Ep382. Suffer. 

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

I knew a lady with soft tissue damage. Car accident. The doctors didn’t have solutions and the insurance company was unfriendly. She felt stuck and I listened to ask that age-old question, Why does God permit this to happen? 

I commented that the church we attended together had a theology of healing, but no theology of suffering. This was a new idea to her: a theology of suffering? 

In the book of 1 Peter, two of the most frequent words are submit and suffer. Peter’s encouragement: endure suffering faithfully.  

He instructs slaves: Submit, even if your master mistreats you. Better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil (1 Pet 2:18-20). He instructs all Christians: Don’t be surprised when a fiery ordeal tests you (1 Pet 4:12). Why? Because all over the world believers experience suffering (1 Pet 5:9). Perhaps we are next in line. 

My preference is not to suffer at all! But Peter explains that Christ suffered for doing good, and so should we (1 Pet 4:13). 

Consider three things that cause us to suffer. 

1. First, we suffer because other people sin. All of us have father-wounds and mother-wounds from parents who were less than perfect. Entire nations endure suffering caused by power-hungry, violent, and corrupt leaders. By design or accident, by sin or carelessness, we humans cause each other to suffer. 

2. The second cause of suffering? Our own sins and misadventures. As Billy Joe Shaver sings,
      The devil made me do it the first time,
      The second time I done it on my own.
                              – Billy Joe Shaver, The Devil Made Me Do It 

It’s no surprise that we suffer from poor choices. A used car I chose required endless repairs and body work, until finally the engine broke beyond repair on a street in front of a liquor store. Too often I hit “send” on angry emails, putting friendships and relationships at risk. I should learn to choose better.

3. And third, suffering is part of living in a broken world. Families wiped out by a hurricane. Crops lost to insects, war, or drought. Race wars, ethnic cleansing, child soldiers. A recently retired couple planned to travel together, but he got Alzheimers. Now she travels to the dementia unit to see him.

I don’t want to end like that! I exercise and eat healthy to slow down aging. Doctors prescribe painkillers and psychology supplies self-help books. But at best I can only delay the end. I don’t get to choose whether my journey will be easy or painful. 

Peter teaches us to endure suffering. Like Christ did. When we cannot eliminate life’s aches and pains, Peter invites us to walk through them with Christ as our companion. 

Let’s pray. 

O father, Jesus wanted to escape the cross. We want to escape our scrapes and pains. 

But wherever we run and wherever we hide, suffering finds us. Give us grace to endure, to take courage because Christ suffered. To take hope because he promises a new world free of pain and tears and decay and death.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Where our path leads through fire or flood, as our bodies age and crumble, give us grace to walk with Christ, until at last we meet you face to face. 

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Today, in the book of 1 Peter, we consider the word “submit”. Not a popular word these days, is it? 

Peter applies this word four groups of people: 
   Slaves, submit to your masters.             (1 Pet 2:18)
   Wives, submit to your husbands.            (1 Pet 3:1)
   Young people, submit to your elders.      (1 Pet 5:5)
   Everyone, submit to the government.     (1 Pet 2:13)

Peter may be keen on the word “submit”, but we’re not. I prefer to grow through expressing myself, becoming assertive, living free. Not much room for submission there! 

Our western culture values freeing slaves from their masters, and citizens from oppressive governments. But Moses didn’t submit to Pharaoh. He led the Israelite slaves away from the Egyptian government and away from their Egyptian slave masters. 

And what about women? Do they have a right to throw off patriarchal oppression, and find their way to a promised land of equality and justice?

Here are three situations where we submit. 

1. First, we submit to the laws of nature. Hiking in the mountains this summer, I climbed over fallen logs instead of waking through them. I went round the lake instead of through it. I walked carefully across the avalanche slope instead of jogging. I submitted to the laws of nature in order to gain the high country with its fresh air and amazing views. 

2. Second, we obey the laws of relationship. These are more fluid and variable laws than those of nature. Gravity pulls in one direction only, but there is push and pull, give and take in friendships, employment, marriages, and politics. The slopes and scree fields of relationships require thoughtful navigation.

As does my relationship with the government. I could show disapproval by not paying taxes. But that wouldn’t turn out well.  Peter’s advice: chill out, submit. 

In my working life, as my colleagues and I grew older, we began reporting to younger managers, who were hired or promoted above us. Several colleagues lost their jobs because they knew better than the young upstarts, and they let them know it. Sometimes I knew better too, but I exercised a submissive caution. 

God also follows the laws of relationship. He doesn’t usually say, “Submit or else”. He loves me, he draws me into a relationship, working with me to change my point of view. 

3. A third form of submission is obedience to the Spirit of God in my life. It’s not always clear when I am hearing God and when I am hearing my own inner voice or preference. But it is important to listen and discern until my way becomes clear. 

Let’s pray. 

Our father, you seek us because you want relationship. 

What return have we made for your great love? 
    Have we been surly slaves, resenting your authority?
    Have we been disobedient children, not trusting your goodness?
    Have we been unfaithful spouses, not welcoming your presence in our inmost lives? 

Teach us the grace of submission. To keep rules we need to keep. To move beyond the rules to a new heart that makes us friends and partners, in love with you and your family.  

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep380. Holy War.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

After discussing how Christians should crave milk like babies and grow up into a spiritual house, Peter presents another metaphor: holy war. 

He tells us to abstain from evil desires which wage war against our souls (1 Pet 2:11).  What? Is he telling me to take up a sword against myself?

War is ugly. Gaza wrecked by Israeli bombs and missiles. In Ukraine,  body bags and dead soldiers. Everywhere, veterans crippled physically and emotionally. Is that how Peter pictures my soul?

I have long been uncomfortable with bloody Old Testament war stories, and for years I resisted metaphors of the Christian life as war. Struggling with depression, fear, and loneliness, I steadfastly refused to interpret my life as a spiritual battle. But I regularly prayed the Apostle Paul’s armor of God for myself–the bulletproof vest, the battle boots and battle belt, war helmet, shield, and sword (Eph 6:10-18). 

What’s that, you say? I engaged in spiritual warfare while refusing to believe in it? Indeed I did.

Scripture is full of war stories, from the Battle of Nine Kings in Genesis 14 to the Battle of Armageddon at the end of history. Between these bookends, Jesus said, “I didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mat 10:34). Paul wrote, “We don’t war against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of darkness” (Eph 6:12). And in today’s scripture Peter warns, “Abstain from evil desires that wage war against your soul.” 

Peter doesn’t linger long on his war metaphor. He just briefly mentions that two parts of me are at war: my evil desires in conflict with my soul.   

Do you think he means that my evil desires of lust, greed, revenge, resentments, obsessions, and fears are tossing grenades at my self-control? And that my self control should shoot them down or toss them back? Like a movie where you count the action in explosions per minute?

Not a pretty picture of my interior life. But realistic, I think. 

“Abstain from evil desires that wage war,” Peter says. His metaphor warns that our evil desires are soul-destroying superpowers if we let them loose.  

Let’s pray. 

Our father, the Old Testament is full of people with evil desires, at war with themselves and each other. The Israelites, the Philistines, Assyria, Egypt, Babylon: violent actors on the stage of history where you are working out the salvation of our world. 

The New Testament, written during Rome’s violent domination of the world, tells us about Christ’s torture and death, and uses war metaphors to explain our Christian life.

Teach us to live out our personal war with evil. Teach us to war against evils everywhere. Teach us to wear the full armor of God.  

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube