The Painful Smile of Joy

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."--John 8:32

How often do you feel trapped and burdened by a lie?  Doesn't even need to be a blatant lie, just a lie of omission where you can't bear to be totally honest with someone.  I know that I always feel an oppressive weight on my shoulders every time I can't bring myself to be completely honest.

Jesus' words in context from John 8 most certainly meant primarily that Jesus, the Truth, was here to set all men free of sin.  Yet I think it is a fact of all truths—they all can be a release of a burden weighing you down.

Even lies that we have believed about ourselves, once we know them to be lies, show a truth about us that allows us to grow in God's wisdom.  For instance, I have always been arrogant, but because of constant depression and the lies it told me, I never saw the pride in my heart.  But once I saw the depression, it became a truth--the truth that depression is a struggle for me--that set me free from it. Now I can fight it.  Because how can I fight what I don't see?  Then later I could see the arrogance in my core, and battle that as well.

That's why the first step to recovery is to admit; and to admit something, we have to see it.  The truth of the recognition sets us free from the burden and bonds, and God can take control of that part of us—when we give it to Him.

I should caution: honesty is the best way, but context matters here.  Without a relationship with someone, or without maturity on their side, and they probably can't take even well-meaning and caring honesty.  Let's be honest: we live in a world still permeated by fear and distrust.  But as we live together, work together, fellowship together, we create a trust that allows such honesty with grace that it truly frees us.

Yet that freedom does not mean that there is no longer a struggle.  Every wound that heals leaves a scar, whether on the body or mind or heart or soul.

Because we are still sinners.  We, even in good intention, continue to misunderstand each other.  We continue to be held by fear of what we do not know.

We continue to hold our hand on our wounds instead of uncovering it to Christ, or to each other (James 5:16), so that the Great Physician can heal it.

Lord God, Great Savior, break down the walls of our shame.
Shatter the bars of our fear.
Let us run free.
To You, Lord.
Let us smile again.

Part of that freedom comes through forgiveness: 1) by God forgiving us; 2) by us forgiving others; and 3) by realizing that, as we forgive others, we free ourselves from the bitterness and guilt of holding onto whatever pain they caused.  Maybe I'll break that down another day; for now, just know that I get those distinctions from the Paternoster ("Our Father" Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4) when Jesus says, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."  It's a command, and a requirement for our forgiveness, leading to deliverance from evil.

There is deliverance in honesty, too.

"Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips."--Proverbs 24:26

Honesty implies that we give up the fear of rejection or hurt or the unknown, and we jump out of the boat like Peter did (see Matthew 14:28:29 & John 21:7) because we trust Jesus Christ, the Great Redeemer, to make whole whatever broken attempts I make to serve another.

I see honesty like that in Charles and Glenda Tipps, from my church.  Everytime I ask Charles how he is doing, he tells me that he is in pain, and that God takes care of him.  Yet he smiles, and you can see both the pain and his joy in his eyes.  When I ask them what I can pray for, they say, "Strength;" they are 85 and 84 years old.

The painful truth, spoken through a joyful smile, presents a paradox in which I can only assume divine strength makes it possible.

When I tell them it warms my heart to see them still holding hands out to their car after church, Glenda honestly replies, "Well after 62 years, we have to help each other stand up!"

And I'm sure they do; on the outside they look frail.  But anyone with eyes can see that helping each other stand physically is only a by-product of the fact that these two souls continue to find Joy in the freedom that comes from leaning into each other more and more as they both run to God at life's finish line.

And that is our Joy: to run until we get to Him in all of His Glory.  To C. S. Lewis, Joy manifests itself to us the way sunlight breaks through clouds.  We can't take the full force of God's glory now, but His rays penetrate our lives and cause us to follow the Son-beam back to the Son in adoration.  And it makes us thirsty for more of Him.

"It is that unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction," says Lewis.  "Anyone who has experienced it will want it again.  Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief."

"But then it is the kind we want."

Meaning, that Joy of encountering God's glory is itself a desire that cannot be satisfied until we are with Him until eternity.  So sometimes, if not most times, being in the presence of God can bring pain.

Remember Isaiah 6, when the angel touched his lips with a burning coal?  Yeah, doesn't sound enjoyable.  But it did set him free from his "unclean lips" that lied and slandered and gossiped.

And, for now, those islands of Joy that God provides in the stormy seas of our lives must direct us to Him as we hope in His glory.  That knowledge must be the fuel of our faith, because His glory means our salvation.

"It (faith) will be counted to us (as righteousness) who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
--Romans 4:24b-5:5

Because of the freedom found in the "knowing"--the truth--that Jesus brings us, "we rejoice in our sufferings."

As for me I subscribe to the teachings of Luther and Kierkegaard.  As for Kierkegaard, he believes that God, who creates everything out of nothing, must first reduce us to nothing if He is to use us.
"God cannot use a man until He hurts him deeply."--Martin Luther

I don't mind what pain comes my way.  I know talking about it makes people feel irksome; "What is he, emo?  Talking about feelings like that?"

But I am free to talk about my pains, as Charles Tipps is, because I have already given it to Christ.  He heals it and brings it back to me as wisdom and faith and Joy, because He has already borne it all Himself.

"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
He has put him to grief...
Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied."
—Isaiah 53: 10, 11

And so, we in Christ can unashamedly bear the painful smile of Joy.

More Than Watchmen...

Isaiah 62:6-7a
"On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem..."
Micah 7:4b-7
"The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a mans enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me..."
Psalm 130:5-6
"I will wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."

I think my fingers are gaining a permanent layer of sticky.  The last couple of weeks at Hope Pregnancy I have seen no guy partners, so I and the other volunteers stuffed and stuck addresses on hundreds of envelopes.  Busy time for the center, just not for me.  Which isn't all bad.

One of the other volunteers said that sometimes we just need a break from the heavy work we do at Hope, and these mindless days are a way to keep us from feeling weighed down by the wonderfully challenging counsels we give.  And I can always enjoy a day of the simple.

More than that, on these days it feels that I am able only to pray for clients.  Instead of serving them by listening, telling the Good News, and offering information and services for them, I just pray--and I love it.  How?

Because I know that I am a watchman, like those in the verses above.  Because I love the power I find in prayer.

Don't believe in the "power of prayer"?  Well I can't say that belief is easy on this topic, not at all.  Which I think makes it worth the struggle.  Part of prayer is for us individually, to look to God in good and bad and strength and failure and hardship, then to see our own limitations; He doesn't want to humiliate, He just wants us to see the truth that we must depend on Him.  In truth, if we believe the Scriptures then we know that "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ"--as a gift, so no one can boast (Romans 10:17).

Even if we have received this gift, it is like all other gifts from God in that it must grow if you want to see God's power in it.  You have to exercise it, or it will atrophy; you have to eat the food that will sustain it's growth, the Word of God, or it will starve to death.

So we start simple and small with what we can lift for now, then we keep asking God for more faith because we will not be complete until the New Heaven and New Earth.  We will always need more.  I know, some of us are too proud to ask for these things, especially if we feel like we've already received much from someone.  "I've gotten so much more than this person, I'll be fine on my own.  I can use what I have to fix my own problems."

Sorry, but even the Greeks knew that man only fixed a problem by creating a bigger one.  Why do you think there hasn't yet been a master political plan to fix everything that all people love?  Why do you think, with all of the good that even one person can do like Greg Mortenson in the book Three Cups of Tea, do we still have millions of people still enslaved (there are more now than ever before, I believe) and entire governments willing to slaughter their people to stay in power?

Can't fix it ourselves, guys, so God gives us prayer as a way to take part essentially in His Creation.  Think about it--if God is outside of time, then He heard and answered our prayers at the same moment that He created everything.  Sometimes it seems He maneuvers world events to answers those prayers, and sometimes it's Him actively intervening in our time.  He does answer prayers, even through scientific breakthroughs that some use to debunk the idea of God, and those answered prayers change the world.

And if we're weak prayers, know this: God has placed watchmen in the walls, in positions to defend people and be open to outsiders and see what comes from the horizon, to pray night and day for us.  More than that, He sends us His Spirit to cry out to Him for us! God is praying for us to God!

And I feel called by that Spirit within me to be like a watchman.  My Myers-Briggs Personality Type is the Counselor (INFJ), which is described as one who engages people deeply to share their burdens and help them grow.  God tells watchmen to basically pester Himself with prayers for His children.  So I pray night and day, waiting with absolute assurance of God who will shine through brighter than any morning sun cutting through the clouds and reflecting off snow-covered mountains.  And I couldn't love it more.

**by the way, read that book Three Cups of Tea. It will challenge your perspective on global politics, on Pakistan & Afghanistan, and on the influence that even one person without any seeming resources can "randomly" have on thousands of lives.