Onward, Upward, and Further In

 As I read through the book of Job, I have been thinking a lot about sanity.  Does suffering make us mad?  Does suffering cause us to be insensible and wrong about everything?  Does the erratic way our emotions are expressed equate with making us unhinged?   After Job has lost everything, we find him sitting in the dirt, scraping off his boils.  His dignity is gone, as if it had never even existed.  He is unrecognizable.  He cries out against God in the deepest dismay.  He's cursing the day of his birth.  He's blaming God for all of his tragedy.  But he's confident that he didn't do anything to deserve this.   This seems like insanity!  His friends hear Job, and they must think he's lost all of his marbles.  He's lost the plot.  Given the state Job is in, there can't be any possible way Job has an accurate view of anything anymore!   However, when we get to the end of the Book of Job...we find out that while...

This is one of my favourite chapters of the Bible. I confess, I never expected to resonate so much with it. Job expresses in this chapter much hurt: a) towards his friends and b) towards God. a) Of his friends , Job says, "How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?" He asks them "...are you not ashamed to wrong me?" We need to remember that Job had real enemies. Enemies that destroyed him. The Sabeans took his oxen and donkeys, and killed his servants. The Chaldeans raided and took his camels and killed his servants. He was left with nothing. But in Job's lament, he's crying out against his FRIENDS. They were supposed to comfort him...but at his rock bottom, they tormented him. b) But Job has even deeper issues with God.  he says that "God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me." Job claims that God did not help him when he cried out, and God did not grant Job any justice. Job goes on to say that God set darkness ...

Sony has been reading to me from Spurgeon's Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who Suffer from Depression by Zack Eswine. I struggle with depression. I'm not sure I struggle with it in the same way as Spurgeon. For him, he seemed to experience a vast darkness of soul for seemingly no reason. I think this kind of depression very scary and awful. My depression seems to be a 'causal' depression. Something horrific happened, something tragic happened, and my heart is overcome with many griefs. This kind of depression is certainly its own kind of awful...where there are many vivid images and emotions re-lived, at any given moment. This particular passage from the book has been incredibly helpful: Feed Not This Frenzy of the Soul! It is here, when dealing with spiritual depression, that Charles takes a marked turn in his usually gentle approach as a caregiver and sufferer. Many circumstantial, biological and spiritual pains outlast our abilities to control them or understand t...

Suffering is complex. Suffering works out in a myriad of different ways in different people. Two people can suffer the same thing, but react in very different ways.  The complexity of suffering (in all its forms, and how it impacts different people in different ways) causes isolation, for a variety of reasons. There's shame, fear, unspeakable pain, fatigue, paralysis and so much more that causes isolation.  The complexity of suffering is also beyond what many who have not suffered that particular thing can comprehend. This means the people who would like to draw near don't know how to or are even callous and judgmental. Sufferers who have tried to let people help them can become so wearied by bad comforters, that they give up on trying to receive help. They are fragile and broken and just don't know how to handle one more rejection or one more rebuke. They are already at rock bottom, and have zero left to offer in bearing with the cruelty of bad comfort. Sufferers sometimes...

One of my favourite books of the Bible is the Book of Job. It's fascinating and beautiful, and I find increasing wisdom as I dwell in this book. Chapter 10 has really stuck out to me. Job accuses God of a lot of things! But it's an accurate depiction of how a sufferer feels when they are in the depths, and are living through profound loss and pain. Job accuses God of: condemnation; contending with him; oppressing him; searching out his sin; destroying him; pouring his life out like milk and curdling him; returning his life to dust; watching Job in his sin; failing to acquit Job; working wonders against him; renewing His witness against Job; being vexed towards him; and bringing troops against him. However, in contrast, Job also recognises God's goodness! It's jarring to have Job accuse God of oppression along with acknowledging God's steadfast love (v. 12)! Job also says of God: God fashioned him; God clothed Job with skin and flesh and knit him together with bones ...

I don't know about others, but certain trauma has utterly broken my ability to communicate normally. I've always been told things like "I'm a mystery" or "I don't understand you". I've also been harshly rebuked for waiting two years to tell someone about something that has hurt or confused me. I've had friends get fed up with me. I'm only just now scratching the surface of how broken my ability to communicate is! I am trying to figure it out, and learn how to do that...but it's very messy, and I simply just don't always know how. So what's the problem? Where do things break down for me? Because of past trauma (especially in dysfunctional relationships), I get paralyzed. I shut down. I don't mean to! But it happens so organically, I don't even recognize it! From simple things (like a grocery list) to the more complex (like addressing conflict), I can be paralyzed and be unable to speak. There's a lot of fear for me....

Sanity and reasonableness of mind comes with knowing your own weaknesses and brokenness. Insanity and unreasonableness take form in your heart and mind when you deceive yourself and others about your weaknesses and brokenness. We are finite beings, and we were created as such. God alone is infinite. That's how it's meant to be... It's quite the conceit to deceive ourselves or others into believing we are not weak. "So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Chist may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, pe...

I don't love speaking a lot about politics. I tend to be fairly pessimistic about the state of politics in the world. I do know I cannot put my hope in a mere mortal. I have TREMENDOUS hope in God, with whom NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. The biggest prayer I have right now for politicians, whether in my own country or in others is that they will learn to value and speak of humans as made in the image of God. I pray that every nation, tribe, and tongue could be valued as created by God for His own glory. God delights in every nation, tribe, and tongue that He has created. I pray that there could be respectful speech in regards to every human being....no matter what acts of horror they have committed (condemning the atrocities committed, but respecting the image of God in that person). I have sought to cultivate this in my own life, where I have brushed up rather too closely to scary people. I pray for those people earnestly, even though they have harmed others and myself in the worst of wa...

A very important element to retaining a degree of sanity is being able to have an honest view of oneself. Especially in areas of sin. I can attest, the less I am willing to own my own sin, the more I lose grip on reality...and it bleeds out into many areas (not just the area of my sin).   There's a problem though. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that:  "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" This means I am able to lose grip on reality VERY easily...because my heart is constantly deceiving me.   What can I do? How can I know my sin? Jeremiah 17:10 helps us: " 'I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.' " God will search me, and He WILL give to me according to the fruit of my deeds. However, I can attempt a futile effort at running from this searching until my days are done...or I can humbly ask God to search me and try me now...a...