A friend told Mom a story of a man wanting to know the secret to happiness in this life. He was so intent he climbed to the top of a high mountain to consult a Buddhist monk who was reputed to be very wise. The man approached the monk, poised his question: "What is the secret to happiness in life?" The monk without pause provided his answer: "Man dies, son dies."
When Mom first told me this story - it took me a minute to get it...the the truth of it then hit me like a ton of bricks. Many people say they most joyous times were in High School or College. I had good times there, but my best times have always been with you kids and Mom. I really loved every changing phase of your lives: from babies, to toddlers to grade school through High School and College. Okay, the terrible twos/threes (depends on each of you!) and puberty were "less enjoyable" for sure, but you kids have given so much joy to us. Happiness is with you. Without you, even just one of you, weighs so heavy. I am not sure happiness is really possible as four and not five.
I don't think the Apostle Paul had kids, but he knew how suffering and the weight of life could overwhelm and suck all the joy out of life. Indeed, his adjectives describe the last two years so well:
Afflicted,
Perplexed,
Persecuted,
Struck down.
As he said, death is indeed at work in us - feeling deadened to life. I feel like an elastic band, slack with fatigue - all elasticity has been lost. From where does Hope come if the father outlives his son?? Why is such suffering allowed by God? What could its purpose be? Every time I ask "Why?" - I am really asking God for a "redo", a different outcome. Each night I fall to sleep and wake up hoping I will emerge from this nightmare. I do not.
So, what to do? Where to find hope? Can there be joy or happiness? What does the future look like without my son? I have prayed and asked. It has been a long time. God has answered, not with he "redo" I want but with His love and presence - ultimately better in some ways. I am coming to see that hope is found in Good, Glory and ultimately God. So, Ian, here goes what I am learning.
His Goodness and our Good:
The Bible boldly proclaims, God is good. More than proclaiming, it exhorts men to experience His goodness firsthand. "O, taste and see that the Lᴏʀᴅ is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalm 34:8). Throughout Scripture, this message is affirmed. No one is good except God (Mark 10:18). Everything God made was very good (Genesis 1:31; 1 Tim. 4:4). His goodness and glory are the sum of His Person for human experience. (Ex. 33:19). He is the source of all that is good (James 1:17). He does all things well (Mark 7:37). As His followers, He is our only good (Ps. 17:3). It is clear that God does only good, but more than good acts, He is good and thus good in all His purposes, acts and willed outcomes. This should drive us to thanksgiving and praise: "Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting" (Psalms 107:1).
Further, He extends His goodness to us - promising our lives will lack nothing good (Psalm 34:10) and all that happens in our lives be fashioned together for our good (Romans 8:28). Boldly, Scripture proclaims: "God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work" (2 Cor. 9:8). God's goodness to us is so pervasive that it spills out of our lives into the lives of others through good works - we God's children doing works like out Father - works that are good!
But our definition of good and God's may be different. Mine certainly is! Good to humans are things that they can immediately see, feel, sense and enjoy. Good to us is temporal, here and now. Humans are by nature accountants. We have a ledger of good and bad into which we enter all experience into - be it our acts of righteousness or sin, or life's ups and downs. Humans have but one definition of a good life - do the good events out weigh the bad? Catastrophic bad or continual suffering tips the scales to the point where nothing in this life can ever move it back to parity. "Good" seems to be sucked out of life. Even without tragedy, with the length of years, eventually one sees events and experiences fill the bad side and outweigh the good. We become ready to leave this life simply due to our fatigue associated with the math - we feel hopeless to tip the scales to good, cannot see that life is good, and therefore God is not good.
This transactional view, which is doomed to disappoint and frustrate, contrasts with the 'new math' of God's goodness. Good for God is expansive, eternal and holistic. What happens on earth is inextricably linked with what happens in eternity. It is the difference between a struggling business which cannot secure lasting profit and then has the place of business burn to the ground. Any good experienced by the owners day to day is swamped by lack of regular cash flow, accumulating debt and now catastrophe. Dreams are frustrated then abandoned. Hope is replaced by despair. God approaches the whole of life and this equation like an acquirer approaching the owners of the ruined business and buying it all, the good and the liabilities, for an unrealistically high number. The return for the owners is so great that the daily ledger, which showed accumulating debt becomes irrelevant. The profit from the sale removes the debt, makes the charred remains someone else's problem, and they can retire in confidence.
As humans, our sight is so limited, thus our math cannot measure good in life accurately. God blows the simple additive math apart by providing new sources of good and a new timeline of good - turning addition into exponential gain, time into eternity. Peter, at the beginning of his first letter, describes our good as exponentially bigger than simply being elect exiles - but he amplifies, describing believers as recipients of great mercy, being born again, having a living hope, knowing that an eternal inheritance awaits us, having our faith refined through trials and seeing all of this result in praise, honor and glory as we are reunited with Jesus. Peter later concludes his letter linking the now with eternity this way: "And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1 Peter 5:10-11; my highlighting of the temporal contrasts). God can do beyond we can think and imagine (Eph. 3:20) and has prepared an eternity we cannot conceive due to its greatness and our finite perceptions (1 Cor. 2:9).
It is not that the end justifies the means - a blessed eternity justifies pain and suffering here. Our time on earth offers great consolidation potential and value building toward eternal glory. Paul appears to address this concern in 2 Cor. 4. We as believers have the light of God and His glory shone in our hearts through Christ. This treasure we hold in perishable vessels that could easily be broken. Indeed we are: "afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed (vs. 8-9). These weak vessels making up our humanness are not broken by the pressure of life due to the greatness of Christ in us; indeed, in this weakness and frailty of our human predicament, Christ is most clearly seen. His life is manifest through us to the world when it would normally just crush us. Peter describes this as the maturing of our faith and that our faith is worth more than gold which will produce eternal blessing. This communion with our Savior, our High Priest, our Apostle, our Trailblazer, and the One we fix our eyes upon brings priceless value in a life of suffering as we experience His sufficiency, presence and faithfulness.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:16-18)
Thus, our good is now but may not be fully evident to us. God's work and weaving of all things for our good is not understood fully now. In His presence, sharing in His glory, we have passed from a short time suffering, and experience the God of all grace completing His eternal work. Until then, we must learn to walk by faith and not by sight.
His Glory and Our Glorification:
Scripture makes much of God's glory - here are ~77 references alone: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Glory-Of-God !!! The heavens, creation, people, believers are all exhorted to praise Him, ascribe to Him glory due Him for who He is, what He has done, what He is doing and what He will do. Just thinking about God's goodness and our good, as considered above, it becomes clear our good is linked to God's glory. It is to His eternal glory that He will "restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish” us (1 Pet. 5). Indeed, His purpose in redeeming His people is to "show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” and this is to His glory and credit, for we are saved not by our will or works, but by His grace and through the faith He gives (Eph. 2:7-9). We have nothing to boast about. God alone can glory in our redemption. In Eph. 1 Paul clearly states that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit each work in the process of redeeming us “to the praise of His glorious grace”, “to the praise of His glory” and it that was not enough, "to the praise of His glory" yet again. Redemption is certainly for our good - we are glad that He has done this for His glory.
The work of the Messiah predicted in Is. 61 and fulfilled in the Gospels (Luke 4), purposes His redemptive acts with God's glory. He proclaims the good news to the poor, binds up the brokenhearted, proclaims liberty to the captives, frees prisoners, proclaims the year of the Lord's favor and day of God's wrath, comforts those who mourn, encouraging and redeeming. Those who Messiah redeems will "be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." His glory is the outcome of all His acts of grace, mercy and redemption (Eph. 1-2 and above). Eternity will be filled with God's people and creation affirming His glory, praising His Name and experiencing His fullness (Rev. 4: 8, 11; 5:9-14). Ascribing the glory due out God will be our occupation. But how will we, as flawed humans enter into His holy presence, experience His completeness and serve and praise Him for eternity?
God will prepare His people for sharing in His eternal glory by conforming believers into the image of the Messiah and ultimately glorifying them (Rom. 8:29-30). This process is gradual as believers “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). The process involves suffering and trials to purify and mature our faith (1Pet. 1; Heb. 2). "For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison," (2 Cor. 4:17). Glory is our motivation, to endure suffering and indeed hope in it - for glory awaits us. God’s glory in His people is further revealed through the acts of faith done my believers glorify God's name (1 Thess. 1:11-12). Glory to God is our goal in our hope in suffering and acts of obedience - just as it was with Jesus (John 12:27-28; 17:4-5).
Ultimately, God will glorify His people - sharing in His glory for their experience. As Ron Julian said, "As God says through Isaiah, “My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 48:11). Yet in a sense the gospel is about that very thing: God is going to give His glory to another, to many others—in fact, to all of His people. The great hope of the gospel is that we are going to share in the glory of God. We are not just going to see His glory or experience His glory; we are going to be glorious like He is."
Paul boldly proclaims: “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." (2 Cor. 3:16-18). The law with its regulations, restrictions and ordinances acted as a veil, a filter, keeping God’s people from His very presence. The veil in the Temple ultimately reflected the fact that the law pointed to our sin, our insufficiency and thus our separation from God. But, in Jesus, this veil has been removed and like Moses, we can speak with our God face to face - as a friend. We do so through the merit and action of our great High Priest, Jesus (Heb. 4:14-16; 10:19-22). God’s indwelling Spirit gives us this freedom to, with an unveiled face, behold the glory of our Lord and He, the Spirit, transforms us into the image of our Lord - from one degree or depth of glory to another - until we are like Him. In this process of imparting His nature, we as humans, also share the glory of our God. The wild and audacious nature of this claim only multiplies the glory due our God. By sharing, He exponentially gets more glory rightfully ascribed to His great Name.
It is not just Paul who makes this assertion, but Jesus Himself does. In John 17, He not only asks the Father to show His followers His glory (vs. 24), but says He has given them the glory that God gave Him, so all believers would be one (vs. 22). Why would He impart and share His glory with His people? Jesus says as He prays according to God's will to the Father so that "I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me (vs. 23).” If that was not “wow” enough, Jesus finishes His High Priestly prayer by saying: "I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them (vs. 26).” Jesus in us - He truly makes all things glorious - by His very presence.
When will this glorification occur or be completed? In Rom. 8:18cf, Paul expands on this reality - indicating that all of creation eagerly awaits the glorification of God's children. The freedom and joy of creation is inexorably tied to our sharing in His glory. When our adoption is complete, when our bodies are redeemed along with our spirits. God's reception plan is completed - spirit, body and creation remade in Christ's image and sharing in His glory fully. John agrees in 1 John 3:1, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” So what is our response? Paul's exhortation in Rom. 8, as he finishes this thought, seems appropriate: "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Rom. 8:24-25)
God: Our Great Reward
God is described as many things in Scripture, created, redeemer, provider, Lord, lover, friend, trailblazer, and on and on. But in Genesis 15:1, Scripture says about Abraham, "the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”” About Aaron, "The LORD said to Aaron, "You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites (Num. 18:20)” He repeated this to Levi: Deut. 10:9; 18:2. David and the Psalmists repeatedly said the Lord was their portion (Ps. 16:5; 73:26; 119:57; 142:5). Jeremiah understood God was his portion and inheritance for himself (Lam. 3:24) and God’s people (Jer. 10:16).
What is our heavenly inheritance? Why is it beyond comprehension and understanding? Why is it eternal, satisfying and fulfilling to our joy? Why is it’s glory so magnificent that it makes all our trials pale into insignificance - it is because our inheritance is God. He is our reward. “Who do I have in heaven but You?” the Psalmist asks in Ps. 73:25. Jesus defines eternal life in this manner: “...this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Thus more than good, more than glory, the Gospel promises us God as our inheritance.
What will be heaven like? The descriptions in the Bible are no doubt symbolic and reflective of language trying to capture the incomprehensible. What is clear, is that God is present - on the throne receiving praise and glory - God is the center of it all throughout the book of Revelation (Rev. 1, 4, 5, 7, 11, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22). It is further interesting that the entire book is introduced as the “revelation of Jesus Christ" (1:1). God is the Alpha (the start) and the Omega (the end), the Almighty. Jesus is the First and the Last, the ever Living One who holds the keys of death and Hades (1:8, 17-18). God is the center of the unfolding story.
This centrality of God as our great reward, our inheritance, our portion, is confirmed with the descriptions of eternal things. In the new heaven and earth, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3). Further, "the holy city Jerusalem” is seen "coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God (vs. 10-11).” In it, there is "no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb" (vs. 22-23). Finally, "the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."
How Does This Relate to Life and it's Pain?
What do we say about suffering, pain, death, confusion, perplexity, being struck down, being delivered over to death for His sake, and so on…the bold, the consistent, claim of Scripture is that all things are ordained by a sovereign and good God who works all together for our good, who will conform us to His glorious image and who is Himself our great reward. Life does not make sense; life lacks hope; life is but a frustrating and disappointing journey to an unknown and frightful end without the living hope that God is good and works for our good. He is glorious, will share His glory with us and Himself is our great reward.
"He must increase; I must decrease." John 3:30; "For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus 'sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh." 2 Cor. 4:11; But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Cor. 12:9-10.
Ian, I guess I am telling you a bunch of stuff you already know and you probably know so much more that I can conceive or understand. I am trying to turn my eyes from me, from pain, to God, to hope and to eternity. Happiness, don't know about that yet. Hope, I have that. The Good, Glory and God of the Gospel provides that in spades.
The "Guitarist's Psalm" on my tattoo with you really says it all:
Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God
Ian, I miss you. I look forward to seeing you again. I can't wait for you to teach me all that you have learned. Ultimately, I can't wait to just see your eyes, that big smile, receive a bear-hug and tell you - Son, I'm home!
Love you "E",
Dad
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