Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?

          This past week our students concluded their series entitled, Doubt.  This series examines the fact that we can allow our questions about our faith to actually drive us closer to God rather than farther away.  Having doubts and questions are a normal part of faith formation and this series encourages our students to wrestle with those questions as they seek to make their faith their own.

At the conclusion of our evenings students gather in small groups to discuss the theme of the night in a personal manner that directly connects the theme/Scripture to their hearts.  This past week, one small group conversation took an interesting turn when I entered the room.  Upon walking in one of the teenage girls in the group asked me why we hadn’t answered her question, which we came to find out was “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  This is a question that many of us have wrestled with throughout our faith journey.  We left that night with a little resolution but there was still a healthy amount of tension surrounding this conversation.  Throughout this week, I have thought about the effect that this question has had on my own faith journey.  Last evening, it particularly rang true when I woke up around 2:00 am and couldn’t go back to sleep.  I found myself tossing and turning but when I couldn’t go back to sleep I turned to Facebook and Twitter to find some consolation.  I found myself reading about a dear friend of mine who is striving to “finish well” in his life as he battles brain cancer.

Stan Buck has always been an inspiration to me as a man of faith.  He has invested in countless lives through his ministry all the while being one of the most humble men that I have ever met.  Stan started a church in Fort Wayne, Indiana twenty-five years ago and is still the lead pastor there today.  He has taken this amazing church through several challenges times while seeking to be faithful to God’s leadership for this church.  Stan and I first really connected when I was taking a class towards my Master’s degree at Indiana Wesleyan University.  We realized that we were close to each other (about 20 minutes apart in separate churches) and developed a wonderful friendship that served as the start of our friendship.  Shortly after this class finished I found myself unemployed, doubting God, and searching for answers.  My wife and I ended up living with my in-laws and struggling to pay our bills each month.  I found myself becoming bitter, angry, and irritated at God during this time, however it turned out this is exactly where I needed to be.  A couple of weeks after moving in with my in-laws we decided to try this church across the street that we had heard good things about and attempt to turn our lives around.  We found ourselves walking into the church where Stan was the pastor and our lives were drastically altered.  Through their worship, friendship, and personal counseling I found my heart beginning to be softened instead of stirring the hurt that had lived in my heart for the past few months.  I found myself being consoled by a pastor, Stan, who didn’t simply talk about grace, love, and forgiveness but sought to embody them in his everyday life.  We found ourselves connecting with God and growing in our faith despite the hurt that we had suffered.  Stan demonstrated the love of Christ in the purest form as a humble servant who desired to give everything he had to serve God. 

Stan has become a wonderful friend throughout my ministry journey by encouraging, loving, and supporting us several times.  However, as he is ending his fight with cancer, I see a man who touched so many lives, exemplified the humble spirit of God, and did truly finish well in his life.  Stan you are a wonderful man of God who has forever altered my life and I am thankful for the privilege I had to call you my friend.  Please join with me in prayer for Stan, his wife Kathy, daughters Stephanie & Ashley (and their families), and Sonrise Church during this time as we celebrate Stan finishing well!

Looking at Our Struggles with New Eyes

          This past week our students concluded their series entitled, Doubt.  This series examines the fact that we can allow our questions about our faith to actually drive us closer to God rather than farther away.  Having doubts and questions are a normal part of faith formation and this series encourages our students to wrestle with those questions as they seek to make their faith their own.  Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The second week’s discussion question reads as follows, “What are some things that God has taught you in the past about Himself? How can those things specifically help you with the doubts you now have?”

Throughout my journey of faith there have been several moments that I have discovered revelations about God through various situations and circumstances.  These revelations come not because of some great connection and insight that I have but rather from the words of a wise person who told me about the need to look for God in unexpected places in my life.  These words have caused me to examine various situations in my life in a new light, which in turn have revealed a great deal about God’s character to me.  I have been able to examine new situations with fresh eyes thinking about the lesson or piece of God’s character that could be hiding in the pain, anxiety, or discomfort. 

One primary situation that jumped out at me was when our son was born premature in the NICU.  I remember the shock of being told that something was wrong and he would have to be placed in the NICU for some tests.  The mood quickly changed from one of celebration to one of frustration and confusion when we were told that they didn’t know if he was going to make it.  I remember crying out to God in the waiting area, with my wife by my side, begging for our son to be spared.  I recall sitting by his crib multiple times each day, praying for a miracle to happen.  However, day after day we continued to see him declining and the nurses scrambling to find a solution to his respiratory problems.  Although it was only a month of our lives, the days seemed to last forever and the tears simply wouldn’t stop as we doubted God’s plan for this little boy.  We knew the pain of losing a child firsthand and couldn’t begin to fathom going through that again.  However, at about the midway point of that first month we began to see small improvements in our son and how he was responding to the treatments.  He began to gain strength and breath on his own, making his mom and dad breathe easier as well.  A couple of weeks after this turn, we found ourselves taking our son home and celebrating the wonderful blessing of his life.

As we reflect on the time in the hospital that we spent with our little boy there were several things that happened causing me to understand God’s character all the more.  The first was that just as we sat by our son’s bedside every day; God is with us all the time.  He is constantly surrounding us with His love and peace however the question is are we receptive to it.  Second, it seemed as though our prayers were being ignored and God simply wasn’t listening to us as we prayed for our son to be healed.  This was a reminder to rely on God’s timing, not our own, and trust that He hears the cries of our hearts.  Just as David cried out to God in the book of Psalms we found ourselves doing the same thing but needed to rely on what we knew about God rather than simply what we were feeling in our hearts.  The third revelation that happened were through the relationships that were established, with the nurses, doctors, and other parents.  There were several times that we had the opportunity to reach out to the nurses, especially when one of them lost a child a year after our son was in the hospital.  Our little boy provided the opportunity to reach into their hurt and attempt to shed some of God’s love on the situation.  There were also opportunities to extend God’s grace to the doctor’s even when it seemed as though they weren’t really doing anything to help our son.  There were chances when other parents would want to talk, laugh, and cry together simply to get through our situation.

Through the pain, tears, and discouragement that transpired that month, I found myself coming to a deeper understanding of who God is and how He desires to be a part of my life.  I found myself marveling at the depth of His love for me, amazed at the constant pursuit of my heart that He exhibited, and the care for the prayers that I lifted up to Him daily for our son.  In that month, God revealed a great deal of His character to me, helping me to overcome my doubts and draw closer to Him.

Using Doubt in a Positive Way

          This past week our students started a new series, Doubt.  This series examines the fact that we can allow our questions about our faith to actually drive us closer to God rather than farther away.  Having doubts and questions are a normal part of faith formation and this series encourages our students to wrestle with those questions as they seek to make their faith their own.  Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The first week’s discussion question reads as follows, “Do you ever have doubts about God?  If so, what are they?  What do you do with them-vocalize them or keep them to yourself?

Doubt is a powerful thing that can direct us down one or two different paths.  We can choose to allow the doubt in our faith, God, the church, etc. to deter us from following Jesus or we can allow it to direct us closer to God’s heart.  For me, doubt was something that I wrestled with for a long time in my own life.  I struggled with different pieces of Christianity, the Bible, the Church, and what I was supposed to believe.  However, for the longest time I always felt that I was not allowed to ask questions about God because that would demonstrate my lack of faith.  However, the summer before my freshman year of college my thought process was drastically altered. 

On the second day of taking summer classes for college, before my freshman year (only because of a scholarship not because I wanted to be an overachiever), I received a phone call that my dad had been diagnosed with cancer.  I remember the toll this took on my faith as here I was a Christian, at college, studying to enter the ministry, and struggling with doubts about God.  I found myself asking the following questions, “Does God really love me?”  “Why would God allow this to happen?”  “Why do bad things happen to good people (like my dad)?”  These were all questions that I found myself wrestling with and unfortunately I still don’t have all of the answers.  These questions started the moment I received the phone call, however I found them becoming far more pressing a few days when my dad had surgery to attempt to get the cancer out of his body.  I found myself, clinging to the promises that God would heal him and things would be alright, but when the doctor entered the room, I knew something was wrong.  The doctor informed us that they hadn’t been able to get everything and they would have to do another surgery later in the month to try to remedy the problem.  Despite the hope that was still present, I found myself doubting God all the more because he hadn’t healed my dad.  My doubts were consuming every thought and I found myself wanting to run away from my faith and ignore God completely. 

 

Then something interesting happened, through several of my new friends at college.  As I returned to campus I was met with their hugs, tears, and prayers for my dad.  I started having conversations with them about why would God allow this to happen to my dad and what ensued was a wonderful few months that forever altered my faith.  I found myself talking openly about my doubts to my new friends and listening to their doubts about God.  We found ourselves searching through the Scriptures (as a community of faith), praying together, and talking to wise counsel (our professors and administrators of the school) about our doubts.  We found ourselves consumed with making our faith our own rather than simply riding on the coattails of our parents or pastors back home.  We found ourselves falling more in love with God and seeing His love starting to transform our doubts into a pursuit for a deeper relationship with Jesus.  We saw our doubts directing us to a deeper love of God rather than deterring us from following Him.  Through these few months, I discovered that doubt could be a positive thing.  Doubt can direct us closer to God if we allow it to.  Doubt can encourage our hearts as we seek to grow closer to God in the midst of our questions. 

 

So as parents, do you encourage your children to have doubts about God, faith, the church, etc.?  Do you seek to discuss with them the personal relationship that Jesus desires for them to have with Him?  Do you challenge your children to ask questions about the difficult things in life, knowing that you may not have the answers?  My challenge to you is to encourage doubt and questions in the lives of your children.  Use their questions as a time to study God’s Word together and grow closer together, both as a family and as Christians.  

Helpful Questions

            Starting this Sunday our students will hear a new series that encourages them to do something that doesn’t always happen in a church setting.  This new series will encourage students to ask questions about their faith, in a safe manner that will help them shape it as their own.  This series is entitled Doubt and here is a brief series synopsis about series;

“Everyone has moments of doubt. We doubt if we are heading in the right direction when going someplace new. We doubt if that low-fat snack is really as healthy as it claims to be. We doubt if the people in our lives really care about us—even in spite of the evidence that they do. And sometimes our doubts are about God. Can we trust God? Does God really have our best in mind? What does a particular Bible verse actually mean?

When questions arise, they can be a little unsettling, especially questions about faith. But what if God was big enough to handle the questions? He is. What if God was secure enough to handle our uncertainty? He is. And what if doubt actually paved the way to a deeper belief, a stronger relationship with Christ? It can.”

As a teenager I remember feeling uncomfortable asking questions about my faith.  Each week I would go to church, sing the songs, listen to the sermons and go home thinking about how nice that was.  I recall never really wrestling with anything the pastor would preach on or thinking about it a great deal.  I found myself thumbing through my Bible and reading the words without making a real connection to my heart.  I found myself stuck in this rut for the majority of my life, but that wasn’t what God had in store for me.

At the age of sixteen things began to change in how I thought about the sermons I heard, the songs we sang, and the passages I was reading in my Bible.  I began to think through them more intently and realized that there were several things that simply didn’t seem to make sense to me.  I found myself asking my youth pastor and pastor about different things in the Bible almost weekly.  I began to get some sort of answers to my questions however, the questions continued as I learned more about Christianity and particularly what that means to me in college. 

I found myself at a private Christian college where my fellow students and professors were all wrestling with what it means to be a Christian.  What was this relationship that God invited us into really all about?  During these four years I found myself digging deeper into the questions of Christianity and finding some sense of resolution in my heart to these questions.  However, what I realized through this process were two things; first, I began to understand that asking questions is a good thing because it creates tension and not all tension is bad.  In fact the tension that was created from the questions caused us to dig through the Bible and various other books/resources to come to conclusion about our questions.  This leads directly into the second thing that I discovered through asking questions which is the fact that I found myself connecting with God in a more personal way than ever before.  The intent searching for answers allowed us to grow in our faith and really establish a personal relationship with God that was “ours” and not simply something that was passed on from the church or our parents.

Questions are not a negative thing; in fact it is how we learn.  I have discovered this with my two small children who ask the question, “Why?” to almost everything.  My challenge to you is to ask the tough questions about your faith, search for answers, and talk about your findings with your family.  This will not only bring you closer together as a family but it will also help to strengthen your own personal relationship with God.

Is Being a Christian Messy?

          I recently heard a wonderful story that I wanted to share with you today.  I recently had the opportunity to attend a one day training event and the primary speaker shared a story that resonated with my soul and should with everyone who is a parent, as well. 

Here is his story:

            “Every year at Christmas I find myself waiting until Christmas Eve to do my shopping for everyone.  There is something that is just therapeutic to me about waiting and shopping on the last possible day for those special gifts.  My tradition has always been to wake up early and travel to my favorite shopping mall to purchase those special gifts for my loved ones.  However, one particular Christmas Eve, my entire perspective was altered. 

          I woke up that day and traveled to the mall ready to embark on my journey however, I knew I needed to stop by the restroom to make sure I was ready for a full day of shopping.  After coming out of the restroom I noticed an elderly lady standing extremely close to the men’s restroom door almost seeking to see inside every time that the door was opened.  I went out of my comfort zone as an introvert and asked her if everything was alright.  Her reply was simply, ‘My husband went in there a while ago and hasn’t come out.”  I questioned her reasoning but I said ‘Alright, how long has he been in there?’  Her reply raised my level of concern instantly when she said ‘He’s been in there for 45 minutes.’  I told her to wait there and I would go to check on her husband, which was going to be another challenging moment for me.  I walked into the bathroom and found myself knocking on each stall door asking, ‘Frank, are you in there?’  Finally when I reached the last stall I heard a faint whisper before I asked the question.  The voice said, ‘Yes, I’m Frank and I’m in here.’  I asked if everything was alright and responded with a simple, ‘No.’  At this point my heart was beating so loudly I was sure everyone else in the bathroom could hear it but I mustered up the courage to ask the question, ‘What’s wrong?’  The faint voice replied, ‘I had an accident.’  My heart sank as I asked, ‘Do you want me to come in and help you?’ all the while praying that he would say no.  Frank quietly said, ‘Yes, please.’  I tried to compose myself and walked into the stall with Frank who sat there covered in his own mess from head to toe.  He told me that on his way to the stall he had an accident and then slipped and fell in the mess which left him in this embarrassed and fragile state. 
          I returned out to his wife and told her that she needed to go and buy him some new clothes and returned to the bathroom to help this 80 year old man.  I found myself walking back and forth from the sink to the stall with damp paper towels in hand seeking to help Frank get cleaned up.  After working with him for several minutes, gathering the new clothes from his wife, he was cleaned up and able to leave the bathroom.  I walked out with him and watched he and his wife leave the mall.  I found myself struggling with the entire encounter as I now found myself walking through the mall at a rapid pace arguing with God about this “distraction” in my planned day and then it happened.
          At one sudden moment it became so clear to me, why this had happened.  I felt like God was nudging my heart saying, ‘There is no way for you to do what you do without getting messy, just like there was no way for Jesus to do what He did without getting messy.’  At that moment my entire world stopped as I began to think about my family, the ministry I called to lead, and the various situations that I had found myself in through the years.  I realized that this central truth is central to everything that I do.”
 

As I personally listened to these words, I thought about several of the same things in my own life.  Often times I may find myself frustrated when my children don’t listen, when things go a different route than I expected in the ministry, or when something completely deters me from completing what I thought I knew.  However, these words should resonate with our hearts because we often times have a beautiful picture of what Jesus did on the cross for us.  We believe that it was peaceful and calm just like many of the pictures that we see and display in our homes.  However, the death of Jesus on the cross so we could each have eternal life in heaven was a messy thing.  It was a horrible thing and just like this speaker mentioned there are times in our lives where we find ourselves in the midst of a “mess.”  Perhaps you are in the midst of a mess right now with your marriage, children, a situation at work, or some other situation and if that is the case I want to offer you hope.  There is no way to truly succeed in your marriage, raising children, or clinging to your integrity at work without getting messy.  It’s a part of life that we all find ourselves trudging through, however have you ever thought about the mess that Jesus endured for you?  Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that just because you are in a mess doesn’t mean that you are doing it wrong but maybe that God can trust you with the mess? 

I offer you hope today in the form of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ despite the mess that you may find yourself in.  Cling to the mess that Jesus lived through on the cross for you, knowing that His mess gives you eternal life and trust in a God who is bigger than your situation.

Do Others See Jesus in You?

          This past week our students completed the series, The Invisibles.  This series examines the challenges that many of us have faced with feeling invisible at certain points of our lives, seeing others who may be invisible to us right now, and gaining an understanding that we have never been invisible to God.  Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The final week’s discussion question reads as follows, “Identify someone who is invisible in each of your worlds.  What does he or she need?  How can you help with that need?  How can you also point them to Christ?”

Throughout this series we have been challenging our students to examine the world they live in by looking at their families, schools, communities, and the whole world.  This past week we discussed how they could be “like Jesus” to both “the invisibles” around them and also to anyone that they served.  For our family this became extremely evident through an experience we shared with our Sunday School class in Georgia.  Our class was very intentional about seeking out opportunities to help others in need throughout the year.  One particular opportunity that came up was to travel to “Tent City” (a place of shelter for several homeless people in the area) and serve them dinner.  Mindy and I felt compelled not only to serve at this event but also to have our children participate with us.  Our children were only two and three at the time so we knew that they would not grasp the full meaning of what they were doing but that it would be a good starting point to introduce them to a life of serving others.  That evening we were able to help several people by providing them with a hot meal, conversation, and even some special kits with various items in them like toothpaste, hand sanitizer, and other items that they would need (which were specially prepared by our own children prior to the evening of serving).  This was simply one way of noticing people that were in our line of sight everyday but invisible to us prior to this evening.  After leaving that night our son began asking several questions about why those people didn’t have a house or food which led to some challenging conversation with him.  However, we believe as parents that starting our children early in serving others will hopefully help them have this attitude through the remainder of their lives. 

As parents, what opportunities are presenting your children with to serve others?  What opportunities are available for you to serve as a family?  I challenge you not only to think about the immediate community that you find yourself in but also the larger community that we are all a part of being the world. 

This week we were able to challenge our students to take on a different perspective as they prepared for our annual summer mission experiences.  We challenged them to think about the reason that they were serving (being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ) along with ways that they could show God’s love to other people in another part of the country.  The challenge was well received as our students began to think of ways they could impact other areas of our nation with the love of Christ in a more intentional manner.  One small group leader mentioned the great work that our students had done in this area during our trip to Steubenville, Ohio this past year.  He mentioned that one person whose house they worked on commented about the hope that she had now because of the heart of the students who helped her during the week.  This is a testament to the wonderful work of our students, adults, and church as we seek to share God’s love with other people.  I am thankful for an opportunity to be a part of this wonderful church that seeks to share God’s love with other people!

Again, my challenge to you is to seek out opportunities to serve others as a family both in your immediate community and the world.

Are They Just in the Background?

This past week our students continued in their series, The Invisibles.  This series examines the challenges that many of us have faced with feeling invisible at certain points of our lives, seeing others who may be invisible to us right now, and gaining an understanding that we have never been invisible to God.  Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The second week’s discussion question reads as follows, “Who are some people that are consistently in the background scenery of your everyday life?”

Every day there are people who we walk past, bump into, or drive by in our cars who are invisible to us.  In my life I can think of several people who I have consistently put in the background of my life.  These were people who had a story to tell and life to share but for whatever reason I simply went past them without a second thought in my mind. 

However, there was one individual who stands out as the turning point for me noticing people that were in the background scenery of my life.  Before we moved to Ohio we were serving a church in Georgia and to get almost anywhere you had to take the interstate.  Every day we would get on and off the ramps to go to our house always seeing the same homeless man standing on the side of the road asking for money.  For several days we drove by ignoring him completely for whatever reason.  I recall using our children (who were two and three years old at the time), the face that we were running late, or several other reasons to drive by and ignore him.  However, one day our lives changed as my wife told me that she knew we needed to stop and help him.  We found ourselves going to the gas station buying him a sandwich and drink and getting a few dollars out of the ATM.  We drove back to him and dropped off the various items and started a discussion with him.  I remember that I didn’t catch his name or really anything about his story because I was so floored that he didn’t ask what kind of sandwich it was or what we got him to drink.  I found myself mulling over the idea that if I were in his position I would want to know the answers to those questions and then it happened.  I started wrestling with my own selfish feelings and realized that if I was in his situation I wouldn’t care what it was either but would rather be thankful for the gift of any passerby.  I realized that own my own selfish feelings were dictating the way that I was handling this situation and I have to admit that I felt more than a little embarrassed.  I realized that for several days we drove by this man simply because he was a part of the background scenery of our lives.  I have to admit that this act was initiated and carried out by my wife, but it caused me to start looking beyond my own little world.

A second occurrence of noticing those in the background scenery of our lives happened a few years ago when we were listening to a friend of ours deliver a sermon series from The Advent Conspiracy.  After hearing his words, we found ourselves revaluating our approach to Christmas.  We realized that there were several other people around the world who were so much worse off than we were and God grabbed our hearts to look for more ways to be involved in missions.  This wasn’t a guilt-trip series but rather a way for us to look at the impact that our small family could make in so-much-larger world.  This year during our advent season our students will be diving into this study with the opportunity to make an impact on the world.  You can find more information about this series by watching the video below.

So who are the people in the background scenery of your life?  Who are the people that you walk or drive by daily that simply need you to reach out?  As Christians, we should be the best at reaching out to others with the love of Christ, but we often times fall flat or falter with this.  What steps can you take today to start to remedy this situation in your own life?  Maybe it is simply giving a little money to someone in need or partnering with a charity/organization around the world to impact the life of someone else.