When God's Answer to His Own Son Was No

The answer was No. At least, it surely seems to walk like a No, talk like a No. I think it was a No.

Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, was facing a terrible death and a struggle that would pit him against all the forces of Hell. Praying earnestly in an inner agony louder than the silence of the seemingly peaceful Garden of Gethsemane, the Son begged the Father, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me!”

And the answer was No.

Does that bother you? It does me, both when I forget it and when I remember it.

You see, my faith struggles may once have centered around such questions as “Does God exist? Was Jesus Christ truly the very Son of God, fully human and fully divine?” Those are very big, very important questions, and it really is not a bad thing to revisit them occasionally.

But the longer I walk on my own faith journey, the more “faith struggles” for me seem to be centered around prayer.

I pray, and others pray, and we pray earnestly in a time of deep need for someone that we love deeply. Maybe our anguish doesn’t rival Christ’s in the Garden, but anguish is still at times none too strong a word for the fear, uncertainty, and helplessness we feel in the face of some very severe struggles.

Sometimes, thank God indeed, we get the very answer to our prayers that we most wanted and would have paid any amount of money to receive. The answer comes. Freely. As a gift. A beautiful gift. And the difficulty is removed.

But, too often, from our perspective, the answer is No. It may well be that God is saying, I’ll help you through this, not around it. That can still feel to us very much like a stone-cold, rock-hard No.

Sometimes we forget about the answer Christ received to his own prayer in the Garden. Maybe we’ve been listening too much to some TV preachers and their makeup-caked wives who seem to indicate that nobody who has real faith ever fails to receive the answers they want, and that if you “do prayer right,” you’ll get the “right” answer (meaning, the very answer you most desire). That sounds to me a lot more like an “eye of newt, tongue of frog” sort of magical potion-type approach to prayer than real faith.

But then we remember the prayer in the Garden. Then we remember the answer. Then we remember that the Savior who taught us to pray about all of our needs and make any request of the Father prayed at the hour of his own deepest need, and Christ himself received what certainly seems to us to be a resounding No. And then, pray tell, where does that leave us? With any confidence at all left in prayer?

Maybe it leaves us with some very expensively bought but priceless wisdom. Maybe it leaves us with fewer easy answers but with the incomparable Christ.

We should pray more, not less, and ask for more with more confidence in our Father, not less. But we should also realize that our Lord’s confidence was not really in prayer itself; it was in the deep and abiding love of the Father to whom he prayed.




Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Let's Talk About Flat Tires and Faith

Sometimes I think my funny bone is oddly shaped or maybe dislocated. Oh, it’s definitely there and works at least as well as it should, but it also works in inappropriate moments. And what strikes me as funny doesn’t always grab other folks the same way. For example . . .

I was heading down the highway toward home the other day when I noticed two signs, one almost on top of the other. One was a church sign: “House of Faith.” And just next to it was this sign: “Flats Fixed: Five Dollars.”

Okay, so it’s not a knee-slapper, and maybe the combination of those signs would only produce a grin in a theologically-minded preacher. But it does get a smile out of me. And it does make me think.

I know I have an occasional flat tire and, yes, some “flat” days from time to time. If I had enough faith, would I have fewer flats (flat tires, that is)?

Not to pick on any one church, even though this one does happen to sit right by the tire shop, do the most “faith-full” members of the “House of Faith” need the services of the tire shop next door less often than the same church’s Christmas & Easter bunch who wouldn’t know a tithe from a laundry detergent?

I doubt it. I couldn’t prove it, but I suspect that Christians and non-Christians, not to mention committed Christians and lackadaisical Christians, probably have flat tires in about the same rate and proportions.

And I suspect that the same thing is true for heart disease and stroke, cancer and diabetes, etc. Oh, I am sure that a person who is truly in love with the Lord, who displays the “fruit of the Spirit,” who is not given to fits of anger and resentment, who enjoys all of God’s good blessings but is not a slave to any of them—I suspect that person will reap some physical as well as many, many spiritual benefits. Some natural consequences of living a God-centered life are as positively and physically real as some negative consequences of living a self-centered life.

But we all live in the same fallen world. And people who live in this world have flats.

Yes, you might have a flat because you were where you had no business to be. If folks who drive to X-rated “bookstores” always came away with flat tires, they’d probably go there less often. (Would we “go to” pettiness and bitterness less often if “going there” flattened one of our tires?)

But folks also occasionally pick up nails in hospital parking lots while visiting the sick. And we need to be very careful indeed about the conclusions we draw about the “why’s” of hardship and suffering in our lives and in the lives of the people around us. Bad things do happen at times to “good” people who are full of faith.

Just before Jesus healed a man who had been born blind, His disciples asked, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ answer: “Neither.”

Sometimes when you’re traveling through this world, you just pick up a nail.





Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

An Old Story of One Man's Faith Challenges Our Faith

Long, long ago a very old man stood before the Roman proconsul in Smyrna who literally held over him the power of life or death. Old Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, had been taught by the Apostle John and had known many others who had walked physically with the Lord Jesus Christ and with their own eyes had seen the risen Lord.

The proconsul urged Polycarp, “Have a regard for your age. Swear by Caesar. Swear, and I will dismiss you. Revile Christ.”

The old man replied, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me wrong. How can I now blaspheme my King that has saved me?” And he was burned at the stake rather than deny the Lord.

What a waste! What a senseless sacrifice! Unless, of course, Jesus Christ really is the risen Son of God and truly offers glorious life that never ends.

In some ways, and probably more often than we think, although most of us will never know what it’s like to stand before the authorities and be forced to make such a stark choice, we do indeed meet each day the same decision old Polycarp faced. In attitude and action, do we confess the name of Jesus as Lord or do we deny Him?

To bow quietly before the Lord and spend some time in prayer. What an absolute waste of time! Unless, of course, God really is the Father who delights to hear our prayers and who will always answer with our very best interests at heart.

To roll out of a warm bed on a cold Sunday morning (or whenever) and head down to church to meet with others who love Christ Jesus and honor Him as Lord. What a waste of time and effort! Unless, of course, the Son of God really did walk up a hill carrying a cross for you. For me.

To write a check to a good church doing good work in the name of Christ, an offering to the Lord of the “first fruits” of your hard work. What a complete waste of money! And just think how much nicer your car or house or clothes could be if you didn’t! Ridiculous! Maddening! Unless, of course, God really is God. And God really does own the cattle on a thousand hills. And God really is the Giver of all good gifts and everything we have is really his. And we really believe that it is impossible to out-give our giving God.

If I faced the decision of Polycarp—to choose to die for Christ or not—what would I choose?

I think I can know.

I think the answer is all wrapped up in the answer to this question: Have I chosen right now, in actions and attitudes large and small, to live for the Lord?

And I don’t have to wonder about that. I can know.

So what do you think? Maybe all this faith stuff is just a waste of time and money. But if Jesus really is Lord, unbelief or insipid pseudo-belief will turn out to be a very ugly mistake. It’s not a mistake I want to make.



Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Satan's Slogan: "It's Not Personal; It's Business!"

“It’s not personal; it’s business.”

I first heard that cold phrase in the 1972 movie The Godfather. Mafia hoodlums would assure the fellow they’re about to “off” that he should feel better about being “whacked” since the aforementioned whacking is “not personal; it’s business.”

I’m told that business tycoon Donald Trump uses the phrase on his so-called “reality” TV show The Apprentice. No surprise.

But “the Donald” quite aside, it’s clear that in our culture, all a person has to do to be considered a “success” is to have a lot of money, regardless of how it is made. So what if it involves legalized “whacking”? Crawling to the “top” over rivals’ bodies and disdaining integrity is “not personal; it’s business.”

With the Mafia, and with cut-throat business, we expect ugliness. But let me tell you where we should never expect it . . .

I’ve seen some odd and interesting mottoes or slogans below some of the church names on church signs, but I’ve not yet seen anything quite this obvious: CHRIST THE REDEEMER CHURCH: Where It’s Not Personal; It’s Business.

No, I’ve not seen it on a sign, but I’m afraid it is all too often the unspoken motto of churches that have sold out to our consumer culture and thus burned incense to our society’s most popular gods.

Eugene Peterson once wrote a letter to a pastoral colleague who was flirting with leaving his present flock for a very large church that was “more promising” and where he could “multiply his effectiveness.” (All the usual pseudo-sanctified buzzwords.)

Be careful! Peterson warned. “Every time the church’s leaders depersonalize, even a little, the worshipping/loving community, the gospel is weakened. And size is the great depersonalizer.”

Peterson didn’t deny that there is a time for ministers to move. He didn’t deny that real spiritual maturity (the Christ-like kind counter to our culture’s values) can grow in large churches, but “only by strenuously going against the grain.” Size makes spiritual growth harder, and not easier, he wrote, because real spiritual growth always takes place in community, not in a crowd.

We easily fall, he warned, to the temptation Christ repudiated as Satan urged him to cast himself off the temple so that angels might save him and crowds might marvel. When we go for the glitz, orchestrate excitement, and play to the faceless crowd, the ecstasy we seek from the crowd is as deadly to our souls as any false high we might seek through illicit drugs or sex. It’s not the joy of God; it’s false joy. And chugging its poison is tempting. It is much easier than adopting the way of the cross. It’s much easier than actually living with, walking with, and caring for sheep who have faces we know.

Christ, the Good Shepherd, knows each of his sheep intimately and by name. Pastors and church leaders should, too.

Thank God, Christ’s church is not business; it’s as absolutely personal as a Father’s tears at the death of His Son.








Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

God Uses Both Mars and Venus To Make Earth Work

If I ever actually had any doubt (and I didn’t) that, to borrow from the wise guy’s book title, men really are from Mars and women are from Venus, one evening’s dinner drama would have put that doubt to rest yet again.

There was no fuss. My wife and I really don’t fuss much. Well, to be completely accurate, we don’t fuss much REALLY. We fuss all the time good-naturedly, but that’s fun.

Anyway, we’d wasted an hour or so trying to decide what we wanted for dinner. Neither of us was too excited about what was available in the house. We finally decided on the American Heart Association’s old standby, cheese nachos. (Oh, yes, nachos are a heart-healthy food, you see, because of the jalapeños.) By that time, I was really getting hungry and was having visions of nachos resting under the oven broiler, cheese bubbling, jalapeños nicely wrinkling, and tostados sizzling to a dark brown just around the edges. Slap on a little sour cream, if you wish, and . . .

Rats! No jalapeños. How did we run out of that staple item? None in the house.

Back to Square One.

That’s when we decided on pizza. We whipped out the pizza coupons. We ordered. We wrote the check. I was halfway out the door . . .

That’s when my dear wife called out sweetly, “Do you want me to go with you?”

I know now how, Martian that I am, I should have answered this dear Venusian immigrant.

“Why, yes, O love of my life and exalted mother of my children! Yes! Come with me to the Palace of Pizza Delight, O dearest one.”

What I really said, in a hurried tone of surprise and bewilderment, was, “Huh? Well, yeah, okay, if ya want to, but hurry up! I’m starvin’!”

Gentlemen, fellow Martians, if you notice your wife’s lower lip stuck out just a tad after hearing such a reply, you should realize that people of the female persuasion, people from Venus, use this as a non-verbal expression of hurt and displeasure.

Well, she did go with me, and we even had a little time to talk about life and our feelings on the way to and fro. But what this illustrates, yet again, is a fundamental difference between the sexes.

For men, fulfillment comes in reaching a goal. Want pizza? I’ll get it! My plan is to do whatever it takes to focus only on that moment when I’m wrapping my gums around the object of my hunt and greasing my capillaries with juice from Italian sausage!

For women, fulfillment comes through the journey. Want pizza? Well, yes, we’ll enjoy eating it, but just as important as the acquisition is how we get it. “Hey, honey, let’s go together!”

Mark it down, Martians. These principles apply to EVERY area of your marriage. God made us this way, and, thank the Lord, it takes the combined perspective of both Martians and Venusians to make things on Earth work well.






Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

God's Perfect Love Drives Away All Fear

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear . . .” (1 John 4:18).

The little fellow standing on the corner of the street, just down at the end of the block from San Jacinto Elementary School and his second grade class, was trying to be “a big boy,” but the tear-trails mapping their way down his crimson-flushed cheeks were proof positive that it wasn’t working very well.

Maybe big boys—you know, those third-, fourth-, or fifth-grade boys, or even those sixth grade pseudo-gods who ruled the elementary school roost, the unchallenged kings of the puerile pecking order—maybe they would have handled the calamity sans tears. He could hardly imagine a sixth-grader in tears.

But he was just a little guy. And he was standing there, waiting on his usual corner for his mom to pick him up, just as usual, but on this particular day he was holding in trembling little hands a damaged paper bag. Several streams of what looked like colored sand were slowly leaking out in hour-glass fashion from several punctures in the paper bag. The smell of perfumed soap crystals bore mute witness that the “sand grains” were in fact bath salts.

Those colored bath salts had been carefully layered into a little jar in rainbow fashion to form a second-grader’s gift to his mother for the upcoming Mother’s Day. But that was before the sack and its love-laced contents had been dropped by clumsy second-grade hands, completely accidentally but with complete devastation, to the ground.

The colors of the rainbow, now indistinct, loosed, and effectively destroyed, mingled with shards of glass in the sack which just a few moments ago had been the humble enclosure for a treasured gift and now was just a sack for trash.

I still remember the tears rolling down my cheeks.

But you know the end of the story, don’t you? You know that my tears soon dried as my mother’s kiss and her warm embrace proved yet again that she loved the giver more than the gift and, even broken, my gift was to her, beautiful.

I wasn’t really afraid that day that I might lose my mother’s love. It just broke my heart to break her gift.

But I know now that even big boys and girls sometimes stand in one of life’s corners with tears streaming down their cheeks. And they—we—are indeed afraid.

We’re afraid because we realize that the gift we so wanted to give our Father is broken, and shattered, and lying in pitiful pieces.

We’re afraid because the gift of pure lives that we so wanted to present as the tribute of love now seems anything but pure. Twisted and marred, it’s no longer beautiful.

We’re afraid.

But we needn’t be.

Our Father, our God of all grace, drives away all fear, kisses away all tears, hugs away all humiliation, and wraps up the tear-streaked beloved in the warm embrace of perfect love.





 





Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.

Don't Be One of Job's Friends!

The Book of Job is the textbook on suffering.

Open that Bible book and you’ll see an extraordinarily good man undergoing extraordinarily terrible affliction. He loses his family (except his wife, and keeping her might easily be counted among his afflictions), his wealth, and his health. He’s reduced to sitting on a pile of ashes, scraping his many sores, and praying to die. He is a picture of complete misery.

As if he weren’t already miserable enough, Job has a visit from three “friends.” The wretched fellow is in such terrible shape that they don’t even recognize him at first, but when they do, they break into such a frenzy of wailing and grief that one would think Job had already died.

In fact, I’m told that the kind of wailing they undertake is precisely the kind that happened in that culture when the undertaker had already been called!

For seven days, they sit viewing the “not yet dead” body of their friend, acting as if he were already dead, and then they undertake a premature post mortem of his trouble.

They speak. And they shouldn’t have. These “miserable comforters” begin to debate the man they’d come to console. The question is, “Why do the righteous suffer?” Job’s friends have a quick answer: “They don’t! ’Fess up, Job! What have you done to deserve this pain? We know that the righteous always prosper; only the wicked suffer.”

We do? Since when? No, it just doesn’t work that way, does it? One wonders what world Job’s friends had been living in. It certainly wasn’t the world you and I live in.

Unfortunately, Job’s friends are still around. “Turn your life over to the Lord,” they preach, “and all your troubles will be over. Life will be for you beautiful, rosy, and probably prosperous.” And then, if life is not? “What is wrong with your faith? What sin lurks in your life?”

Job’s friends.

Maybe Job’s original friends had some excuse for their folly, but their modern counterparts who can read the New Testament should know better.

They should hear the Apostle Paul telling persecuted believers, “We did not want any of you to lose heart at the troubles you were going through, but to realize that Christians must expect such things.”

They should listen to Jesus’ own words: “In this world, you will have trouble . . .”

Or they can simply look at the cross and see what the world did to the best man who ever lived.

A time of trouble is a good time to pray for stronger faith. And any time is a good time for humble self-examination.

But when trouble comes, don’t pay too much attention to Job’s friends. They were dead wrong then. And they’re almost always dead wrong now.





Copyright 2011 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.