On Thursday, June 28th I drove two and a half hours north to meet my wife at a leadership conference put on by the Duluth Vineyard Church. It's a yearly conference called Project Timothy designed for high school age youth who commit to taking on leadership positions in their youth group and/or church. My wife was their with two awesome girls from the youth group she started a few years ago. Coming from a more main line protestant back round, I am impressed by how Vineyard Church has built upon the idea of the priesthood of all believers. They are cultivating leadership all over the place. This conference was an example of the fruits of their efforts, as eighty plus teen agers filled with the Holy Spirit were going deep, learning how to preach, teach, serve and pray in power. The Spirit stirred up the hearts of these youth in Duluth, encouraging words lifted spirits, prayers touched hearts and bodies were healed.
While I was only there for the final few days of the week long conference, the Spirit also worked on me, filling me with great and mysterious comfort. It came with one of the first things I heard as I entered the conference. Just a few moments after I sat down the speaker said "Sometimes, life is hard and we have to deal with it." I laughed out loud because of how much I needed to hear that, and it brought to mind the tiny little morsel of scripture when Jesus says:
"In this world you will have trouble..." - John 16:33b
This is a great example of how the Holy Spirit moves in people. The words aren't special but the concept struck me to the core at the very instant that I was able and ready to hear it. It's all upside down, though. How can I be mysteriously comforted by the blunt reminder of the inevitability of trouble? I think it's because the Holy Spirit was alerting me some lies I have been believing. Lies can creep into our world view and choke out our fruitfulness.
I know deep down that I can't expect life to be easy, but I still find myself easily frustrated when things don't go as I expect or trouble comes. What is and isn't fair and just has always been really important to me and It's not limited to what I experience.
Frankly, I haven't experienced a lot of trouble in my life. I've been fortunate to live a life free of a lot of personal trauma or trial. But even when I come in contact with someone who has been dealt a difficult hand, I begin the following mental process. I posture that God didn't design for this bad thing to happen to someone. It's wrong. It's bad. I recognize it to be the result of sin in the world, and I feel a weight jump on my back like a back pack full of bricks. Understand, I'm not equating my burden to their experience, far from it. I'm not struggling under the weight of pain, illness or poverty, just the weight of my thoughts and emotions. But even this makes my heart rate quicken and my muscles strain, as I try to thing through all of the things I could try to do to help the person. As I strain against this weight that is undeniably less than the experience of the person with whom I'm empathizing, I feel weak and frozen to action. When this happens I tend to fill up with bitterness and rage.
Is it wrong to not want trouble for myself and for the world? No, and empathy is a virtue, but circumstance are much of the time out of our control. We can only control what we do and how we respond when we encounter trouble. It's the same idea found in my post If:Then. While it is human to feel, and ultimately Godly to hate the trouble in this world, for fruitfulness to be possible we have to check our attitude and focus. When I acknowledge the weight of the injustices I encounter, anger truly isn't a sinful response. Bitterness and rage is where it crosses into sin.
If we continue with the last part of John 16:33, we read:
"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Here's where it's very important to remember the nature of the bible as an historical text, each individual piece of it has it's own historical context and intent. The Gospel of John is a theological account of the life of Jesus. It's not designed to be a transcript of Jesus' conversational life or a directly historical account of what happened durring Christ's ministry, but is instead written to explain who he was and the kind of things that he said. This is a representation of the story of Jesus the man, within the context of His theological person, one-third of the eternal, omnipresent, creator of the universe. This role of Jesus, the God man and savior, has now and had at the time the book of John was written, overcome the world by His death and resurrection.
As a person of faith, I look back in context to learn more. In the preceding portion of John 16 Jesus is reporting to the disciples of the bad things that will happen to Him and how disparagingly they will behave. He says, all these bad things will happen. He even says they will have very personal struggles, and then he says:
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Peace!? Is that really what you're saying Jesus? Peace can be defined as freedom from disturbance. Freedom from disturbance cannot come with ... disturbance. A better definition is tranquility. That is being calm even when things are hectic. Tranquility in the human spirit is the opposite of turmoil.
My life, and my reaction to any trouble, trial or injustice has lacked tranquility. I find myself thrust into turmoil. I find myself believing that the weight of these troubles, trials and injustice, is my responsibility to carry and since I am far too small to carry it, I almost break down. Selfishly, I cry out because I feel unequipped, unable in myself to fix the problem. I get bitter and angry and self centered, unless I remember the words of Jesus ... "take heart. I HAVE overcome the world".
By the grace of God, I have not lost track of this and when I remember it my hope is restored and I am lifted from my turmoil. But still on that Thursday evening, the mysterious comfort wasn't tranquility. I heard the message with my brain but it had yet to reach my heart. So, during the evening ministry time I asked another adult leader for prayer for help managing the anger and bitterness I experience.
"What do you need from Jesus, Mike?" He asked. I was puzzled by this request. I didn't really know what to say. "I don't know," I said. "He's already done everything I need." Here my brain was talking but not my heart. The leaders pushed me to think more. Eventually, I relented and said that I need to feel the peace that I know Jesus has given me. As he prayed peace over me the image of Jesus as the good shepherd came suddenly upon my minds eye. The Shepherd was effortlessly carrying a full grown sheep over it's shoulders. The figure was strong, fully in control and extremely gentile with His sheep. I felt some weight lift off my shoulders. My muscles loosened up. Here I was driving myself to anger and bitterness from struggling under the weight of burdens I wasn't meant to carry. Christ is carrying us. He is supreme over the ish of the world and is there to support those who are in need.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." - Matthew 11:28-30
This scripture hits on this on two levels. Christ is there for the broken when they come to Him.
But it's also in the co-laboring. The one who is in control, the good shepherd who is strong to carry all our burdens when we are in need, is with us through His Spirit to work with us. As the branch must find nourishment from the Christ-vine, we must constantly be looking to Christ. We must be fixed to him in order to do kingdom work.
I pray as co-laborers in the Kingdom of God, we would destroy these lies that's keep us on the sidelines, fruitless as a withered branch in the burn pile, that we trouble means we've strayed and/or that trouble is ours to fight alone. I pray that we would know that the ish in the world is not what God has intended, and he has overcome this world of sin and death. I pray that we would remember that with him we can work to bring life and love into the world, but it's not by our strength. We were not made for that kind of weight. We were made for relationship with our creator.
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