Thankful for a Brain Tumor

You may not know Matt Chandler (he's an up and coming preacher/teacher), and you don't necessarily need to to understand and be moved by a video he made for his 6000+ member congregation days before having a tumor removed from his brain.

He has since had the surgery and is waiting to find out if the tumor was cancerous.

Suffering Compared to Eternity is Nothing

Tim Keller:

Compared to the endless billions of "years" of eternity without suffering, our troubles are brief. If we think of our lives as only 70 years long, suffering will loom large; if we think of our lives as endless, suffering is a fleeting thing. A billionaire will hardly feel a theft of the $1,000 from his pocket. A middle class man will feel it sorely. Christians are billionaires in glory.

Hope To Prisoners

Piper recently went to Angola prison in Angola, Louisiana. His whole reflection on the experience is worth your time, but his words to the entire prison (via closed circuit TV) are especially affecting:

For 90% of you the next stop is not home and family, but heaven or hell. O what glorious news we have in that situation. And believe me it is not the prosperity of Gospel. Jesus came and died and rose again not mainly to be useful, but to be precious. And that he can be in Angola as well as Atlanta. Perhaps even more.

Returning Soldiers Surprise Their Kids

I think heaven is going to be a lot like this.

HT: CB via Z

Forced Abortions in China

Kathleen Parker on the consequences of China's one child policy:

Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the Frontiers group, told the commission that China's one-child policy "causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth."

I met Littlejohn for breakfast the day before the hearing. A petite wife and mother -- as well as a Yale-educated lawyer -- Littlejohn gave up her intellectual property practice in San Francisco after a life-altering illness to become a full-time activist for Chinese women. She is remarkably buoyant, considering the knowledge she has absorbed. Action, she says, is her way of coping with the unconscionable.

Here's the question Littlejohn insists we consider: What really happens to a woman who doesn't have a "birth permit" and has an "out of plan" pregnancy?

The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development.

[...]

The violence of these procedures doesn't only kill the child in some instances. In two of the cases described in a document leaked this past August, the mothers died, too. Those who dissent, meanwhile, are persecuted.

Such has been the fate of activist Chen Guangcheng, who is serving a four-year sentence after exposing 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong province, in 2005. Named by Time magazine as one of 2006's top 100 people "who shape our world," Guangcheng, who is blind, was severely beaten and denied medical care the following year, according to an Amnesty International report.

The one-child policy has created other problems that threaten women and girls. The traditional preference for boys has meant sex-selected abortions resulting in a gender imbalance. Today, men in China outnumber women by 37 million, a disparity that has become a driving force behind sex slavery in Asia. Exacerbating the imbalance, about 500 women a day commit suicide in China -- the highest rate in the world, which Littlejohn attributes in part to coercive family planning.

I don't see how this is going to help anything:

[Littlejohn] is also calling on Planned Parenthood and NARAL to speak up for reproductive choice in China.

Whole, horrific thing.

Moldovans are Macedonians

Eating to Survive

As I picked at my own food (if you could call it that), I stared at the orphans around me. Coming in ordered droves, they ate like utilitarians, quickly, efficiently. I could see some desperation in their eyes as they shoveled food into their tummies.

We were in the dining hall in a little orphanage in a little village called Tocuz. Meals were basic--some bread, chicken soup perhaps, always some sort of oatmeal--and came at least twice a day, as far as I could tell. Interestingly, the kids spoke very little to one another as they ate. They were all business, you could say, no pleasure. Ranging from 7-16, these kids would never sip on soda or get dessert if they ate everything on their plate. They always ate everything on their plates. As I stared at the devouring, it dawned on me that, for them, eating was a means of survival. Though meals came with some regularity in Tocuz, they could not be depended upon. The eyes of the kids said resoundingly, "This meal could be my last for a while."

I don't understand that in the slightest. I have gone hungry for, maybe, half a day. The only dilemma I have when eating is whether or not I will eat enough or way too much (I usually choose the latter). What a dilemma. The kids in front of me, however, would never experience true bounty. What they had before them was all that they had and, as far as they knew, all they would have for a while. And it was in this context that I saw, perhaps for the first time, true sacrifice.

A Macedonian Before Me

It was nearing the end of the meal and I was watching one girl eat her food. She was one of the matriarchs of the orphanage, probably 14 or 15 years old. She had only finished half of her meal when she promptly stood up. She grabbed her plate, walked briskly across the room, and scraped the rest of her food off on to the plate of a girl much younger, who quickly began inhaling it. The girl had done this before, I'm sure of it, probably every day. Though she needed the food as much as anyone there, she had taken it upon herself to care for the younger ones. Where there was no mommy to provide, she would be the mommy.

As I tried hopelessly to grasp the enormity of what I had just seen, I thought about the Macedonians. The Macedonians, as we learn from Paul, gave when they had nothing to give. 2 Corinthians 8: 1-2: "We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part." This girl was a Macedonian. Generosity had flowed not out of the abundance of her riches, but out of the abundance of grace.

Generosity is not Easy to Come By

Tim Keller says that if you really want to give, you must give sacrificially. That is, you've got to give in a such a way that it hurts. But few of us do that. Very few of us would give the way that girl gave. Why? Several reasons, and they are interconnected.

1. The more we burden ourselves with stuff, the harder it is too free ourselves to actually give any of it away. The show Hoarders is about people who are literally incapable of throwing things away. For a multiplicity of reasons, they collect and collect and collect. And usually, their collection of food or clothes or things grows to such a great degree that getting rid of any of it would prove to be impossible. The same goes for those of us who have plenty. There comes a point when you gather too much stuff to give any of it away. Mountain climbers, for example, rid themselves of anything that isn't useful to them. If they burdened themselves with the extraneous, they'd never make it to the top. How many of us are loaded down with the extraneous? Though it is counter-intuitive, the less we have, the more will give away.

2. There is a direct correlation between wealth building and stinginess. I have spoken to numerous people who believe that giving will come as a result of accumulating money and things. What I have found, however, is that the building of earthly wealth serves as a dandy memory eraser. The more we collect, the more we forget that everything we have is a gift from God. Consequently, the more we collect, the more we believe that what we have is a result of our own ingenuity and discipline. We are owed what we have. So we could say that wealth building reinforces our self-righteousness, the belief that we are our own saviors. And rarely are the self-righteous able to give sacrificially. Giving sacrificially requires faith in something outside of ourselves.

3. The degree to which you give generously will depend on the degree to which you understand how generous Christ was with his own life. Paul does not say that the Macedonians gave out of the goodness of their hearts. Contrary to that, their generosity was a result of the "grace of God." And what is the grace of God? "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." It's pretty simple. The more deeply you understand what Christ gave up for us, the more you will give up for others. But if your generosity is not rooted in the work of Christ on the cross, you will never be sacrificially generous.

The girl was a Macedonian. At 14 years old she had little but gave much. I am 30 now. Will I finally follow her lead?

Review of Chapman's Album: Beauty Will Rise

CT:

Throughout his storied 20-year career, we've mostly heard upbeat praises from Steven Curtis Chapman—though he's known for his relatable public persona. But on Beauty Will Rise, the Grammy-winning, multi-platinum-selling artist's twenty-first and arguably most-anticipated release, he lets listeners into the dark night of the soul he's experienced since the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Maria, on May 21, 2008.

The tragedy so devastated Chapman that he was unsure if he would ever perform again. But over the past 16 months, on the "United Tour" with Michael W. Smith, he used makeshift studios—hotel rooms, tour buses, and dressing rooms—to record 12 cathartic "psalms" of worship and lament, producing his most honest and acoustic effort to date. So honest, in fact, it's impossible not to join Chapman on a veritable roller coaster of emotions.

[...]

All in all, it's a graphic tribute of amazing depth, a privileged glimpse into the veteran singer's heavy heart. Moments of hope shine bright, but fans reluctant to enter into a father's anguish should think twice before they buy.

Buy it here.

He Is Now Our Enemy

Joe Carter, on how Christians must respond to mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan:

During times of tragedy, it is often easier to talk about praying than to take time out to pray. But I hope that all of us truly will take the time to pray for those involved in the recent massacre at Fort Hood.

We should pray for the dead, pray for the wounded, pray for the victim’s families . . . and pray for Nidal Malik Hasan.

Although he swore an oath to protect his homeland against all enemies—foreign and domestic—Hasan became a traitor to his country and a murderous enemy to his fellow soldiers. His actions make him an enemy of the state and an enemy of his fellow citizens. He is our enemy now. As such the duty of those who call ourselves Christian is crystal clear: We must love and pray for Hasan.

As Christ’s commanded, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” We can be angry, we can grieve, and we can expect Hasan to pay for his crimes. But we must also love and pray for him, remembering that we were once enemies of a God who, though angered and grieved, paid for our crimes with the blood of his only begotten Son.

Count It No Strange Thing to Get Sick

J.C. Ryle:

If we are true Christians, we must not expect everything smooth in our journey to heaven. We must count it no strange thing, if we have to endure sicknesses, losses, bereavements, and disappointments, just like other men. Free pardon and full forgiveness, grace by the way and glory to the end – all this our Savior has promised to give. But He has never promised that we shall have no afflictions. He loves us too well to promise that.

By affliction He teaches us many precious lessons, which without it we should never learn. By affliction He shows us our emptiness and weakness, draws us to the throne of grace, purifies our affections, weans us from the world, makes us long for heaven. In the resurrection morning we shall all say, ‘it is good for me that I was afflicted.’ We shall thank God for every storm.

Typhoon Ketsana and Weakness

Neil Postman (among others) argue that the information we glean from the news (TV) is largely unhelpful. We see things that have no affect on our immediate lives, nor can we affect most of the the things we see. What is it's point? he asks. While there are some pieces of international information that are indeed extraneous, one can't help but praise God that he has made us aware (sometimes painfully so) of the world's sufferings and joys. Can we physically affect most of the things we see on TV? Of course not. But can we pray? Of course we can and should. And, perhaps more importantly, can we be transformed by the goings on of the world? Yes.

Such is the case with Typhoon Ketsana. Seeing these pictures (especially the one below of the drowned child) profoundly challeneges my American sensibilities. We have it so incredibly easy. And so, to some degree, I am made weak as I experience, in spirit, the sufferings of my brothers and sisters in the Philippines (see 2 Corinthians 11:16-12:10). And for that, I am joyful.

"We Want A Moment to Say Hello and Goodbye"

See the story below of a woman implanted with the wrong embryo. She decides to keep the baby.

Though the story is terribly sad, their decision to keep the baby shows that they have faith in a God who will bring about good from tragedy. It is the faithless who would heap tragedy upon tragedy, ending the life of the baby for supposed relief.

Every Chapter Will Be Better than the One Before It

Randy Alcorn, on suffering and evil (see also his new book If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil):

Choosing Thomas

Here.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:3-4)

Jesus, thank you for life, but please come quickly.

Women Will Do Anything to Ward Off the Death of an Infant

Christopher Hitchens, in a review of Elizabeth Edward's new memoir, commenting on the ways in which she deals 'religiously' with the death of her 16-year-old son:

As to the other great supposed cure for isolation, the consolation of religion, Elizabeth is at the same time vulnerable and skeptical. In describing the dreams and superstitions and fantasies that assailed her when she lost her boy, she confirms something that I have long thought to be true about the apparent conundrum of female religiosity: Why is it women who keep up the congregations in male-dominated places of worship? That’s easy: women do all the childbearing, and they will try anything—anything—to ward off the illness or death of an infant. They will also grieve over and commemorate such a catastrophe long after the menfolk have “moved on.” Elizabeth manages to get a slight laugh out of a sad parishioner at her North Carolina church who says that his unending misery is like the movie Groundhog Day (“I think he must have left before the end of the film”), and she ends up with a sort of deistic compromise whereby she doesn’t demand the right to have an explanation from God but doesn’t believe he intervenes, either. Like a surprising number of people, she fails to see any contradiction in the idea that God “gave” her “free will.” When she goes to texts for illumination, she is more likely to quote Ovid than the Gospels. From the Old Testament she prefers the Book of Job, and no wonder.

On Understanding Suffering Through the Lens of Personal Experience

Andy Naselli, in an interview with Randy Alcorn on his new book If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil, asks the question, "You interviewed many sufferers and tell many people’s stories in the book. Why was that important to you?" His answer is interesting and very helpful:

Stories of people’s personal experience are a mixed bag to me. I love them when they are subordinate to biblical truths and illustrate them rather than replace them. I love them when they help give us a glimpse of biblical doctrines, such as God’s providence, wisdom, patience, justice, common grace, and saving grace. In If God Is Good I tell many such stories, from the interviews and that I’ve witnessed personally and gotten from reputable sources. When I see God’s sovereign grace at work in the lives of suffering people, it touches me deeply, and in my experience it touches most readers.

But I don’t like it when stories are placed above Scripture and become the lens through which we interpret God’s dealings with men. I have seen this happen in books on the problem of evil. Honestly, I think Greg Boyd does this when he tells heartbreaking stories to demonstrate, supposedly, why God cannot know in advance people’s future contingent choices, and how comforting it is to them when they believe He can’t.

Some of the best-selling atheists books by Harris, Dawkins, and Hitchens use illustrations that “prove” there is gratuitous evil and pointless suffering. But in fact, they do no such thing. Just because as finite and fallen creatures we are not in a position to see the point of suffering, or the greater good that can come even from terrible evil, does not mean that there is no point or greater good. It simply means that we are creatures, not the Creator, finite and not infinite. I mean, the universe is full of things we don’t know and understand. Why should it surprise us to see evil and suffering we don’t understand? This is where faith comes in to play—believing God even when for the moment we can’t see his purposes.

Read the whole thing.

We Aren't Meant to Have an Easy Life

We are Missing the Party

Randy Alcorn:

Most people live unprepared for death. But those who are wise will go to a reliable source to investigate what’s on the other side. And if they discover that the choices they make during their brief stay in this world will matter in the world to come, they’ll want to adjust those choices accordingly.

Yet you may be wondering, How can I change my perspective so that I truly look forward to Heaven?

Consider these Scriptures:

Luke 6:21 says, "God blesses you who weep now, for in due time you will laugh."

Luke 15:10 says, "There is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents."

Nobody wants to leave a good party early. Christians faced with death often feel they’re leaving the party before it’s over. They have to go home early. They’re disappointed, thinking of all they’ll miss when they leave.

But the truth is, the real party is under way at home—precisely where they’re going! They’re not the ones missing the party; those of us left behind are. (Fortunately, if we know Jesus, we’ll get there eventually to join the party.)

Whole thing.

Pain You Can Endure, Shock You Cannot

As I have mentioned, I have been listening to Tim Keller's messages on Job and have gleaned some incredible insight into this life, in general, but most especially on how we should view and handle suffering.

In his fourth message, he focused entirely on wisdom, or why it is vital that, when suffering comes, we rely on wisdom and on God who grants us that wisdom. One part of his sermon stuck out (what follows is a summary and expansion of his teaching). Keller said that he has seen a lot of suffering in his life as a pastor. Many hospital visits, many funerals. Suffering people, he says, go one of two ways. They either get hard or they get soft. People will either lose faith in God and become worse people, or they will grow in faith and become better people. And which path you end up following has everything to do with pain and shock.

Pain, he says, is inevitable. Grief over a lost loved one, a friend who gossips about you, a struggling marriage, the loss of a job, getting stricken with cancer. You simply can't avoid physical and/or emotional pain in this life. Shock, on the other hand, is avoidable. If you understand the world, and especially the revealed word of God, the hard things in life that are inevitable will not be shocking. And it is these sorts of people who grow as a result of their pain. But those who are shocked by pain will almost always grow hard and cold. And Keller would say that two types of 'fools' are shocked by tragedy:

The Moralist lives life in such a way that they expect certain things. Religion to them is a way to get things, and usually this means God's gifts and approval. But the problem with this is that when pain comes, their only category--that God must be good to me because I am good to him--fails them. Because they believe they have done enough to please the deity, when pain comes, they are shocked.

The Relativist says that there is no right and wrong and that what you do in this life is entirely up to you, not anyone else (especially God). But even here, when pain comes, they are baffled. What they had determined they were actually free from (physical laws, moral laws) can't be avoided just because they are not believed. So not unlike the moralist, the only category they had set up--that the world (and God) must work in accordance with their beliefs--fails them. Because they had believed that they were not subject to the same systems the rest of the world was subject to, when pain comes, they are shocked.

And shocked people are unbelievers. They can't accept the pain that has been handed to them. And denial, as we all know, produces not joy but despair. However, when one accepts in wisdom that suffering and pain is inevitable, but also that God in his infinite wisdom and love uses it for our gain, we will, as Keller says, 'become soft.'

Do You Long For Death?

Calvin, in the Institutes, 3.9.5:

But monstrous it is that many who boast themselves Christians are gripped by such a great fear of death, rather than a desire for it, that they tremble at the least mention of it, as of something utterly dire and disastrous. Surely, it is no wonder if the natural awareness in us bristles with dread at the mention of our dissolution. But it is wholly unbearable that there is not in Christian hearts any light of piety to overcome and suppress that fear, whatever it is, by a greater consolation. For if we deem this unstable, defective, corruptible, fleeting, wasting, rotting tabernacle of our body to be so dissolved that it is soon renewed unto a firm, perfect, incorruptible, and finally, heavenly glory, will not faith compel us ardently to seek what nature dreads? If we should think that through death we are recalled from exile to dwell in the fatherland, in the heavenly fatherland, would we get no comfort from this fact?

And 3.9.6:

This is obvious: the entire company of believers, so long as they dwell on earth, must be "as sheep destined for the slaughter" [Rom. 8:36] to be conformed to Christ their Head. They would therefore have been desperately unhappy unless, with mind intent upon heaven, they had surmounted whatever is in this world, and passed beyond the present aspect of affairs [cf. I Cor. 15:19]. On the contrary, when they have once lifted their heads above everything earthly, even though they may see wicked men flourishing in wealth and honors, even though they may observe the latter enjoying deep peace, taking pride in the splendor and luxury of all their possessions, abounding with every delight-if, moreover, believers are troubled by the wickedness of these men, bear their arrogant insults, are robbed through their greed, or harried by any other sort of inordinate desire on their part-they will without difficulty bear up under such evils also. For before their eyes will be that day when the Lord will receive his faithful people into the peace of his Kingdom, "will wipe away every tear from their eyes" [Rev. 7:17; cf. Isa. 25:8], will clothe them with "a robe of glory . . . and rejoicing" [Ecclus. 6:31, EV], will feed them with the unspeakable sweetness of his delights, will elevate them to his sublime fellowship-in fine, will deign to make them sharers in his happiness.

Agony Will Be Turned Into Glory

A friend of mine died this morning. I recalled this quote, from C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce:

They say of suffering that no future bliss can make up for it. But that's not true. For resurrection and eternal life, if once attained, will work backwards and turn even all your agony into glory.

You're with Jesus now, buddy. No more agony. Only glory.