I never cease to be amazed at how God’s word, penned thousands of years ago, can speak directly into our current circumstances. Take the Christmas story for instance. It’s a story we’ve heard countless times before, especially Luke’s version that Linus recounted in Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special. It starts like this:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. (James 2:1-5)

This is just the set up for the story. What follows are the parts we typically focus on: a baby born in a stable, angelic choirs and visits from startled shepherds and Eastern astrologers. But this morning, the opening lines of the Christmas story are what captured my attention. Because the Christmas story starts with a political edict that threw a wrench in Joseph and Mary’s plans.

Can you imagine what an inconvenience that edict from Caesar Augustus must have been? “Wait, you mean we have to travel 90 miles to Bethlehem at the tail end of Mary’s pregnancy all because of a census?!” I suspect that both Joseph and Mary had some not so holy words for the guy who made that decision.

And yet, despite how unexpected and inconvenient Caesar’s call for a census might have been for Joseph and Mary, it didn’t take God by surprise or thwart His plans. In fact, hundreds of years prior, God had prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). So Caesar’s call for a census wasn’t an inconvenience to God. It was integral to His plans. He used the decision of an unbelieving ruler to fulfill His redemptive purposes.

Which brings me to this Christmas. Because, let’s be honest, there are some governmental edicts that threaten to upset our best laid Christmas plans. And this could stir up a lot of consternation for us.

“What do you mean I can’t gather with my extended family?”
“What do you mean we can’t hold our Christmas Eve service indoors?!”
“What right do our governing officials have to try and limit our celebrations?!”

May I simply remind you that God isn’t spun out by this Christmas curveball. He isn’t limited by the limitations that we’ve been forced to endure due to Covid. And as the Christmas story reminds us, He even works through the decisions of unbelieving governmental officials.

So don’t grow weary or lose heart this Christmas. God is at work despite the disruption to our lives. And even though it might be inconvenient to us, this curveball may be the very thing He uses to further His redemptive plan in our lives, just as He did in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

A couple years ago, I went to the optometrist to get my eyes checked. She had me sit in a seat and stare through a big set of goggles at a picture on the far wall. Admittedly, the picture looked pretty fuzzy all that way across the room. Then, she started flipping lenses in front of my eyes. Some of these lenses further obscured the picture, but a few of them really helped bring it into focus. I left her office with a prescription for reading glasses and a newfound appreciation for the difference the right lenses can have on the way we view the world.

If there was ever a time we could use a new perspective, it’s right now as we head into the final days of this presidential election. I thought 2016 was contentious, but 2020 has taken it to a whole new level. I can’t recall an election that has been more polarizing and emotionally charged. It’s led friends to belittle one another on social media for their political perspectives. It’s caused family members to stop speaking to one another. As a pastor, this election has made my heart heavy.

Now, typically we only look at an election through the lenses of political pundits and social media, but I've found that all these sources tend to stir up is more fear and agitation. What we truly need is a new perspective on this election, one that is based on something more solid than the shifting sands of public opinion and partisan politics. My hope is that in the following paragraphs I can do for this election what my optometrist did for the picture on the wall - bring it into perspective through the use of some different lenses.

As a Christ-follower, I can think of no better framework to look at this election through than the Bible. It is the inspired word of God and it has outlasted nations and political movements. So the lenses I will use are biblical perspectives that can help us bring this election into focus. 

Lens 1: As Christ-Followers, we are citizens of God’s Kingdom.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul told believers that although they lived in a Roman city, their primary allegiance was not to the Empire of Rome or to its Emperor. He explained that as believers “our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

The same is true of us. Sometimes we get so focused on this world around us that we forget that we’re no longer defined by it. If you have accepted Jesus’ invitation to follow him, you are not an American Christian, you are a Christian who happens to live in America. Our identity has fundamentally changed. 

And yet, sometimes it feels as if our patriotism to this country overshadows our devotion to our God. Many of us spend more time worrying about the politics of this world than we do the values of the Kingdom of God. Here are a couple questions to consider:

• Do you look to a candidate or a political party as the solution to the issues we face?

• Have you been spending more time reading articles, watching the news and browsing your social media feed than you do connecting with God and meditating on his word?

• Do you pay taxes, but resist giving to God?

• Are you more outspoken about your political perspective than you are your faith?

• Are you more concerned with the shifting morality of our nation than you are looking into your own heart and recognizing the ways you have resisted submitting to God?

• Are you more patriotic for America than you are for Jesus? 

The first thing we need to remember as we approach this election is that our primary allegiance is not to a presidential candidate or a political party, it’s to the Creator and Sustainer of the world, the one who rescued us out of darkness and gave Himself for us so that we can be called sons and daughters of God. Again, “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3:20)

If we forget that, if we take our eyes off of God and look to a political party or a politician to fix the brokenness around us, not only will we be sorely disappointed, but we will stumble into the same trap that the religious leaders of Jesus’ day fell into. They longed to see God’s Kingdom come and His will be done on earth, but their idea of how God would accomplish this was different from how God actually planned to accomplish it. Like us, they were looking for a savior, but their expectations of what this savior should look like had been deeply influenced by the power structures of the world around them that said things like “might makes right” and “compromise is acceptable so long as the ends justify the means.“

Because of this, when their savior actually did show up, they couldn’t recognize him. Despite the fact that Jesus was doing what God said he would do - driving out demons, healing the sick, binding up the broken and breaking down strongholds - they viewed him as a pretender to the throne. What’s more, they feared that he could actually cost them what little political influence that they had. So what did they do? They sought to shut him up and, when that didn’t work, they clamored for his death. They compromised in order to retain what little control they had by declaring their allegiance to Rome (the political power broker of their day) rather than embracing their King.

May we not forget that we are temporary residents in this world, citizens of the Kingdom of God living in a world that does not share our values. May we never put our faith in a politician or a political party, because at the end of the day they are not our savior – last time I checked, Jesus was. Similarly, America is not the hope of the world - Jesus is.

This brings us to our second perspective shift –

Lens 2: Though only temporary residents, we still have a responsibility to be God’s representatives. 

Despite the fact that we are citizens of another Kingdom and living here as foreigners, that doesn’t mean we have no responsibility for the place in which we live. We were designed by God to be His representatives and called to be ambassadors of hope to a hurting world (2 Corinthians 5:17-20). This led the Apostle Peter to write:

“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among unbelievers that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:11-12)

How we live our lives matter, because we are God’s representatives. We reflect (albeit imperfectly) the heart of our King to the world around us. And our actions speak far more loudly than our words. 

We are surrounded by people who live and think and vote differently than us. We can claim that God is love all day long, but how we treat people like them says more to the world than our words. When someone accuses us of being bigoted or racist or closed-minded just because we call ourselves a Christ follower, how we respond shows them the sort of God we serve. Do we respond with love? Or do we meet anger with anger, hatred with hatred?

Furthermore, we are called to reflect the values of the Kingdom of God, despite how contrary they are to the values of the world in which we reside. While the world says to destroy your enemies, either with words or weapons, Jesus told us to love our enemies and to pray for them. In a world that honors the strong and celebrates the victors who climb to the top over the beaten backs of their competition, Jesus said that the greatest in the Kingdom of God will serve others and put their well-being above their own. 

So, as aliens and strangers here, citizens of a foreign country living in a broken, sin scarred world, we are called to embrace and exhibit the values of the kingdom of God, called to be representatives of our true King. Of course this doesn’t give us permission to simply disregard the laws of the land in which we reside. Peter continues:

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:13-17).

Notice that we submit ourselves to the leadership of this land “for the Lord’s sake.” We are his representatives, his ambassadors, and as such we don’t flaunt our freedoms, but we do live as representatives of the Kingdom of God.

Now, I want to be very clear about something. Just because we’re citizens of another Kingdom living in exile doesn’t mean that we disregard the upcoming election or refuse to do our civic duty of voting. After all, as Christ followers we are called to be stewards of what God has entrusted to our care, and our vote is one of those things. On Tuesday, we have an opportunity to give voice to our values through voting (not just for the top of the ticket, which is where most of our attention has been focused, but all the way down the ballot on issues that will impact our community as well as our country). To refuse to vote is about as effective as burying the talent our master has entrusted to us in the ground (Matthew 25:14-30).

However, I want us to remember that our vote is not the only tool we have for shaping and influencing our community. We may only go to the polls once every couple years, but we vote every single day for the kind of community we want to live in by the way we treat our neighbors, by the ways we spend our money, by the values that direct our actions and by the places where we volunteer. 

I love the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, written to the Israelites as they found themselves living in exile, in a land that was not their true home. He said, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7). 

This may not be our permanent home, but as ambassadors of our King, we have a responsibility to care for the community in which we reside, and to pray for it. This includes praying for our leaders - even the ones we didn’t vote for - because they have been entrusted with the weight of leadership, and our God can and does use even bad leaders to bring about His good and perfect will.

This brings us to our third lens:

Lens 3: Regardless of who wins this election, God is in control.

“Make your motions and cast your vote, but God has the final say” (Proverbs 16:33, MSG).

The message of scripture is that, while man has free will and we make choices that affect our reality (such as electing who will govern our country), God still works behind the scenes to bring about his perfect will. Now, at times it might seem like God has lost control and the inmates are running the asylum, but scripture is full of reminders that we might plot our course, but the Lord ultimately directs our steps (Proverbs 16:9). 

We may be wringing our hands about what might happen on Tuesday, but the outcome is no surprise to our God. He already knows what will happen. He already sees how our choices will affect our temporary home, how it will shape our society. What’s more, He can and will use the outcome of the election to bring about His purpose and plans, even if what He wants isn’t exactly what we would have expected or asked for.

I think of the Israelites living as slaves in Egypt during the time of Moses. They would sit around the fire, recounting the story of their ancestor Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, then falsely accused of sexual harassment and ultimately thrown into jail. Yet, God used these circumstances to place Joseph into the right place at the right time so that he could rise to power and save the Israelites from the coming famine. They would remember Joseph’s words to his brothers – “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). God used his brothers’ jealousy, used their decision to sell their brother into slavery, even used a false accusation to place Joseph right where He wanted him.

And then, as these Israelites sat around the fire, with weary muscles and calloused hands from a lifetime of slave labor, they’d consider their current leader - Pharaoh. He was so different from the Egyptian ruler that had entrusted Joseph with power. This Pharaoh didn’t treat them as honored guests – he’d enslaved them. I would imagine that the Israelites of Moses’ day probably didn’t think that God had any control over their circumstances, probably felt that the Pharaoh in power was the wrong candidate. If they had been given a vote, they almost certainly wouldn’t have voted for him – maybe they’d have looked to Moses as their candidate for change. 

Yet, God allowed Pharaoh to sit on the throne of the most powerful nation in the world, not because he was a Godly leader, but because our Creator was going to use Him to bring about His purpose and plan. Listen to what God told Pharaoh: “By now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:15-16).

Don't think that someone is in power because our God has no control - they are in power because our God has allowed it and He plans to use them to advance His purpose and plans. Nations rise and fall, presidents come and go, but our God never changes - He never fails. 

That’s not to say that we won’t suffer or endure persecution. In fact, if we take Jesus at his word, we are guaranteed to be persecuted for our faith (John 15:18-21). After all, we are foreigners living in a land whose values are at odds with the values of our Lord and King. And just as they sought to silence Jesus, they will seek to silence us. However, the fact that we suffer persecution doesn’t mean God has lost and the brokenness of this world has won. 

As I look around, I recognize the ways that God uses even persecution to advance His purposes and plans. It was persecution that prompted Rome to crucify Jesus. It was persecution that motivated the spread of the Gospel (Acts 8:1-4). And as I look around right now, the gospel is making the greatest impact in those areas of our world where Christ-followers are experiencing the greatest levels of persecution, places like China and the Middle East. 

No one likes to be persecuted, but it seems that persecution actually promotes spiritual growth, so perhaps the greatest good that can come from this election is that the American people select politicians and policies that will further the persecution of the church. I’m not saying that’s the way I’m voting. I’m just saying that God’s ways are not always our ways and what we see as a setback might actually be a huge leap forward in His redemptive plan. Regardless of the outcome of this election, we can have confidence that our God is on the throne, not only of our hearts, but of all of creation. Furthermore, although we don’t know what the path ahead looks like, we can rest assured that our Father in Heaven does and He is using even these messy circumstances to advance His kingdom purposes.  

So on Tuesday go to a polling station and vote. Elect a temporary leader for our temporary home. But don’t forget that we are foreigners living in this land, and God is our true King. While we reside here we are called to be His ambassadors, reflecting His loving heart to our hurting world in both word and deed. Just remember, despite the outcome of this or any election, our God is in control and He will bring about His purpose and plans, both in this world and the one to come.

 

Pray for Rain

At 6 pm last night, a friend of mine who lives in Central California texted with an urgent prayer request: “Please pray for rain.”

She lives and works at Mount Herman, a picturesque conference center nestled in the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains. And right now those mountains are being consumed by a massive wildfire that is burning out of control and threatening countless homes and businesses, including Mount Herman.

When I read her text, my heart ached for for everyone in the path of the fire (one of over 350 wildfires that are currently burning throughout California). Fire crews are working tirelessly to try and contain the blaze, but the fire is so much bigger than they can control. So she, along with so many others, are displaced from their homes and all they can do is wait and pray.

The Bible is full of examples of people who cry out to God, and He responds in miraculous fashion. One man even prayed for rain, and it came (1 Kings 18:41-46). And yet, when I got her text, my first thought wasn’t to cry out to God expectantly. To be honest, the prayer I offered up was pretty anemic, something along the lines of, “God, if you’re willing, it would be awesome if you sent some rain.” But truth be told, I wasn’t expecting much. After all, the weather report for that area was nothing but dry heat for the foreseeable future.

So it came as a bit of a shock when she texted back 20 minutes later with a screen shot of the weather report showing that it was, in fact, raining in Mount Herman.

Now, in no way am I trying to take credit for this movement of God. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only person she sent the text to. In fact, there were a whole lot of people praying around 6 PM on Sunday evening that God would once again open the heavens and shower the earth miraculously, and many of them had far more faith than I that He would respond.

But it reminds me that there is power in prayer. Despite the fact that the circumstances of life can often grow too great for us to control, it reminds me that there is one who stands above our circumstances and is not overcome by them. And He invites us to call upon Him, to cast our burdens upon Him and look to Him for help. 

So don’t hesitate to bring your needs to God. He’s not too busy to hear your cry. And don’t underestimate the power of prayer. It changes things. Sometimes it even changes the weather.

 

 

I'm taking my family on a road trip next week, and I’m already preparing myself for the inevitable question: “Are we there yet?”

It doesn’t seem to matter how important the journey or how beautiful the scenery, there’s just something inside of us that longs to get to the destination. Or, if where we’re going feels too distant, to wistfully look over our shoulder to where we started and wish we could go back.

The Israelites fell into this trap, even after they’d watched God lead them out of slavery through a series of plagues; even after He’d parted the waters and destroyed the most powerful army on the planet; even as He led them in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night and as they ate bread that miraculously appeared on the ground each morning and drank water that gushed from a rock in the middle of the wilderness, still they grew tired of the journey. They grew weary of being dependent on God both for their direction and their sustenance.

And in the midst of the discomfort, they began to reminisce about how “comfortable it was back in Egypt,” forgetting that it was literal slavery. They began to grow impatient to get through the journey and arrive at their destination. They began to grumble against God. It didn’t matter that He was guiding them, or that He was providing for them – their attitudes turned this adventure into an ordeal. And because of their resistance to trust God and follow His lead, God literally extended the time they spent in the wilderness. Because what He was teaching them about trust and dependence was just as important, if not more so, than where He was bringing them.

As I examine my own heart in this current season, I discover thorny shoots of anxiousness and impatience sprouting from the soil of my weariness and discomfort. I find myself wanting to rush through this time, to just get to wherever we’re headed. At times, I catch myself wistfully looking back to how things were before the whole world shut down and wishing we could go back. Can you relate?

What’s ironic is that as uncomfortable as the journey became for the Israelites, as much as they wished to rush through it or turn back, that time of walking with God in the wilderness was one of the most formative seasons in their history, one which caused their faith in God to grow exponentially. In the soil of their discomfort, they learned dependence and trust. And they saw just how much God loved them. It was a lesson that shaped them as a people for generations.

I am weary of the journey. I’d love to just fast-forward to 2021, skipping past the whole Covid-shutdown, the racial unrest and the election. But as much as those things feel overwhelming and the road seems endless, I’m reminded that we don’t journey through this wilderness alone. God is right here with us, leading the way if we will only look to Him. He’s providing what we need in the midst of a season of scarcity. And I suspect that when we look back on this time, years from now, we will be grateful for it, grateful both for where He’s bringing us and for what He’s doing in us along the way.

Because sometimes the most important part of a journey isn’t the destination; it’s about being present with the ones who are with us along the way.
 

So do not fear, for I am with you; 

do not be dismayed, for I am your God. 

I will strengthen you and help you; 

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. 

(Isaiah 41:10)

“We’re in this together.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this over the last several months, or how many times I’ve said it myself. And yet, like runners in a marathon, our exhaustion narrows our focus and makes us feel like we’re alone in our suffering.

We are all tired. We’re all grieving losses. We are all feeling the effects of forced isolation. Forget thriving, we’re just struggling to survive with our sanity intact.

And we all have some things we wish for right about now:

• I wish someone would call. I really need someone to talk to.

• I wish I could borrow someone’s hope. I could use some encouragement.

• I wish people would be kind to one another. Why does everything turn into a fight?

• I wish I had someone to process with. Someone that wouldn’t judge me for being in process.

But the phone’s not ringing and most of the places we’d go for human interaction are closed due to Covid. So we turn to social media for a hit of community, for a reminder that we’re not alone, even though it can be incredibly impersonal and often degenerates into arguments. But at least it’s better than feeling alone, right?

Loneliness and isolation are some of the most damaging side-effects of this shutdown, and they’re causing huge spikes in addiction, depression, domestic violence and suicide. Something has to change. Someone needs to address this epidemic. But rather than wait for some politician or doctor to come up with a solution, what if we are the solution?

What if we become the sort of people who give to others what we need ourselves? 

• Rather than sit back and wait for the phone to ring, what if we pick up the phone and begin to reach out to people we haven’t seen in a while?

• Rather than lament a society that seems to have lost its ability to listen without attacking, what if we become the sort of people who listen – truly listen – with the intent to understand, not simply to find the flaw in their thinking.

• Rather than adding to the cacophony of criticism and critique that is dominating our public discourse, what if we go out of our way to speak words of life, to build people up rather than tear them down?

• And if we can’t think of anything nice to say, what if we practiced what we’ve been preaching to our kids all these years and didn’t say anything at all? Or better yet, what if we took our frustration and used it as a prompt to pray for God’s blessing upon those who disagree with us? 

This approach may not change the world, but it would certainly change our posture towards it. It may not eradicate loneliness, depression, or division from society, but it would make a huge difference to our sphere of influence. Just think of the effect of a single candle in a dark room. A little light goes a long way.

Jesus said it best: “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). In other words, giving others what we’d like from them is the best way to reflect the heart of God into our hurting world.

So rather than focus on what’s wrong with society, rather than lament that people aren’t giving us what we need, let’s be part of the solution. Let’s give what we need.

After all, we’re in this together.

There’s been a lot of talk about the Governor’s decision to ban singing and chanting in church gatherings in his efforts to stem the spread of Covid-19. Many understandably view this as an attack on our First Amendment right to worship. That said, if we view a ban on singing in a sanctuary as a ban on worship, then we have a pretty anemic view of worship.

Worship is so much more than songs. It’s the way we live, the way we speak, the way we interact with people who don’t share the same worldview as us. The Apostle Paul got this. In his letter to believers living in Rome, he defined worship in this way: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).

Similarly, when James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, wrote to believers living among an unbelieving world, this is how he defined the purest form of religious expression: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).

While we think of worship as singing songs of praise, the giants of faith in the early church recognized that true worship was lived out throughout the week. It was choosing to let our lives become a reflection of our Creator’s heart. Since God showed grace to imperfect people like us, worship is extending grace to other imperfect people. Since He loves us despite our rebellious nature, worship is choosing to love others even when they tick us off. Since He constantly provides for us, worship is taking from the abundance of blessing He’s given us and using it to care for the needs of others. And that sort of worship is best done beyond the walls of the church.

So while I miss singing songs of praise alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ and look forward to the day when we can gather together again, I rejoice in the myriad ways I’m seeing the Church (God’s people) worshiping God through the ways they love their neighbors. Because true worship is so much more than the songs we sing on Sunday morning. True worship is the life we live the rest of the week. And that’s something that cannot be banned. Nor is it something that can be contained in a weekend service - it has to spill over into every other part of our lives.

So let’s let our lives sing.

Becoming a Light in Your Neighborhood

Lighthouse Family,

We started this year with a fresh understanding of what it meant to be a Light in our community. Rather than focus on the church being the Lighthouse, we realized that each of us is a light-bearer to our own unique Sphere of Influence.

At the time, we could have never anticipated what this year would hold in store for us. The Covid-19 virus has completely altered our rhythms and the way we "do life" together. But it hasn't been all bad.

I recently learned that the Chinese word for Crisis is the combination of two words: Danger and Opportunity. That is a fitting description of this current crisis for the Church in Costa Mesa. For all the hardship and danger this season has brought, I've also seen so much fruit, so many opportunities to learn a new way to love our neighbors.

I want to share with you one new way we can be a light in our communities. For the last six months, I have been a part of Bless Every Home, an outreach app that gives me tools to pray for my neighbors by name (along with a whole lot of other resources that I'm only now learning to appreciate). It is such a powerful tool that I, along with several other pastors in our city, have decided to make it a central component of our outreach efforts.

Rather than attempt to explain what Bless Every Home can do, I'd rather show you. So please click the link below, which will take you to a 2-minute introduction video that will explain what this powerful tool can do for you. Then, if you choose to, you can sign up to be a "light."

Thanks again for being a partner with me in radiating the light of Christ into our community. I'm grateful to know that we're in this together. Here's the link to sign up now.

May God bless you as you bless your neighbors, 

Eric Wayman 

Lighthouse Community Church

Better Late than Never

Today is June 19. For most of us, that doesn’t mean much. But to our African American brothers and sisters, this day rivals July 4. On July 4, we celebrate our independence as a nation, but even after we declared our freedom from England in 1776, not everyone in America was free. It would take another 87 years and a civil war before black men and women were also granted their freedom in America. On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation officially declared the end of slavery in America. On that day, everyone in America was technically free. The only problem is, not everybody knew it.

Bad news travels fast, but good news tends to take a more scenic route. That’s why over two years later, there were still slaves living in rural parts of America who still hadn’t heard that they were free. Every day, they got up and went out to labor in the fields as slaves. It didn’t matter that Abraham Lincoln had declared them to be free – until they’d heard the good news, they were in every way still enslaved.

That’s why June 19, or Juneteenth, is such a big deal in the African American community. It wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that word finally reached the last pocket of slaves living in Texas. On that day, they learned that the great civil war was over, and so was their bondage. They were free.

Admittedly, there’s a big difference between being free and living in freedom. And as the current racial unrest so powerfully reminds us, we still have a long way to go as a country. But as a pastor, I can’t help but think of some other people who are still living in slavery waiting to hear the good news that the means of their freedom has been secured.

I’m talking about spiritual freedom from sin and death. Ever since Adam and Eve disobeyed and sin came crashing into God’s good creation, humanity has lived in bondage to sin, separated from the one who created us in His image. And no amount of sin-management or rule keeping could ever break those chains. But then, two-thousand years ago, Jesus took up his cross and signed an Emancipation Proclamation in his own blood, declaring emphatically that sin no longer needs to be our task-master, shame no longer needs to shackle our hearts. We prodigals can come home.

This is good news of great joy for all humanity. And many of us have embraced this truth and begun to live out of it. But despite the effort of countless generations before us to carry this message across oceans and continents, there are still people living on this planet who don’t realize they can be free. And they’re not just in remote villages. There are people living in our own neighborhoods who have yet to hear the good news.

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul wrote the following words: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:13-15)

The Emancipation Proclamation was life changing for the men and women enslaved all across America, but the message of freedom that Jesus entrusts to us to proclaim is so much greater than that. It has eternal ramifications. And He’s entrusted it to those of us who have tasted and seen that life in Christ is true freedom.

This is the best news ever. Let’s not keep it to ourselves.

A few years back, I was introduced to Fantasy football. Suddenly, I found myself with a vested interest in every game, not just the one in which my team was playing. But it came at a cost. Fantasy sports completely altered the way I watch a game. Instead of rooting for my team to succeed, I ended up rooting for individual players on my roster irrespective of what team they’re on.

This has led to a whole slew of conflicting moments, like when I find myself cheering for certain players on a team to succeed while rooting for others to fail. I’ve even caught myself celebrating when a player on another person’s roster is sidelined because of an injury, completely forgetting that this is a real person and that injury has real life consequences.

Lately, it feels as if we’re approaching life as if it’s all a big game of Fantasy Football. We have divided the world into categories – have’s/have not’s, Democrat/Republican, black/white, citizen/non-citizen. And then we pick sides. This causes us to construct our own roster of players and causes that we root for and others that we root against.

Unfortunately, this leads to all sorts of self-defeating desires: we may find ourselves cheering when a politician stumbles, even though their misstep hurts others and has real life consequences. We may decry certain injustices, but overlook others because to acknowledge them could undermine our side’s grip on the moral high ground or, worse yet, cost us an election. Sometimes we even start to look at people who hold different perspectives than us as the enemy.

The problem with approaching life in this way is that it blinds us to an important truth: there’s only one team. We’re all in this together. 

This is especially true for those who claim to follow Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul said as much to believers living in an equally fractured First Century context: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) His point is not to deny our differences or pretend they don't exist. Rather, he reminds us that despite our different cultural, political and socioeconomic backgrounds, our relationship with Jesus supersedes those natural dividing lines. While the world says we are on different teams with conflicting goals, if we're following Jesus then we're on the same team and we've been entrusted with the same goal - to reflect His heart into our fractured world. This means doing what he did: binding up the broken, moving towards the marginalized, praying for those who persecute us and serving others rather than seeking to be served.

I know that it may sound naïve to speak this way. You might be thinking, "That’s not the way the world works! We have competing perspectives that conflict with one another, so the only way to ensure that our values are championed is to do whatever it takes to get our representatives into positions of power, and to speak forcefully enough that our perspective is heard, right?!"

But that’s like a team’s defense publicly criticizing the offense, or the quarterback complaining about the receiving core. It doesn’t help the team succeed against the challenges that they face; instead, it tears a team apart from the inside and weakens their ability to rise to each challenge they face.

That’s certainly what is happening in our country right now. We’ve been blindsided not once but twice, first by COVID-19 and then by a series of racially charged deaths. We’re hurting. And rather than uniting to face these challenges head on, we’ve pointed fingers and blamed one another. We’ve been yelling our heads off, but few of us are willing to stop and listen to another perspective – so the volume and the frustration just continue to grow.

What are the solutions to the myriad problems we face as a society? I don’t know. But I know that we won’t find them when we’re trying to shout over one another to be heard. And if we keep blaming one another instead of working together every time we get blindsided, then before too long we won’t have the strength or the resolve to get back to our feet.

Worse yet, if we keep rooting for one another to fail, eventually we’ll wake up and realize that we’ve all lost. Because we’re on the same team.

"Therefore, let us make every effort to do what leads to
peace and to mutual edification." Romans 14:19

“Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” (Ephesians 6:10-18)

Our world is at war – I think we’re aware of that fact now more than ever. But I fear we’re looking at the wrong enemy. We are yelling at one another across the racial, political and socioeconomic fault lines of our society, when our true enemy is spiritual. The same enemy that convinced Adam and Eve to doubt their creator sows discord into our hearts. The same enemy that convinced the Jews to murder their Messiah now seeks to deaden our hearts towards our neighbor who looks or thinks or votes differently than us. And right now, it seems our enemy is winning.

It may feel overwhelming to battle an ancient enemy whom we cannot see. It’s easier to point at the rioting looters or the self-righteous bigot than it is to confront Satan and spiritual forces. But I’ve got good news: it’s not our job to vanquish them. That’s Jesus’ job, and He’s fully up to the task. Our job is simply to stand against the devil’s schemes. Read through the passage above one more time and pay attention to how many times Paul tells us to stand.

Thankfully, we’re not powerless in this fight. God has provided a number of defensive weapons to guard our hearts and minds from an enemy who attacks from the shadows, using lies and accusations, stoking fear and agitation. An interesting detail that is often overlooked when we discuss the armor of God is that each piece is primarily defensive, not offensive, in nature. Each piece protects us from the attacks of the enemy, from his underhanded schemes. Even the Sword of the Spirit (the word of God) is used primarily to defend ourselves against the temptations and manipulations of the enemy. That’s how Jesus used it when Satan tempted him, and it’s one of our strongest protections against his attacks.

In fact, the only truly offensive weapon Paul mentions in this whole list is prayer. If the rest of the armor is intended to help us stand our ground against an enemy who comes at us from every angle, then prayer is like the field phone by which we can call in air strikes against an enemy who is deeply entrenched. When we feel overwhelmed and lost within the fog of war, when the bullets are flying and we don’t know what to do, the most powerful and effective way to stand our ground is on our knees in prayer.

People often mistake prayer as a passive way of dealing with our troubles, but from a spiritual perspective, prayer is calling in the big guns. And we could sure use the help right now. That’s why I’m so grateful to those who surrounded City Hall on Wednesday to intercede on behalf of our city and our nation. I’m so grateful to those who begin their days in prayer. And I’m grateful that our God hears our cries for help. 

No, prayer isn’t passive. In this spiritual war we find ourselves embroiled in, it’s the most powerful way we have to take the fight to our spiritual enemy. So please don't stop praying. Our enemy won't stop attacking, so let's not give him a breather. 

I am weary.

I started 2020 with such high hopes and lofty goals. Instead, I found myself in a marathon that I never signed up for. Of course, I didn’t realize it was a marathon going in. At first it seemed like a short sprint, and I was running on adrenaline. But as the days turned into months and I’ve had to let go of all my best laid plans time and again, my energy started to diminish and discouragement set in. Can you relate?

Runners talk about hitting the wall. For marathons, it often happens somewhere around mile 18. It's that moment when the physical exhaustion of what has come before and the mental exhaustion of what still lies ahead begins to grow overwhelming. It saps a runner’s will to continue, especially since the finish line is nowhere in sight.

I have officially hit the wall. I’m tired of being separated from my friends and church community, tired of how every issue seems divisive, tired of Zoom meetings and air hugs. And as we head back into a new round of quarantine, I don’t see the end in sight.

One of the most psychologically devastating aspects of hitting the wall is how lonely we can feel in our suffering. It doesn’t matter that we’re surrounded by other runners. We can’t see beyond our own exhaustion. We can’t feel their pain. And so we feel isolated, as if we’re the only ones who are struggling to keep going.

But I’m discovering that I’m not alone. As I speak with other pastors, friends and neighbors, I’m finding that they are also weary. They are also lamenting the myriad losses that this season has brought upon us all. Just knowing that I’m not the only one struggling has somehow eased the weight of my weariness.

God never intended us to run this race alone. He designed us to do life in community, to spur one another on and bear one another’s burdens. So may we fix our eyes on Jesus, the one who guides our steps and sets our pace. And may we lean on one another through this marathon. If you’re feeling lonely, isolated, discouraged or depressed, please don’t try to gut through it on your own. Please call someone. Process what you’re feeling and ask them how they’re doing. Share the weight. Hold one another up.

Just don’t let the wall be your finish line. 

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:1

Putting the Pieces Together

On the night before Jesus was crucified, he prayed for his disciples, knowing that difficult times lay ahead for the fledgling church. But he didn’t just pray for them. He also prayed for us:

“My prayer is not for [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one…so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-21, 23)

Several times in this brief prayer, Jesus prays that the church would be one – that we would be unified through the Holy Spirit and our commitment to love one another. But this unity wasn’t just something He wanted for us because it would make our lives easier. Jesus suggests that the Church’s unity would serve as proof to a skeptical world that He truly was from the Father and is the head of the Church.

Our unity is pretty important to Jesus.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t always seemed to be as important to the Church.

More often than not, it feels as if the Church is a 37-million-piece puzzle, fractured by countless disagreements pertaining to things like theology, liturgy, and worship preference. Sadly, rather than unifying around our shared faith in Jesus, churches have historically tended to fixate on the differences and propped up their own sense of superiority by pointing out the flaws in the other church communities around them. We’ve perpetuated this disunity by competing against one another, speaking negatively behind one another’s backs, and stealing one another’s members to swell our own ranks.

Now don’t get me wrong – despite our fractured state, churches have done a lot of good. We’ve shared the gospel, started ministries in our communities, and sent missionaries around the world. But at the end of the day, our disunity has undermined our efforts, because we were never intended to reflect the heart of Jesus by ourselves.

We’ve been acting like a puzzle where all the pieces yearn to reflect the picture on the box, but rather than doing so together, each piece is trying to do so on its own. What a futile endeavor. Think about how much time and resources have been poured into duplicate ministries, when we could have been working together; think of how much effort we’ve expended simply trying to outdo the churches down the street, rather than coming alongside them to care for the city together.

Every church community is a unique and valuable piece of God’s Kingdom. But if we hope to faithfully reflect the heart of our Creator into our community, then we need one another, because together we form a far greater, more comprehensive image of God than we ever could on our own.

That’s why, despite the frustration and uncertainty of this COVID-19 shutdown, I am encouraged. I’m seeing the Church in my city unite in ways I could have only dreamed of a couple months ago.

Before this shut-down, the pastors in my city were scheduled to share lunch once every couple months. Now, we’re connecting, planning and praying with one another every week via Zoom.

At the beginning of the year, we had hoped to get representatives from 10-15 churches to participate in the National Day of Prayer. Instead, we had over 150 churches from across our county join together in a 5-day round-the-clock prayer initiative, which included nightly online worship and prayer gatherings.

And there is no end to the generosity, not just towards the city but towards one another: churches with live streaming equipment are helping churches that don’t have their own. Churches who own their buildings are opening them to church communities who had been meeting in schools, so that they'll have a place to meet once we get the go ahead. Rather than competing with one another as church leaders have traditionally done, pastors in our city are sharing resources, finances, ideas and expertise with one another.

It’s an exciting time to be part of the Church in our city, and I know it is affecting the way our community looks at us. More importantly, it is affecting the way our neighbors and our civic leaders look at Jesus, because we are finally reflecting His heart together.

The Church Is Best Beyond the Box

I have a friend who collects Star Wars toys. He keeps them all in pristine condition, safely wrapped within their original packaging. And while his collection is expansive (and expensive), I can’t help but think he’s kind of missed the point. I mean, what good is a toy if you never take it out of the box? 

I suppose the same could be said for the church.

We have some beautiful church buildings in this city, and I know there are a lot of people who lament the fact that we can’t use them right now. I do, too. As a pastor, I look forward to the day we can worship face-to-face in our sanctuaries again. But while our buildings stand empty and unused, I want to remind us that our buildings have never been the church – they are just the boxes that hold the church when its gathers. WE are the church, and I have to admit that the church has been far more active and effective at loving our community since we’ve been forced out of our boxes.

During this time, we don’t have the luxury to sit back and wait for our neighbors to come wandering into our doors on Sundays. We have had to get creative. And let me tell you, I’m in awe of the myriad ways the Church in Costa Mesa has united to care for our neighbors.

For instance, several churches in our city united together to organize a fund to help the most financially impacted members of our city, and they seeded it with $80,000 of their own money. Then they got the word out, and people from the church community all across our city added over $400,000. To date, nearly 500 hurting families in our city have been helped with grants because of the Enough For All Fund (see enoughforallfund.com to donate or apply).

We also rallied together to provide basic resources for neighbors in need. Currently through an initiative called Love Costa Mesa, we are providing hundreds of boxes of food to needy families in our community each week. This has been done in partnership with local nonprofits like Trellis and Fresh Beginnings Ministries (see LoveCostaMesa.org for more details).

Then there are the prayer initiatives. Early on, when it dawned on many of the pastors that we would still be quarantined through Easter, we launched a 3-week prayer initiative. Dozens of churches participated and hundreds of people prayed for our city around the clock for three solid weeks. Then, after Easter, we broadened the invitation to the churches in our County. Ultimately, over 150 churches all across Orange County joined in a 5-day prayer gathering, which included nightly worship and prayer gatherings hosted by different cities.

Talk about unity!

I guess we had to get outside of our boxes to start being able to play well with one another. I’m glad we have, because we’re so much better when we work together.

It’s kind of sad that it takes a pandemic like this one to think outside of the box, but it’s nothing new. Even the early church struggled to get out of their box. Shortly after his resurrection, Jesus told his followers that once His Spirit empowered them, they would be his witnesses starting there in Jerusalem, and radiating out into the wider region of Judea, to the untouchables of Samaria, and eventually to the ends of the earth. But even after the Spirit came, the believers stayed put in Jerusalem. I suppose it was more appealing to congregate with people who thought and acted like they did than to move into unfamiliar territory. But that wasn’t what Jesus had called them to do. He’d called them to GO! In the end, it took major persecution to push them out of their box and into the wider world, but once that happened the church exploded.

I sense that something similar is happening here. God has ripped open our boxes, shaken us out into our neighborhoods and said, “Now do what I made you to do. Love your neighbors, move toward the hurting, bind up the broken, share with the needy. Don’t just talk about it – do it!” 

And we're actually doing it! The church is radiating the love of Jesus into our city like I’ve never seen before. I pray that we won’t stop once this crisis passes. I pray we will continue to work together irrespective of what “church building” we call home. After all, there’s only one Church in our city and Jesus is the head of it, so we might as well stop competing against one another and keep working together.

In short, I look forward to the day we can gather in our churches again, but I don’t want to just go back to how things always were. The stakes are too high; there are far too many hurting people in our communities to simply rush back into the safety of our buildings and get comfortable.

We were never made to stay in our box.

When Can the Church Reopen?

As a pastor, one question I’m getting asked a lot lately is, “When can we reopen the church?” I get it. I miss the gathering of our church family on Sundays and throughout the week as well. But I also want to be wise about when and how we do this, because the stakes are simply too high, both health-wise as well as in regards to the church’s relationship with our neighbors.

Some within the larger church community (outside of Costa Mesa) have been pushing for a restart to gatherings at the end of the month regardless of what the directives from our Governor and other civic leaders happen to be. I understand that they see the mandated closure of the churches both as an unconstitutional and unbiblical limitation. After all, the First Amendment of our Constitution affords us the freedom of religious expression, and scripturally when the Jewish leaders demanded the Apostles stop preaching in the name of Jesus, Peter’s response was, “We must obey God rather than human beings” (Acts 5:29).

However, I would suggest that these current limitations are not about freedom of religious expression so much as they are about public safety. We are still able to spread the gospel and connect with one another. In fact, through live streaming and Zoom, the church has actually been reaching a much wider circle of people than we had been able to when we relied solely upon meeting in the church building on Sundays. So we are not being told to stop sharing the gospel. Rather, we are being asked to stop gathering in groups for a season in order to stem the spread of a virus that can severely impact the most vulnerable members of our population. That’s a different story altogether.

The Apostle Peter also called on believers to “submit yourself for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor [in our case the Federal government] or to the governors” (1 Peter 2:13-14). He explains that our submission and our witness go hand in hand; by submitting we are removing a potential obstacle between unbelievers and the gospel. The Apostle Paul made a similar argument in Romans 13. So unless we are being asked to disobey God, which we are not, then we have a moral obligation to obey those in authority over us.

Furthermore, I cannot help but consider what it would cost us to defy our public officials’ directives and gather early: not only would we be exposing our members to possible exposure, but we’d be declaring to our neighbors that we don’t value their health and safety. Infected people infect people, and one particularly frustrating aspect of COVID-19 is that people are infectious long before they exhibit symptoms. So gathering prematurely not only endangers our own health, but the health of our neighbors. On top of that, we’d be communicating to our city officials that we are not willing to limit our freedoms out of love for our fellow citizens. In effect, by gathering early we’d be sending the opposite message to the one we’ve been working so hard over the years to communicate through our actions: namely, that we love our city and are willing to serve them. Our waiting is an act of service.

This is the first time in my lifetime that the authorities have asked us to stop meeting in order to help protect the health of our community, but it’s not the first time the church has faced it. Back in the 1600’s, Richard Baxter, who was a puritan pastor, wrote, “If the magistrate for a greater good such as the common safety forbids church assemblies in a time of pestilence…it is our duty to obey him.” However, he goes on to explain that if any authority were to outlaw the church gathering “as a renunciation of Christ and our religion, then it is not lawful formally to obey them.”1  That seems reasonable to me.

So we are in a holding pattern, waiting for the day we can gather again in our church buildings. But we are not waiting passively for the go-ahead from the city. In fact, a large number of local pastors including myself are actively working with our city council in order to draft guidelines for the eventual reopening of our church buildings. I will keep you informed on any developments. But for now, we will wait and pray and live stream and gather in Life Groups over Zoom and radiate the love of Christ into our Spheres of Influence. After all, our buildings might be closed, but WE are the church, and we never close.

1: Practical Works of Richard Baxter, V.5, Question 109.
 

Walking Through the Storm

by Cindy Washbon

Our world today is different from the way it was just two months ago. We find ourselves separated from family, friends, co-workers and normal everyday routines. Many of us are experiencing a wide variety of emotions: despair, anxiety, fear, loneliness.

We often think of grief as an emotion only related to the death of a loved one. However, in this season many of us are grieving the death of a life that "was" and an uncertainty of what will "be". Grief does not come labeled as "One size fits all". Grief is a very personal emotion and uniquely different to each person.

So in this time of uncertainty, we must be patient with our loved ones. Everyone will process this season differently, and it will elicit different emotions within us. Some of us are more exhausted, others more energized by this change. Some of us wear our emotion on our sleeve; others bury it under busyness or binge-watching Netflix. Some may express grief through sorrow, others in anger. Many of us will feel anxiety and fear.

Whatever emotions are bubbling up, and however it is expressed, remember that our grief is unique to ourselves, shaped not only by our current life circumstances, but by our previous circumstances as well. Past wounds, past unresolved grief will color this current season of grief.

So there is no “right way” to walk through this storm; our grief is not "One size fits all." Perhaps the best gift we can give one another is permission to be messy, to be unresolved, and give one another both the space and time to grieve.

But one thing to keep in mind, as Christ followers, is that we don’t walk through this storm alone.

I think of another time my husband Reid and I found ourselves in a season of fear and confusion like this one. It was the Fall of 2013, and Reid had just undergone open heart surgery to repair a leaky valve. Two weeks into his recovery I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Within a month of being diagnosed I underwent a double mastectomy. Our lives were changing rapidly and we were very unclear what our future was going to look like. (Sound familiar?) At that time, I'm not sure we would have acknowledged that we were experiencing grief for the loss our past "healthy lives," but looking back I think we were.

I vividly remember the night of my surgery. I was kept in Pre-Op all night, without a regular nurse checking on me. It was a very long and uncomfortable night and I kept waking up with an overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety. However, I was not alone. Every time I woke up, the words " Trust and Believe" interjected themselves into my “what if” worrying and I knew that my Heavenly Father was there to guide me through this storm. His presence gave me hope in the face of the unknowns.

Hope looks beyond our circumstances, to the one who stands above them. Our Creator hasn’t abandoned us or left us to fend for ourselves. He’s right here with us in the storm of uncertainty and “what if’s.” And He’s promised to never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6; Hebrews 13:5). So our hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised and its strength is in His faithfulness.

We lament like the disciples did when they found themselves in the midst of another storm, one where all hoped seemed lost and yet Jesus was fast asleep in the bow: “Jesus, how can you possibly sleep through this?!" they cried. "Don’t you see what’s happening?” But their cries were not cries of despair, but rather cries for help. Though the wind and waves were overwhelming, their hope was in their Savior, who was in the storm with them. 

Like them, we find ourselves tossed by each wave of change, buffetted by the steady headwind of discouraging news. But like those disciples in the boat, we are not alone in this storm. And like the Psalmist, we cry, “Now Lord, what do I wait for? My Hope is in you.” Psalms 39.7 

We must allow our grief of a life and world that "was" to give way to a hope of what will be. And we need to remember that we are not enduring this alone. God is right here with us. As long as we keeping looking to Him and loving one another, we will get through this current storm we find ourselves in, and our faith may actually grow through it, not diminish. Why? Because our Father won’t abandon us. He won’t turn His back on us. He will be by our side showing us his grace and mercy through it all.

"O my people, trust in him at all times,
Pour your heart to him, for God is our refuge."
Psalms 62:8


*Cindy Washbon is a cancer survivor and a leader in Lighthouse Community Church's Cancer Support Ministry. 

Sharing Our Comfort by Sharing Our Grief
By Leslie Chaney

My son was tragically killed when he was only 26. Words cannot express the anguish of losing a child, and for years I was drowning in my grief. But I didn’t grieve alone. My Father God was there with me, even if I couldn’t always sense His presence. And one day, God used this verse to remind me that He could even use my pain to help others.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 

Comfort is an interesting thing. Like grief, it’s not one-size-fits-all. People don’t receive comfort in the same way. One person may want to be left alone, while another may not want to be alone at all. Some people don’t’ want to hear or read anything, while others like myself want truths to hang onto as the waves of grief crash over us.  During my grief, I read many comforting books like a “A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss” by Jerry L. Sittser. I also researched and studied the scriptures for truths about grief to find some solace there. But not everybody does that, because what comforts one person may not comfort another.

So what are we to do when we seek to comfort someone who is grieving? Here are a few suggestions from one who not only walks with people through grief regularly, but has walked through my own grief:

While we may be in the same storm, we’re not all in the same boat: How one person responds to a painful loss can look radically different from another. Their reaction to loss can be affected by a lot of things: Their current circumstances (financial, relational, etc.). How close they were to the person or thing they lost. Whether they have unprocessed loss in their past that is triggered by this current loss. Don’t think that everyone’s grief looks the same.

Let Them Cry: No one likes to watch the person they love break down. You feel powerless and desperate to ease the pain. But if your response to the grieving person's tears is "don't cry," even if it is meant in a comforting way, you are essentially telling them not to feel their emotions. If their grief is causing tears, then crying is a part of their grieving process. It is something they have to go through. Let them know that it is safe to cry in front of you. And remind them that it’s safe to cry out to God. He can handle our emotions. He can take our messiness, and He cares. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

Be Real: It is both obvious and uncomfortable when you spew out clichés because you are (understandably) at a loss for words. Saying "It will be OK" doesn't help anybody because it isn't OK now. Be real. Tell them, "I don't know what to say, but I am so sorry and am here to help you in any way you need.”

Avoid Empty Clichés: Please don't say things like, “At least they're in Heaven." "God works in mysterious ways." "The Lord does everything for a reason." The “reason" doesn't matter right now — what matters is that someone or something that was dear to them has been lost. Leave the workings of God to God. Trying to second guess God is patronizing and minimizing as Job and his friends found out.

Give them room to grieve in unique ways: There is no right or wrong way to grieve after a loss. Don't tell them that they should be over it by now. Don't tell them that their grieving process is incorrect because it is different from yours. You need to give them room to experience mourning in their own personal way.

Be comfortable with silence: Silence can feel incredibly awkward. However, often there are no words that can help, so don't feel like you have to fill the silence while they grieve. The most important gift you can give someone while they walk through their grief is your presence. Spend time together, on the couch, on the beach, on Zoom or on the phone, even if you don’t say anything.

Let them talk about things over and over. One of the most important roles that you will take on during this awful time is that of a listener. They may initially react to the loss by not wanting to open up at all. Let them know that you are ready to listen whenever they are ready to talk. Once that moment comes, they may need to vocalize the same emotions or memories over and over, don't tell them that you have already heard the story. Just listen again and again.

Offer practical help: Don’t just say, “I’m here to help if you need me.” Be specific. You can offer to help plan the funeral, run to the grocery store, walk the dog, do their laundry, etc. Let them know that you are available, and suggest specific ways to help.

Remember that grief doesn't have an end date: Once the initial period of grief has passed doesn’t mean the grieving process is over. Just because someone begins to return to their regular routines, starts to laugh again, and seems to be fine doesn’t mean they are fully finished with their grief. Grief will wash over them like unexpected waves, hitting when they least expect it. That’s normal. Additionally, anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays will be heartbreaking for a while, but you can be there and help them get through it.

Don’t Grieve Alone: One of the hardest aspects of this pandemic is the way it’s forced us to be separated when we long to be together. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find community and support as you walk through your own grief. Lighthouse’s Grief Share Ministry that I lead is meeting weekly via Zoom. GriefShare offers a safe place for us to process our grief together, and to share our burdens so that the weight of our emotions isn’t so overwhelming. If you’d like to find our more, please email me at gsgriefsjourney@gmail.com.

Perhaps one upside to the pandemic is that everyone is grieving simultaneously. Whether it’s a death, a canceled vacation, or a layoff, the whole world has lost something. Though it’s hard to endure, I take solace in the fact that we have a Father in Heaven “who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:4)

The Problem of Pain - Part 3

This week, we’ve been exploring the uncomfortable topic of pain. On Monday, when I penned the first of these three devotionals, I chose to title it “The Problem of Pain,” only later remembering that one of my oldest and most trusted mentors wrote a book by the same name. 

You may know who I’m talking about; his name is CS Lewis. No, I never met him in person. He’d died long before I was born, but he helped shape my spiritual worldview nonetheless, first as a child when I read The Chronicles of Narnia, and later as an adult through his non-fiction works like Mere Christianity and The Four Loves. Lewis has taught me so much about things like life and love, God and grace. He’s one of those names who needs no introduction and whose words seem to carry greater weight, simply because they came from him. Today, I want to allow CS Lewis to teach us about pain.

You may not know this, but Lewis is someone who was well acquainted with the multifaceted pain life can throw at us. One of his earliest memories was at the age of four, when his dog Jacksie was struck and killed by a car. That loss hit him so powerfully that he began calling himself Jacksie (later shortened to Jack), and the name stuck, becoming the nickname his family called him for the rest of his life. But that was only the first of many helpings of pain for Lewis.

He lost his mother when he was 10, and was then emotionally abandoned by his father and sent away to boarding school. As a teenager, he suffered through a chronic respiratory illness, and then postponed his education to fight in World War I. There, on the front lines of France as a 19-year-old, he was injured when an Allied shell fell short of its target and accidentally hit his trench, killing two of his friends and taking him out of the war. During his slow recovery, he suffered from bouts of depression and deep spiritual doubt. But the worst was still to come. Many years later, he had to watch his beloved wife Joy suffer from a malignant cancer that claimed her life when she was only 45.

Through all of this, Lewis grappled with his faith and the glaring presence of pain in a world God had labeled ‘good.’ Several of his non-fiction books were borne out of the soil of his suffering, most notably The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed.

The irony of suffering is that the dark valleys are hard, uncomfortable places to be, and we’re tempted to run away when we find ourselves in them; however, they can also be fruitful places where the deepest growth can occur. And this was true for Lewis. The pain he endured was awful and he grieved deeply, as evidenced by his writings, but those painful seasons also produced some beautiful insights on life that continue to resonate for people experiencing pain today.

For instance, in The Problem of Pain, Lewis explains why admitting we’re hurting emotionally is far harder than acknowledging physical pain:

“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say ‘My heart is broken.’ ”

Ouch. I will admit that, as a guy, I’m ok admitting that my back hurts, but it’s far less comfortable confessing that my heart hurts or that I’m feeling discouraged. That’s just a little too vulnerable, just a bit too exposing. That said, one of unexpected silver-linings of this current season is that, since everyone is suffering, it’s more socially acceptable to admit it. But once this current crisis has passed, when the stores are all open and we’ve moved on (which will happen), what then? Will we go back to burying our heartache and sadness under a forced smile? I hope not.

In the same book, Lewis also describes the way God uses pain to get our attention:

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Often, suffering is the one of the first pieces of evidence atheists give for rejecting the idea of God. But for Lewis, a man who sought to ignore God through his 20’s and early 30’s, his suffering was where he became most aware of God’s presence. It was in his moments of grief, when his pain overwhelmed his determination to run from God and drove him to his knees, that he found God was right there with him, and had been the whole time. And it was in his moments of weakness that he discovered just how strong God truly was.

But as Lewis points out in the quote above, our pain isn’t simply a megaphone for us, but for the world around us. The way we work through pain often speaks far more loudly and convincingly than our lofty platitudes posted on social media from the comfort of our couch.

I will never forget the unexpected joy bubbling out of Tony Peca when I went to visit him in the hospital after he barely survived a heart attack. His calm, confident hope felt so utterly out of place, and yet it spoke volumes to me and everybody else who walked into that hospital room about the depth of his faith.

And I think of Johanna, my family friend, who passed away last year after a long battle against cancer. We miss her, but what stands out even stronger is the way her faith was revealed through her struggle. The cancer slowly consumed her body, but it couldn’t touch her trust in God. It stole her comfort, her breath, and finally her life, but it couldn’t steal her joy.

I will admit that it’s really easy to declare our trust in God when the sun is shining and we have plenty of food in the fridge and money in the bank. But it’s in times of crisis like this when our true feelings are revealed, both to ourselves and to everyone else around us.

So I suppose the question we need to ask ourselves is, How’s your faith doing right now?  

What has this current crisis revealed to you about your relationship with God?

The Problem of Pain - Part 2

“Endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as children...

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. 

Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness

and peace for those who have been trained by it. 

Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.”

                                                  - Hebrews 12:7, 11-12

Pain isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s actually a gift from God. 

He created our bodies with nerve endings to tell us when something is off. In fact, leprosy was the scourge of the ancient world primarily because it was a deadening of the nerve endings – it hindered people from feeling pain, so they ended up hurting themselves even worse.

So rather than viewing our pain as a mistake, as the byproduct of a God who isn’t paying close enough attention to our suffering, I pray that we will view it as a gift. And I hope that we will trust our Heavenly Father enough to allow Him to use our pain to strengthen our faith and grow our spiritual muscles. As the writer of Hebrews put it, “endure hardship as discipline (or training). God is treating you as children.”

As a parent myself, I’m torn between the temptation to protect my sons from any and all discomfort, and the desire to see them grow. I love them, and it’s hard to see them struggle, both emotionally and physically. I hurt when I see them hurting, whether because of friction in a friendship or because they’ve encountered an obstacle that seems challenging to them.

However, I also want to see my sons grow in maturity, and maturity doesn’t happen when they aren’t challenged. Their ability to work through conflict won’t expand if I step in every time I see they’re encountering relational friction. Their confidence won’t grow if I take over every time they hit a problem that they don’t already know the answer to. 

And so, as a loving parent, I actually allow my kids to experience discomfort, to work through hardship, to do their own school projects. I will often stay near, encouraging them and reminding them that they can do it, but if I want to see them grow, then I need to allow them to struggle.

God loves us enough to allow us to struggle as well. He doesn’t shield us from the discomfort or downright brokenness of this world. Rather, He walks alongside of us as we work through the challenges each day throws at us. We may not always recognize His nearness, and He will intervene in ways we may never realize, but in the end, our Father in Heaven loves us too much to protect us from hardship. The cost is simply too great.

Admittedly, we often don’t like the discomfort and pain this spiritual training brings. Neither do my kids. And the writer of Hebrews recognized that fact. He admits, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” But the pain is momentary; the benefits of working through the pain are far longer lasting.

He continues, “Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” I’ve often been struck by the fact that the positive fruit of the struggle – in this instance “righteousness and peace” – isn’t a given. It is only produced when we lean into the hardship and allow ourselves to be trained by it. 

I can think of several times I’ve watched my sons encounter challenges that seemed overwhelming to them, though I knew they were more than capable, and then watched as they threw pity parties rather than try to overcome the challenges. In the end, it seems that the only thing my boys learn through the tantrums is that life is hard and their parents are mean. What they fail to recognize in the midst of the emotional outbursts is that my willingness to let them struggle is actually an act of love. And it costs me dearly to love them in that way.

We, too, may be tempted to throw tantrums when God doesn’t step in immediately and calm the storm or give us the answer to our question or fix the relationship that is strained or make the stupid virus go away. Maybe that’s just me, though I doubt it. But Hebrews 12 reminds us that God loves us enough to let us struggle. But He won't make us struggle alone. 

Our Father won’t abandon us. He isn’t an absentee landlord who wound up the world and now sits back and watches it spin out of control. Nor is He like a cruel child who throws a defenseless animal in the water and waits to see if it will get out or drown. Far too many people have looked at the brokenness of life in this sin-warped world and drawn that conclusion.

God’s reasons for allowing us to struggle are far more loving and purposeful. He allows us to work through things for our own good, to make us stronger, to grow our faith, or as the writer of Hebrews put it, to “strengthen our feeble arms and weak knees” (v.12).

This sort of spiritual growth is not only important for our own well-being, but for the people around us as well. After all, we are surrounded by people who are stumbling along their own broken paths, who are enduring their own pain, and our Father has invited us to come alongside of them. And if we hope to be any support to them, then we truly need to get stronger.

So hardship doesn't just remind us to fix our eyes on God and lean on Him when our world is shaken; it is also the crucible through which our strength to walk with others is developed. And that's why our pain is a gift.