Galleries

2.) GIVE EMPATHY FIRST, ANSWERS LAST

No one in distress cares about how much we know until they know that we care about how they feel.  You believe that?  When you are hurting, do you want a treatise on pain and suffering or do you want someone who will try to understand what your heart is feeling?  John Piper says, “There’s a time for words and a time for tears.”   And this is from a theologian who learned this through decades of pastoring as he left his study to enter the drama of human lives.

As I always should, I look to Jesus to show me how He gave empathy first and answers last.  The most obvious story is the one where Jesus wept tears of grief at the gravesite of His friend, Lazarus.  He didn’t give a eulogy about Lazarus or a sermon on death’s curse. He heard the wailing and entered in to weep deeply with Mary and Martha.  Jesus is our great High Priest.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Hebrews 4:15  What’s comforting about that is Jesus knows how I feel because He subjected Himself to life in this world.  He could have stayed in heaven, continued to inspire writers to pen scripture, and assure mankind that He knows how the human body handles pain because He created us.  That would have been only mildly comforting. He knew I needed more than a God who just understands how I am wired. I needed an Emmanuel who would show me that He understands the complex emotional landscape of human beings.  As the incarnate God, He modeled a rich emotional life with displays of grief, joy, and everything in between. I am a stoic by comparison.

It is easier to give answers instead of empathy.  I can deliver a few well crafted lines about pain and walk away without the slightest fatigue.  I won’t feel spent nor will I carry the hurts of the people I love with me. But that’s not how Jesus lived. Ministry to others drained Him.  His investment was costly.  When the woman with the issue of blood reached out to touch the hem of His garment, He knew it immediately because He felt power go out of Him.  After extended periods of ministry, He was depleted. He went off alone to pray and rest.

As you read this today, perhaps you are feeling the drain of loving someone well.  You have invested your heart over time and it has taken its toll.  This devotional is not to tell you to step away and to stop caring so much ~ though you need periods of rest.  It’s quite the opposite.  It’s to validate your weariness and commend you for being like Jesus.  Each of us must build a bridge of friendship before others will trust our words.  Without a heart connection that is built by compassion, there is little credibility to preach a sermon. Empathy opens their heart for truth that comes later.  Henri Nouwen wrote, “Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”  

Father God, make us a kingdom of priests after the order of Christ Jesus, our High Priest.

1.) LET THEM KNOW THEY’RE NOT ALONE

Just hours after the towers fell on 9/11, a recovery team heard cries for help and discovered part of a stairwell that had survived surprisingly in tact.  They found a half dozen people huddled  (all strangers before that morning) and embracing each other as hours before, everything around them roared and crumbled.  This shows us in a stunning way that when hard times come, we need to know that we are not alone.

Pain isolates us from other people and we begin to believe that no one has ever gone through what we are experiencing and that what we are feeling is unique.  We feel lonely.  Is there anything worse than believing you are alone and no one cares or understands?

God made us for community, not isolation.  He created us to be interdependent, not independent.  While we are not to be parasitic, we can humble ourselves to need others in a healthy way. It’s possible to need God and people.  Needing another to walk beside us doesn’t mean that our faith is not enough.  It means that we know God often expresses Himself through another believer.

Perhaps you are already fully engaged in this series because you love and care for people. You’re already thinking about a way to communicate to them that they do not suffer alone.  There are many ways to say it and show it.  Send a card, or a text, and know that just one line can make such a difference in someone’s survival.  Examples ~

• Though I don’t always tell you, God brings you to my mind so often and I pray for you.
• I struggle to find the words to tell you that my heart hurts when you are hurting.  
• I woke up in the night thinking about you.  Though we are apart, in Christ we are connected. 
• As I prayed for you, Jesus gave me a heart for you and what you are going through.  I felt the heaviness of your situation.

A neonatal nurse who worked in a pediatric hospital once told the story of twin boys who were born early, each under three pounds.  They were placed together in an incubator.  One was healthier than the other and the prognosis for the smaller child was poor.  One morning when the nurse came in to start her shift, she noticed that the strong brother had his arm wrapped around the weak one.  This happened more than once over the next few weeks and the weak one lived.

Paul the apostle is usually perceived as someone strong and independent, yet he said of a woman named Pheobe, Welcome her in the Lord as one who is worthy of honor among God’s people. Help her in whatever she needs, for she has been helpful to many, and especially to me.  Romans 16:2  We’re not told what Phoebe did but however she expressed God’s care, it imparted supernatural strength to Paul.

How will you let your hurting friend know they are not alone today?  Ask God to give you just the right words.

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.  Hebrews 6:4-6

Can believers lose their salvation?  This passage is not talking about a believer who fell away.  It describes one who tasted, flirted, and whose behavior was even shaped by time in the company in God’s congregation. He sensed the aroma of the Holy Spirit and was inspired by the messages of the eternal age to come, but after all of that, he fell away.

Perhaps you’ve known him.  He spent time in church.  He knew the songs.  He cried a time or two at a tender story.  His reputation was upstanding.  He seemed to enjoy the community but if you looked for solid evidence of his sanctification, it was absent.  He stayed the same from day to day, year to year, and a testimony of real change was missing.  With time, boredom set in and he lapsed into indifference. The lure of the world’s culture worked its charms. Though he hung out in the company of Jesus, he was not overcome with His glory. He learned the stories and the Christian rhetoric as if it were a script for a play but the language failed to bubble out of a changed and grateful heart.  He was an actor.

How has he re-crucified the Son of God and held him up to contempt?  By being close to Jesus but not giving his life to Him.  His departure was a declaration that Jesus isn’t glorious and His offer of salvation isn’t worth accepting.  He would stand with the crowd who crucified Jesus and agree from the sidelines that this person is worth rejecting.  He sees the cross, beholds Love, hears the offer of forgiveness, but walks away unimpressed.  Jesus is humiliated and rejected all over again.

We are told to be a discerner of spirits.  In looking for spiritual fruit, I must remember that there is a counterfeit for every fruit of the spirit.  A pretender of the faith can do loving things while feeling nothing.  He can look joyful but feel angst.  He can appear to be peaceful while sitting on a ton of anger.  There is the appearance of the Spirit’s fruit but it is not authentic.  You and I know the difference.  There is a mimic who finds it difficult to keep up appearances.  Once he falls away, whatever warmth once drew him to Jesus’ company leaves and his heart is hardened.  The spirit of repentance will be even farther from him, just as it was for the likes of Esau.

Your lessons for understanding people are deep.  I cannot possibly understand this without the help of Your Spirit.  Translate this message in just the way I need to hear it explained.  Amen

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.  John 1:5

Our enemy knows that God is Light.  He was once an archangel in heaven and saw the brilliance of the glory of the Godhead.  For much of eternity, he trembled and led the angels in worship.  Was God’s light so bright that he often had to look away?  We don’t know but one thing is for sure ~ he bowed in worship and led others to do the same before his appetite for power and autonomy corrupted him.  

Since Satan has seen God’s brilliance, and since he knows that Light overcomes darkness, why does he wage all-out war to wear out the saints?   And he shall speak great words against the most High and shall wear out the saints of the most High.  Daniel 7:25

Doesn’t he know that God’s children will tap into the ‘surpassing power of God’s greatness to all who believe?” (Ephesians 1:19) 

Doesn’t he know that we are well aware that victory over him was declared at Calvary?  (Hebrews 12:14)

Doesn’t he know that we have read the scriptures and we celebrate that he was paraded in defeat and humiliation before the whole spirit world?  (Colossians 2:15) 

Doesn’t he know that we take notice of the gift of God’s armor and put it on?  (Ephesians 6) 

Isn’t he aware that Paul calls it the ‘armor of Light’?  (Romans 13:12) 

Hasn’t he learned that we are aware of both our powerlessness in the flesh and our invincibility in the power of the name of Jesus?

Yes, he knows!  But he counts on the fact that, in times of distress, we will not stop to take stock of what is true about God, about His provisions and His promises.  Today is a day for our family to lean into God’s grace, asking Him for the courage to continue to trust His providence and promises. This is the second year anniversary of our son’s suicide. At 3:00 a.m. on this day two years ago, we answered a knock at the door that brought traumatic news the likes of which we’d never experienced. Ron heard the news first, then came and sat on the couch with me. He said, “This is the worst night of our lives.” And it was.

The feelings were both numbing and overwhelming. And on days like today, Satan counts on us caving into our overwhelming feelings.  He knows how hard it is to exercise faith in the throes of pain and distress.  He knows that our instinctive reactions to the memories of traumatic events involve emotions first, then thoughts.  He knows that by wearying us with battle after battle, we just might succumb to disillusionment and distrust of our Father.  What is the alternative?  

Oh, we can choose to believe that hardship is an opportunity to flex new faith muscles.  We can know that it’s possible to sing through our tears.  When drowning under the sea of trouble, we can rely on the surpassing power of God’s greatness.  We can don our armor and put-on Christ.  We can take the Light of the world into our fears, into the darkness of unbelief, into the chasm of sleeplessness, and into the worst of our ‘what ifs’ to discover that a foundation in Christ is solid as a Rock.  In the darkest moments of today, there is still light. Our son is worshipping at the feet of Jesus.

The world shakes but You, Lord, are unshakeable.  Amen

Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the LORD: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn.  Isaiah 51:1

When Jesus talked with the woman at the well in Samaria, He took intentional steps to prepare her to receive Truth.  They began by talking of the mundane; water, thirst, and drinking.  He made a segueway to its spiritual counterpart; spiritual water, spiritual thirst, and the possibility of a drink that would forever quench thirst.  Jesus conversed about all of this because it needed to precede the revelation of Himself.  Thirst needed to overtake her and wake up her heart ~ for she had stopped dreaming of a Savior long ago.

She came alive as Jesus talked. She rose to engage Him in animated conversation.  Thirsty, she finally voiced a desire to what He was offering.  “Give me this drink,” she said.  But Jesus didn’t answer…. “I’m speaking of myself and this is how you drink of me.”  He immediately brought up the subject of her husband which unearthed the most painful of any possible admissions she might have to make.  She had been married five times and lived with a sixth man.  I often wondered why Jesus’ strategy was to change the subject. Perhaps it was to put His finger on the most painful place in her life.  By doing so, the message was this ~ If you want the most profound encounter possible with Me, you must drink of Me where you need Me the most.  Because she didn’t shy away, she received new life.

What is the worst part of your story? Have you dared unearth the need associated with the memory?  Where does it feel risky to trust God?  What would Jesus say if He sat on the edge of the well with you.  “I saw you at twenty four when you wanted to give up.”  Or, “When you were little, scared and hiding, thinking no one cared, did you know that I was there?”  In these crises of faith, in the darkest places of unbelief, Jesus calls us to a new awareness that there is such a thing as Living Water.  If we drink of Him, we will never need look again to fickle sources to give us what we think we need to feel whole.  We will find Him to be enough.

The Christian life begins when I learn the truth about God, when I learn the truth about myself, and apply the truth about God to the truth about me.  The Gospel is life changing only when it starts with great spiritual need.

Lord, I want to know the hope to which You have called me and Your incomparably great power for me if Ibelieve in You.  Amen

And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not. Malachi 3:18

God tells His people that when they are in heaven, they will ‘again’ see the distinction between righteous and the wicked. “Far be it from me”, God says way back in Genesis, “that I should treat the righteous and unrighteous alike.” We expect to see such distinctions when God judges the peoples of the earth and separates believers from unbelievers. But, can we tell a difference today?

After all, everyone lives with the effects of the fall. We suffer unjustly at the hands of ungodly men and women. We are all vulnerable to COVID. The many hurricanes which have plagued our southern states have devastated Christians and non-Christians alike. Yet, God says that we can tell the difference how we handle adversity.

• A child of God experiences peace in dark times. The unbeliever flounders without a compass.
• A child of God exerts his authority over the dark forces at work. The unbeliever is captive to them.
• A child of God is able to hear the voice of His Father, the voice that comforts him. The unbeliever is desperate for consolation.
• A child of God has his eyes set on home. The unbeliever lives with a nagging fear of death.
• A child of God knows the power of prayer to affect his life. The unbeliever is limited by his own problem solving skills.
• A child of God looks for the supernatural redemption of his pain. The unbeliever finds pain senseless.

Which one are you? Oh, if you don’t yet know the a luxury of being a child of God, I pray that, even now, God is setting your heart, mind, and will free to hear the Spirit of God calling you to faith so that you, too, may find your home in Christ.

Thank You for taking up residence in me. There begins the distinction. Oh, how great is Your love. Amen

Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes. Nehemiah 4:14

I was thinking this morning about Lot’s family in the book of Genesis. They didn’t appear to have a deep and abiding relationship with God.  Yet, when it was time for God’s judgment to come upon Sodom, the angels asked Lot to gather all members of his family for salvation.  God is invested in families because of the faith of one of its member.  If you’re the only one who feels heavy hearted over the spiritual condition of your loved ones, you’re not the only one who cares.  God does.  Why?

1. He loves you.  He cares about who you love.  He sees every tear you have cried over a son or daughter.  He feels the stress you feel over the fractures in your marriage.  When your heart aches, His heart aches.   Do you feel alone when you bear the burden of carrying your family to God in prayer?  You are not shouldering this by yourself.  Jesus rose again and lives to intercede for every person you love. Perhaps you often despair and think you are the only one praying for them.  You are not doing this by yourself. Jesus is praying!
2. God made families and He is invested in what He creates.  Families didn’t come out of nowhere.  God made Adam, then Eve, and invented the marital relationship.  Children were born because God made a way for family life to continue throughout time.  The first outcry that reached heaven’s ears came when the first two brothers fought and one killed the other.  So broken was the heart of God!

Every single one of us thinks about eternity but for anyone who has unbelieving family members, it is a bittersweet experience.  There is a piercing thought about those who might not be there.  God knows.  Just as He told Lot to go gather each member of his family, giving them the opportunity to hear of impending doom and to make the choice to leave Sodom, He will hear our prayers about those we love.  He is giving each one (though we may not know about it) many opportunities to be aware of Him and His Son, Jesus.  Every seed we have planted is not dormant.  It is active and working – stirred by the Spirit in their consciences and in their memories.

You invite me to bring my burdens to You and leave them.  Jesus, I will bring each person in my family, place them in Your lap, and pray while You work!  Thank you.  Amen