  I look to these saints and see God's handiwork therefore I believe I can trust Him with the difficulties in my own life.

The apostle Paul repeatedly told others to follow him as an example of following Christ.  Peter said of Christ that He died, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps.  It is important to find yourself those Christ affirming, Christ exalting role models to follow.  For myself they flesh out what Christian life looks like especially in the midst of affliction.  Their reality destroys my petty fantasy of my own importance. 
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.--1 Peter 2:21