Tag Archives: Theodicy

Glory, Suffering, and Sacred Space

Many traditions and cultures in and through which the Church has found its liveliness – growing tree-like in different climates and biomes – celebrate the glory of God through praise, liturgy, proclamation, and testimony. All glory, we say or preach or sing, belongs to God. And we affirm that along with the Church across time and space; or beyond time and space, or entangled with time and space, or the Church in all dimensions. We join with the great cloud of witnesses and we bear witness with the visible and invisible realms.

What happens, though, when the glory of God is rendered mechanically into a system?

One time I was privy to a conversation streaked through with sadness and earnest discomfort. Someone aching with the ongoing hollow of loss was squirming at the language of glory – not squirming at perceived distance of God, as one might expect from a person shrouded in grief. The splintering began when loss suddenly slid a new filter on years of absorbing sermons that framed the glory of God in a particular way. Like a trip to the optometrist, lens option one or lens option two can suddenly clarify perception. Circumstances in life often do the same thing; it doesn’t matter how old or young, wise or inexperienced someone is. It is often disorienting, sometimes overwhelming, and depending on the new perspective gained, can bring relief or distress.

The splintering continued. What had been preached – even what had been sung – seemed alien now. Naturally, times of grief and loss throw a great deal into upheaval; most people have questions, and any liminal period is one of undoing and not yet mended. At the same time, if there are genuine fault lines in a particular theological perspective, they will not escape the ruthless honesty of grief.

What was so grating about the language of glory?

It was regularly deployed as a sufficient reason for the worst suffering a twisted world could retch up. The worst thing that could ever happen to you or someone you know – God’s glory demanded it as necessary: the corrosive decay of evil splitting your world rendered as a necessary avenue for the glory of God to parade down.

(This is adjacent to sound reasons for rejecting o felix culpa. For Arminian/Wesleyan Methodists, it may be unsurprising that this ongoing appeal to God’s glory was built from the scaffolding of predestination – though before a sense of self-satisfaction sinks in, we should recall how many of our pews have welcomed resources from a variety of doctrinal perspectives that are sometimes at odds with our own.)

And so, after year absorbing these themes, in the hollow of loss, deep discomfort erupted in response to the language of glory. This – for God’s glory? Is there no value in relieving the suffering of the sufferer? How could such a big God seem so dependent on carefully deferential praise from mortals? How could this not eventually convey that the most vile suffering to sicken the globe was belittled or dismissed? In the face of theodicy, the appeal to glory was a mechanical response, but not only to suffering; to glory itself.

To mute the reality of suffering is to mute questions. But questions must have space to be asked or yelled or wailed in order for the questions to slowly shift from reaction to silence, silence to focus, focus to creation. A question asked in suffering may crack open space for questions asked in creativity. The natural end of grief may be generative; creative – but only if grief is genuinely not belittled or dismissed. (For a nuanced approach to an artist’s theology of mending see Makoto Fujimura’s Art + Faith: A Theology of Making.) One cannot be led by the questions that sprout from suffering to the questions that give way to awe – the genuinely appropriate response to the glory of Triune love – if the questions raised by suffering are treated as irksome signs that one has not yet fully appreciated what the faith is about. And yet space for even a few seconds of grounded wonder is space that is just beginning to gently unfurl hope, one tight leaf at a time.

(Just one minor dimension of the problematic appeal to God’s glory as the justification that a child is parentless or a parent is childless or a group commits genocide is that this kind of sermon rarely is preached in any kind of setting that suggests that God’s glory is worth emptying the building fund for. One doesn’t have to reach far into the imagination for the grim flicker of florescent lighting over the padded stackable chairs that replaced the pews twenty years ago: hardly the ornate interior of an awe-inspiring soaring cathedral. When discomfort shifts and shrugs at language of God’s glory, it is sometimes when the point is housed primarily in proclamation, in traditions with little attachment to sacred architecture and/or iconography.)

More to the point – when language is deployed in preaching on suffering and the demands of God’s glory, but Word is untethered from Table, there is enormous loss. A sacramental approach to the Eucharist will find itself tasting the grace of glory that suffers for us. Here, “your worst hellish nightmare is how you best pave the way for God’s glory” is ground to dust – like a golden calf pulverized and stirred into water; but the drink we find is not the cup of Moses’ rage, idol and water swirling. At the Table, we find our withered notions of fragile golden glory transformed; the cup transformed. At the Table, you drink the truth that while you may have heard your suffering was for God’s glory, in fact, God’s glory is for you; Glory suffered for you. The blood of Glory, shed for you. It was not God’s glory razing your innocence or demanding tribute; God’s glory makes all things marred by evil new.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain; worthy is the Glory that became flesh; worthy is the Glory that suffered in Gethsemane, that stumbled carrying the cross, that harrowed hell, that startled women in a garden.

God’s sovereignty pulses as even the worst bitter corrosion of a world gone wrong is melted into pathways of grace – not a parade for a tyrant’s glory. You and I respond to the glory of God’s love when we find hope on the paths of grace that God’s creative love fashions out of suffering. And on those paths of grace, bit by bit, you will find the questions borne in suffering slowly threading into questions of wonder that, like our Creator, create.

Featured image courtesy K. Mitch Hodge via Unsplash

Taking the Journey Together: Witness in Crisis

I know a man who works at a large, warehouse-style home-improvement store. One day he shared a story about how to help people find what they are looking for. There is a sign in the employee break room that says: “No Pointing.” The message to store employees is that when customers ask the location of an item, one should not merely point and say, “over there.” Nor is it sufficient to give an aisle number and description of the location on that aisle. Rather, the employee should walk with the customers and make sure that they are able together to locate what the customers are seeking. Along the way, the employee might learn more than just what one item the customer is looking for. Even at some small level, relationship and goodwill are built. The customers realize they are not alone and lost in their search; someone with expertise and experience is traveling with them. We are in a time when people need to know that the church is not merely pointing at some far-off place telling them that they must go on the journey alone. Rather, we go on the journey together.

No matter how we are called to serve in ministry – as a lay person or pastor – it is important to remember that we do not go alone. We join with one another in our mutual work for the sake of the Gospel. Examples of this are frequently found in the Scriptures. In Genesis 12, when God calls Abram to the land he would see later, he did not go alone. In Luke 10, Jesus sent the witnesses out in pairs to proclaim that “the kingdom of God has come near.” After the Resurrection, Jesus walked along the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and his companion (Luke 24). Paul and Barnabas are sent together in Acts 13. If you are a leader in ministry, are you merely pointing, or are you joining others on the journey?

The same holds true for those who are trying to find their way in the Christian faith. The last few months have turned many of us upside-down. People are looking for someone to show them the way in a dark time. Many people are afraid of what the future will hold, as evidenced by panic buying and the hoarding of basic necessities. They want direction on how to navigate uncertain times. Social distancing does not necessarily mean going it alone. Rather, at this important time, people around us need to be reminded that they do not need to go on this journey by themselves.

In times of difficulty, many people of faith have turned to Psalm 23 for comfort. Frequently, Bible study teachers and pastors point to the fact that the psalmist walks through the darkest valley rather than remain in that dark valley. That is an important point. However, notice that the comfort also comes from the fact that the Lord walks with us in those dark valleys. The Lord does not simply point but rather accompanies us. We take solace because we are not alone.

Though the problems facing the world today are significant, perhaps even unprecedented, this is not the first time that the church has faced ministry to those impacted by a widespread illness. In the second, third, and sixteenth centuries, the church was able to minister to people in times of plague and disease. Without minimizing the human toll, it is important to remember that the church served as a faithful witness in those times. The church has the opportunity to be a faithful witness again in a difficult time for many around the world. It is demonstrated in showing the mercy given to us by Christ and coming alongside others as we walk through these dark times.

As a response to social distancing, many churches have generated a great deal of online content in the form of services, devotionals, and Bible studies. I am grateful there has been a proliferation of these types of resources. The internet certainly needs it. All the while, church leaders can ensure that these are not just inwardly focused—aimed at people who are already connected with a church.

Many of our neighbors are asking some really big and really important questions about life, death, and the nature of the world in which we live. The gospel is the answer to these questions. This is an opportunity for us to journey with a world that is asking. We need to do this in a way that is not merely pointing and saying, “over there.” This is the moment to show the world the One who walks through our valleys with us.

Featured image courtesy Andrew Ly for Unsplash.

The Startling Poetry of Madeleine L’Engle

Before the rumblings began to emerge around New Years’ (stories dripping out slowly from halfway around the world); before awareness of trouble somewhere became the startling realization that trouble was here – we could indulge ourselves in becoming blasé about tradition. Habits are sly: sometimes, we’re lulled into the off-key sense that traditions are a way of controlling a season. We begin to see them as the point instead of as a waypoint. At Christmas, we mumble, “round yon virgin, mother and Child,” so that young hearers don’t whisper loudly, “what’s a virgin?” We don’t know what to do with the truly awful passage about Herod ordering the slaughter of Bethlehem’s toddler boys, so we skip it. Then we stare open-mouthed at the news when natural disasters erupt in December, scissors halted halfway through the Snoopy wrapping paper. For many people around the world, last December – despite weariness or tight budgets or influenza – was one of the last waypoints of normalcy. Even for people who don’t avoid the awkward or painful, this year has been a chaotic overthrow of everyday simplicity. What voice can sound clearly through the chaos? We live in a moment aching for the holy iconoclasm of the poetry of Madeleine L’Engle.

Best known for novels, the late writer Madeleine L’Engle – born in a year much talked-about lately, 1918 – showed a knack for discomforting the comfortable and soothing the overheated, displayed well in The Ordering of Love: The New & Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle. There is nothing controllable about life on this planet, her words seem to shriek; no family recipe to follow carefully that will alleviate the cosmic chaos. And after all, she was born at the tail-end of World War I, during the 1918 flu pandemic, a child during the ’29 crash, a teenager during the Depression, a young woman during World War II, a mother in the tumult of the 50’s and 60’s, a grieving widow as the Information Age picked up steam. Her experiences shout loudly to our current world.

But L’Engle’s poems also bear the time signature of sacred rhythms: many follow liturgical seasons, or lectionary readings, or high water marks of living, like births, weddings, baptisms, deaths. Others cobble amusing little sketches of the absurd habits of selfishness, or glee, or fear, or comfort. She speaks to God as brashly and fearfully as a child who dares to shout at her parent before bursting into tears. Her joy, rage, mirth, and disappointment are pinned into place with her regular, irresistible return to Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. For an author best known for books on time travel, Madeleine L’Engle shakes us awake now as much as she must have while she was alive.

Consider a few fragments from “Lines Scribbled on an Envelope While Riding the 104 Broadway Bus:”

There is too much pain

I cannot understand

I cannot pray

Here I am

and the ugly man with beery breath beside me reminds me that

it is not my prayers that waken your concern, my Lord;

my prayers, my intercessions are not to ask for your love

for all your lost and lonely ones,

your sick and sinning souls,

but mine, my love, my acceptance of your love.

Your love for the woman sticking her umbrella and her expensive

parcels into my ribs and snarling, “Why don’t you watch where

you’re going?”

Your love for me, too, too tired to look with love,

too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person on the bus.

Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain…

It is startling to encounter words that so quickly, easily puncture the day to day patterns that trouble us – whether riding public transport or hopping on social media: “too tired to look with love, too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person.” Her honesty strips bare what phrases like “compassion fatigue” cover up. It is tempting to think that new technology or novel new realities are to blame – but for words like these, written decades ago.

In “Instruments (2)” the woman who managed to write and raise children at the same time confessed,

Hold me against the dark: I am afraid.

Circle me with your arms. I am made

So tiny and my atoms so unstable

That at any moment I may explode. I am unable

To contain myself in unity. My outlines shiver

With the shock of living…

A sense of precarious fragility often goes hand in hand with dripping, fleshy exuberance in her thoughts. Reflecting during a time of hospitalization, L’Engle writes in “From St. Luke’s Hospital (4),”

She comes on at night,

older than middle-aged, from the islands,

to answer the patients’ bells…

At first she was suspicious, cross,

expecting complaints and impositions,

soon tender and gentle,

concerned about requests for help with pain…

This morning she rushed in, frantic,

please, please could she look for the money

she had lost somehow, tending patients,

forty dollars that was not even hers.

She had kept it, in time-honored tradition,

in her bosom, and it must have fallen out

when she was thinking of someone else’s needs.

She scrabbled in the wastebasket,

in the bedclothes, panted from room to room,

returned to mine with a friend. We said,

“Close the door, take off your clothes, and see

if it isn’t still on you somewhere.”

She did, revealing an overworked body,

wrinkled, scarred; found nothing; had to leave.

In a moment when work, medical care, and working women are much in the news, Madeleine L’Engle presents us with sketches that honor womens’ labor – even one brief, sly wink at a casually maligned person from Scripture: “Martha,” the prosaically distracted sister busy with a meal.

Now

nobody can ever laugh at me again

I was the one who baked the bread

I pressed the grapes for wine.

In a year when suffering, depression, and despair threaten to blow the lid off of theoretical pondering on theodicy and the problem of evil, L’Engle charges in where churchgoers fear to tread, in these selections from “Love Letter” –

I hate you, God.

Love, Madeleine

I write my message on water

and at bedtime I tiptoe upstairs

and let it flow under your door.

When I am angry with you

I know that you are there

even if you do not answer my knock

even when your butler opens the door an inch

and flaps his thousand wings in annoyance

at such untoward interruption

and says that the master is not at home.

I cannot turn the other cheek

It takes all the strength I have

To keep my fist from hitting back

the soldiers shot the baby

the little boys trample the old woman

the gutters are filled with groans…

I’m turning in my ticket

and my letter of introduction.

You’re supposed to do the knocking. Why do you burst my heart?

I take hammer and nails

and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood:

Dear God

is it too much to ask you

to bother to be?

Just show your hindquarters

and let me hear you roar.

Love,

Madeleine

What starts off like a cannonball blasted toward the stubbornly closed gates of heaven ends up landing with hoarse awareness: the fury driving her makes her own heart a target. I take hammer and nails and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood. So then. Rage at the suffering in the cosmos inevitably illumines our own complicity. In that case, just let me see even a glimpse of your backside, God; let me hear your power roaring.

The years heavy with her writing were years of upheaval; chaos; swift change; suffering. Her thundering world gave way to these lines from “First Coming” –

He did not wait till the world was ready,

till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.

He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came…

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Whatever the pain, whatever the fear, whatever the work waiting to be done; whatever the mockery, whatever the fury, whatever the suffering – we cannot wait until the world is sane. Christ did not wait until the world was calm and well-mannered before he arrived; we cannot wait until the world is sane, we can’t pause for a more opportune moment to lift our voices, to rejoice.

L’Engle goads at every turn; upheaval is nothing new, no tradition can control it. Chaos, overwhelming loss, injustice, uncertainty – these are nothing new, no habits could contain them or master them. Millions of people around the globe would’ve been startled to realize last December that it would be one of the last calm or predictable months for a long time. Perhaps there was even a sense of boredom. In the absence – the stretching absence – of so much; in the absence of traditions, habits, routines, predictability, reasonable certainty, and guarantees, Madeleine L’Engle insists on the only stable reality: Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. Even while she is screaming at God’s silence, ultimately she lands, too tired to be cautious, in this reality:

He did not wait till the world was ready.

We cannot wait till the world is sane.

Featured image photo credit: Sigrid Astrada

“Overwhelmed”: How Our Pastors Are Coping with Pandemic

Recently I asked clergymembers from several Wesleyan Methodist denominations in the United States about what it’s been like coping with a pandemic. Ministers in other parts of the world have experienced these dynamics before, and pastors a hundred years ago went through this in America. For many church leaders in the U.S., these have been uncharted waters, new territory. A number of pastors answered my questions, and their time is an especially valuable gift right now. I watched as more than normal intended to reply but could not, pummeled by to-do lists and coping with news cycles demanding last-minute updates from clergy, denominational leaders, and churches. One pastor unable to participate was busy responding to a crisis outbreak in their rural community – a town with one of the highest per capita case loads in the country.

Church leaders are finding unexpected support, bright spots, or new skills; many pastors miss seeing their church members face to face; and many are grappling with uncertainty, overwhelming demands, or the need to quickly implement new platforms and tools.

In addition to basic questions on how church leaders are coping, I also asked some pastors, “If you could travel back to December and leave a Post-It note for past-you, what would you say to prepare yourself or your people for the current situation?“ One pastor reflected, “The Church is not the building. We all know that, but we are about to live it.“

We are grateful for the glimpses into leadership life right now.

– Elizabeth Glass Turner, Managing Editor

Coping: “How are you?“

“I am anxious about what the church may look like in the next few months. People need community, and online platforms – as helpful as they may be to keep us connected – can’t take the place of mutually sharing and experiencing physical presence. I am constantly preoccupied and thinking about what we need to do. This often leads me to feel overwhelmed and inadequate, as I try to anticipate what we need to be doing next.”

“I’m learning it’s best not to ask on Wednesdays. I’m not sure why this is the day I feel least on top of ministry, and the most fragile.”

“I miss my people. I love being a pastor; pastoral care may be my favorite part of ministry, so I am really missing that connection. But personally, I have enjoyed being able to spend more time with my family. It has been nice to just have lazy time with them. Going into the living room and joking with my kids during breaks. Time from all the pressure of activities at night. That has been life-giving for me.”

Discerning: “What’s been an unexpected source of guidance?“

“Learning from what others are doing and reaching out to friends to ask their views about concerns and ideas I have. Reading articles about our current challenges and how we can use this time as an opportunity to create a new future dimension of ministry.”

“The World Vision pastors group, “We the Church.” The Barna Group’s Covid tool kit.”

“Unexpected friendship. There are pastors in our conference who I admire, but I’ve never really had much of a relationship with them. It’s been a joy to get to know them better and turn to them for advice in difficult situations.”

Equipping: “What resource do you wish you’d had?“

“A break. More clear guidelines or suggestions for funerals at this time. ‘How to transition appointments during pandemic’?”

“I wish I had better tech skills. I’m pretty good, but there are so many things that I don’t know and haven’t had the time or patience to learn.”

“Instead of ‘playing catch-up,’ I wish we would’ve had a well-organized and implemented digital ministry in place. I wish we had these online tools we are using now already at work. Now, in addition to created online content, we also need to train our leaders and laypeople on how to access them.”

Enduring: “What’s been a source of sanity for you?“

“Good friends and family. I’ve got a text thread with a couple of pastors; we turn to each other for advice. That’s been a real blessing and source of hope.”

“This will be one of the most cherished times for my children. As much as they miss school and friends, they loved being at home and spending quality time with mom and dad. We started new activities together like biking and going for walks almost daily, and that has transformed how we relate to each other. We are no longer ‘on schedule’ but have liberty and flexibility on how we use our time together. This has been a blessing to us as a family, one that has provided me with healthy feelings and thoughts.”

“Solidarity – knowing so many others are going through the same ministry challenges.”

Expressing: “What do you wish your denomination or church members understood better?“

“Just the emotional energy pastoring takes right now. I’m not sure what leaving well looks like.”

“I don’t think I can speak to what anyone is doing, or could have done better. Everyone is trying their best to figure out ministry in this challenging season. I am grateful for the hard work my colleagues and others are doing to provide us with resources.”

Grieving: “If you could have or do one thing right now, what would it be?“

“Have a gathering of my graduating seniors; have regular youth gathered for fellowship.”

“Between Zoom meetings, homeschooling, creating online content, writing Bible studies and sermons, I wish I could see everyone every day to talk about how they are really doing and to encourage them. It is hard to feel so powerless to support my congregation in their struggles. We have an active pastoral care ministry. I just wish I could visit with every one of them.”

Praying: “How can we pray for you?“

“I ask for prayers of encouragement, strength, and good health. But most importantly, I ask for those same prayers for my congregation.“

“That I would clearly hear the Holy Spirit’s guidance for ministry and family. I don’t know the best way to navigate these uncharted waters, but I know the One who does.”

Hindsight: “If you could travel back to December and leave a Post-It note for past-you, what would you say to prepare yourself or your people for the current situation?“

“I would make sure that I prepared my teams to view online resources as essential and not secondary. We had just completed a shift in our online giving platform and moved to PushPay. Had it not been for this move, we would be seeing a significant financial challenge. As for other platforms, I would have prepared our leaders to see digital platforms as an essential (not supplemental) resource for ministry, as there are already many people waiting to be reached via these platforms. We are reaching nearly twice as many people weekly through our worship services and 8 times (you read that right) as many people through our discipleship classes. I would have done crisis management training for all of my leaders.

“I think I would say, ‘Pace yourself‘ and ‘Go see your mom and dad in early February.‘”

“Ok girl, big changes are coming. No weddings, no dining out, and no church in person. So here’s what you need to do: Don’t cancel your hair appointment for the last week in February. You are going to miss a lot of things. But you are going to gain a lot of perspective on what’s most important: family, friends, the warmth of an embrace. The Church is not the building. We all know that, but we are about to live it. And embrace the deep connection that stands even when we are socially distanced. Sharpen your media and tech skills. You are about to become a videographer, editor, sound technician, and production guru. Get ready for all the kids to crash into your nest. Try not to get too bent out of shape about any of this. Enjoy it if you can. It’s a strange season we are passing through.”

“Good computer and editing skills, basic internet skills, Zoom and Conference Call 101 lessons for my members and myself!“

“Let’s prioritize our media ministry and start livestreaming our worship celebrations. Part of who we are in the community means having online presence. We can do so much ministry online through these digital platforms. True story: Prior to March 22, we had little to no online presence. We went from in-person worship on March 15th to Facebook Live from my living room on March 22nd!”

“Expect the unexpected. You can build community online – software that allows response is better than software that doesn’t (so, as beautiful as watching the service at the National Cathedral is, I probably get more out of wonky Zoom with my 20 congregants). Christians have been here before and the church survived. Your theology meets reality when you have to decide whether you are afraid of dying.”

As the well-documented extended-crisis adrenaline slump continues to hit caring and serving professions – from ER physicians to nursing home aides to church leaders – there are sure to be resources emerging for coping with the fallout of crisis. Pastors drained from an extraordinary season of unexpected challenges still face uncertainty, changes, conflicting perspectives, and health ramifications, while shepherding church leaders and members through those same dynamics.

If it has been difficult coping with the sudden changes and demands of ministry in pandemic, here are additional resources on possible signs of exhaustion or burnout and resources for leader self-care in the face of extended crisis:

The National Center for PTSD Clergy Self-Care page on “potential emotional reactions to working with trauma survivors”

Toll-Free Clergy Care for Pastors & Families in The Wesleyan Church: 1.877.REV.CARE

Clergy Care Wellness Resources in the face of Covid-19 (especially for United Methodist clergy)

The Lilly Endowment National Clergy Renewal Program Grants

Emerging Insights on Sabbaticals

Edgar Bazan ~ Blessed in Any Season: God’s Sustaining Word

Life can be a battle, can’t it? No one is exempt from seasons of battle. No matter how much or little faith you have, everyone faces disappointments and challenges. These can cause you to wonder if this is what it looks like to be blessed. We may have disarray in our families or be treated unfairly in our jobs. You may be misjudged by others or let down by the people you trusted most. In all of this, one thing I believe we all can agree on is that we live in a very unstable world.

Is there a place to turn for stability, where you can look toward your future with hope? Perhaps you are asking this question, looking to be comforted in your battles and unstable times. Perhaps you see the fragility of your situation and the world around you, and you are looking for a place of refuge in which to find hope, peace, and happiness.

I am certain that you will find such hope, peace, and happiness – if you look for them in God. And not just that, I also believe that God wants to bless and prosper you.

Are you looking for stability? For blessings and prosperity? If so, this message is for you this morning. I know it is for me.

The Scripture for today is Psalms 1:1-3:

Blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the [Word] of the Lord, and on his Word they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.

Every time I read Psalm 1, I am reminded that it is possible to live a blessed and happy life in spite of the troubles I face in this life.

The image used in this text to speak about this blessedness is: “they are like a tree planted by a stream of water, which yield their fruit in season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.”

This is the kind of life that I want for me and my children: fruitful and prosperous.

Now, it is important to know that this sort of blessedness or happiness is not contingent upon our circumstances. It can’t be manufactured or purchased, and it does not happen overnight. Instead, the Scripture states simply and clearly, “blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, they meditate day and night.”

According to this text, to be blessed is not about getting everything we want but to be rightly related to God so that our lives are fulfilled, and we experience deep personal satisfaction.

Interestingly, this blessedness begins with the negative, not the positive.

Blessedness, the Psalmist says, results from not following the advice of the wicked, from not taking the path that sinners take, and from not sitting in the seat of scoffers. By all measures, these are those who afflict the vulnerable, accuse the innocent, undermine the trust of the faithful, don’t listen for God, and threaten the good of the community. In other words, as there are ways of living, attitudes, and behaviors that tend towards wellness, kindness, compassion, and righteousness, there are also others that tend toward oppression, injustice, abuse, and wickedness. The latter are the ones we are being warned against.

What this means is that blessings come not only from what we do but also from what we don’t do. Blessed people avoid certain behaviors, situations, and unhealthy relationships. To be blessed is not only about having more of the “good” but also having less of the “bad” or “unhealthy” in our lives.

When we pray for blessings, it ought to sound something like this: “God, remove anything that stands between you and me, and then do as you please with my life. Give me the wisdom to do what is right, and wisdom to stop doing what is wrong.”

As we can see, blessings come to us as a side benefit of the choices we make as we follow the counsel of God. Thus, it says, “delight in the word of God,” which implies that we know the word and do the word, and “you will be prospered.” This promise of blessedness comes from building our lives on the Word of God, from delighting in its teachings and wisdom.

This is an interesting word – “delight.” What does it mean to “delight” in the Word of God? Think about it this way: to delight is to be so excited about something that you just can’t wait for it.

For example, watch a young couple in love and you will know what “delight” means. Or take a young man who has fallen in love for the first time. Ask his friends, and they’ll say, “he is not the same guy he used to be.” They mean he has radically changed. He doesn’t want to hang around with them anymore. All he does is talk about “that girl.” “Just look at him. He’s got this goofy grin on his face.” He’s in love.

Now, apply that same principle to the Word of God. We are to delight in God’s Word as a lover delights in a letter from his or her beloved. We are to delight with such a passion and expectation in God’s Word that every decision we make is faithful to our relationship with God, meaning that we don’t cheat God in the way we live. This is how God’s blessings come our way.

The last point I want to make is in relation to the image of, “trees planted by streams of waters which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.”

The Psalmist says that a person who builds his or her life on the Word of God is like a tree planted by streams of water, which basically means that their lives are deeply rooted and healthy. Their lives are nourished, marked by lasting stability and fruitfulness.

This is an amazing statement. It basically says that when we live our lives faithfully committed to God, we will never lack vitality and fruit.

Furthermore, look at the image of a tree that never withers. It means that even in the toughest seasons (the winters in life), even when there seems to be no evidence of fruit, the tree is fully alive and growing. The roots are so strong and well-fed, that, at the right time, it will produce the fruit of the season.

Here is the key: for a tree to produce fruit, it requires time and processes. So it is in our lives too. It takes time for us to learn, experience, reflect, and even believe everything that God wants to give us and do in us and for us. Even in the toughest times, we are not withered; we are regenerating, growing, renewing, and getting ready for the next fruit-producing season.

For us, this means that with every season that comes and goes, if we are rooted in the Word of God, we will grow, mature, and be blessed. If we need love, from the Word of God will come the strength to produce the fruit of love. If we need a forgiving spirit, from the Word of God will come the strength to forgive. If we need courage, we will produce the fruit of courage. If we need patience and perseverance, the Word of God will produce it in us.

This is the kind of prosperity Psalms 1 refers to when the Psalmist says, “In all that they do, they prosper.”

They prosper in the sense that no matter what season they may find themselves in, as long as their roots keep feeding on the source of life (the Word of God), they will have strength for the day. They will have hope in the midst of the hardest seasons and difficulties—even in the most unstable and shaking times.

This thought is similar to what Paul explains in Romans 8:37-39 when he says,

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In this world, we may face sorrow, abandonment, failure, disappointment, sickness, rejection, and discouragement.

Even then, we are not defeated.

But we will be prospered because we have kept the Word in our hearts. And when the time comes, we will flourish and overcome, and our fruit will burst out, for it has been said that, “the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:20)

The happiest, the blessed people in the world are those whose lives are built on the Word of God.

What are you living for? Who are you living for? Where are you planted?

Suzanne Nicholson ~ Answers in the Darkness: A Prayer

Lord, all my life I have taken refuge in you.
When I was young, faith was simple.
I prayed, and you answered.

But then I experienced prayer
where your answers were so different.

And the world became more nuanced.
I came to understand that you answer all prayers
just not in the way I had wished.

So how do I pray for healing
when I know you can heal all
but only choose to heal some?
Or, perhaps: only choose to heal some in the ways that I wish.
Sometimes healing comes in another form.

You, my God, are a God of oblique angles.
You lead us in a direction
and we have expectations that way.
But direction is not destination.
Sometimes you desire the journey
and not the destination.
Lessons learned
and then you take us on another path.

Where is the prayer of faith
when I do not know if today’s lesson
is the journey
or the destination.

And so you teach me:
Certainty has become my idol.
Predictability.
Expectations met.
That looks like faith to me:
I ask, knowing that you can.

But will you?

Now I see
that faith lies not in the “answered” prayer
but the knowledge that you are there.
In the darkness.
Waiting for me.
Your presence is the answer.

Oh, God of oblique angles,
help me not to worship at the altar of certainty.
May I bow low before your gentle touch
your caring embrace
your protective
empowering
Presence.

Amen.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Consolation and Desolation: Old Wisdom for Tired Protestants

Summer is a season for seeing people we normally don’t get to visit much: family reunions in park pavilions, vacation at a camp where we hug people we only see once a year, travel to relatives several states away.

The widespread family of faith isn’t really all that different, and sometimes when the flowering tree is in bloom and the breeze moves slowly under the weight of humidity, we bump into spiritual relatives we don’t see very often. They are strange and familiar at the same time, like an aunt you see every few years who wears different clothes than your mother or grandma but carries recognizable features, a familiar laugh, an identical profile.

Now that we’re historically removed from burning each other at the stake, for the past half-century Catholics and Protestants have been venturing into the park pavilion with nervous, eager smiles, carrying potato salad and ready to try an afternoon’s visit for brief family reunions – so to speak. No, we still don’t share the Eucharist, yes, most Protestants still have deep misgivings about the fine line of venerating Mary or asking Mary to intercede, and praying to Mary as Co-Redemptrix; and yes, many Catholics still have deep misgivings about Protestants’ tendency to swing back and forth theologically with every knee-jerk trend under the sun; but you don’t bring up famous family fights of holidays past at the one time of year everyone’s together for a few hours, and overall ecumenical efforts on the parts of Catholics and Protestants have been a very good thing indeed.

Which brings me to Ignatius on a site largely shaped by Wesleyan Methodist theology. Sometimes you bump into a distant relative and wonder how you’ve never connected before. Ignatius is that guy.

Assuming you have Google and Amazon, one can let you research a bit about him on your own time; today, large likelihood of being Protestant reader, we’ll briefly sketch an appreciative note on his concepts of consolation and desolation. Some wisdom is deep and hard and rich but at the same time feels like good old-fashioned common sense: this is that kind of wisdom.

It cuts against the #blessed trend, it cuts against cynical pessimism, and it cuts against the insidious assumption that anything we experience in our life must result from our own smarts or stupidity, holiness or hollowness. It is deeply personal without being damningly individualistic.

Simply put, “For Ignatius, the ebb and flow of consolation and desolation is the normal path of the Christian life.” There will be times of consolation – when there is a sense of noticeable, personally experienced growth or blossoming, when God’s presence seems close and the means of grace seem easy and quick at hand. There will also be times of desolation – similar to the “dark night of the soul” – when, whether from wrongdoing, or attacks of the enemy, or times of struggle or challenge, God’s presence seems distant or even simply absent, when our growth seems stalled or the habits that sustain us feel unusually heavy.

Ignatius counsels that in a time of consolation, followers of Christ should practice gratitude; resist self-satisfied pride, by remembering how limited we were during seasons of desolation; capitalize on the presence or abundance of energy available; and determine not to back out on the resolutions we’re making while things are going well, when later they do not. If Ignatius had been a midwestern farmer, consolation might be described in part as, “make hay while the sun shines.”

He also counsels that in a time of desolation, followers of Christ should practice the habit of recalling God’s faithfulness in prior times of desolation; resist the temptation to see suffering as pointless; resist desolation through meditation and prayer; avoid making big decisions, “because desolation is the time of the lie—it’s not the time for sober thinking. That is, in our disheartened state, we’re more prone to be deceived”; pay attention to the spiritual insights found during desolation; and confidently look for the quick return of a season of consolation. If Ignatius had been a leader in Great Britain in World War II, desolation might be described in part as, “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

Yet Ignatius manages to avoid painting seasons of consolation and desolation as solely discerned by individualistic feelings, and gives wise counsel for how to discern when a choice, circumstance, or perspective moves us toward God and others, and when a choice, circumstance, or perspective is moving us away from God and others.

Overall, for Ignatius, Christians shouldn’t be surprised when desolation gives way to consolation, and we shouldn’t be surprised when consolation again gives way to a period of desolation; but, whether we perceive it or not at the time, God can use both to form and fashion our character and our loves, and the more prepared we are to encounter either season, the better we will endure the challenges that come with both abundance and affliction.

Do you know any tired American Protestants who might take heart from this old wisdom? It certainly has relevance for the constant question, “why do bad things happen to good people?” It has relevance for the “health and wealth” preachers. It has relevance for the “self-made man” portrayals. It has relevance for the depressive Goths tempted to believe that desolation is the season of truth, not the time of the lie. It has relevance for large church pastors who are too preoccupied with attendance, scale, and platform. It has relevance for the tired nun, the tired mom, the tired aunt. It has relevance for someone you know in your life who is going through something awful that you can’t understand.

Good things come to those who –

To those who what?

To those who wait.

“Wait,” Ignatius murmurs over a paper plate of fried chicken on a hot summer afternoon at the ecumenical family reunion. “Your time of consolation will give way – so store up now. Your time of desolation will resolve – so resist at every turn.”

(Good things come to family reunions, too.)

Sometimes, if you’re tired, finding an old relative (or a dead one) will give you some new perspective. Whether you’re in a season of consolation or desolation – thank God for Ignatius.

Wesleyan Accent ~ Not Yet Fully Awake: Dr. Matthew Milliner

Note from the Editor: As Christians continue into Eastertide, Wesleyan Accent is pleased to share this profound Easter sermon by art history professor Dr. Matthew Milliner, which was preached in All Souls Church in Wheaton, Illinois. You can see more from him here.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

It’s exciting news when the most brilliant disciple of the atheist Sigmund Freud sees the need for belief in God. As many of you know, the name of this student was Carl Jung, and there is a lot one can learn from him. But here is one thing he really got wrong: “It is funny,” Jung tells us, “that Christians are still so pagan that they understand spiritual existence only as a body and as a physical event. I am afraid our Christian cannot maintain this shocking anachronism any longer.”

And so having cited this unfortunate remark of the great Swiss psychiatrist, please indulge me again, maybe with an Alleluia at the end this time.

He is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The field of Biblical studies is wonderful. You can learn all kinds of things about the Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman contexts in which the Biblical books were originally written, you can learn the original languages. But as in any field, some people in Biblical studies make some miscalculations. I speak of the Biblical scholar Gerd Lüdemann: “A consistent modern view must say farewell to the resurrection as a historical event.”

Having heard that, please indulge me once again.

He is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The notion that you can keep Christianity without resurrection has aged about as well as pay phones, in-flight ash trays, spitoons, hoop skirts, zuit suits, and those massive televisions that we used to have to cram in our living room and the gargantuan pieces of furniture we used to hide them before the flat screens came along. You still sometimes see those huge TVs on the curb, usually with five garbage stickers on them because no one wants them! And who would want a Christianity without resurrection either?

It’s often said if the resurrection isn’t true, don’t go to church, go to brunch. Well I was at one of those Chicago brunch meccas just this week and I overheard the bartenders planning the cocktail menu for this Sunday – Easter morning. And they said, “We need to mix up our menu to bring people in.” One employee said, we could change up the Bloody Mary with a bloodless Mary, which I guess is some kind of cocktail. And how I wish I had had the courage to say then and there, “Sounds like perfect cocktail for someone without resurrection hope on Easter Morning! Bloodless Mary.” But because he is risen we’re not at brunch, we’re here instead to drink from the veins of the risen Christ, and today at least we’re throwing in brunch too.

I’m sure you know the great John Updike poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter:

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

Or better than Updike’s poem is this bald statement of fact in 1 Cor. 15; “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” Or Acts 10: “We are witnesses to all that he did… They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day.” That is not a pious sentiment, a clever aphorism, haiku or a sonnet – it’s journalism. They killed him, God fixed it, says St. Peter.

One reason that resurrection matters is because it addresses our root anxiety. There are a lot of surface anxieties in our lives, and some that cut a good bit below the surface. But if you follow those anxieties to their root, and ask yourself, “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” The answer tends to be: “somebody could die.” That’s about as bad as it could get. And that root anxiety of our impermanence is what drives so many of our worries, agendas and sins – and so the root anxiety is the one Jesus addresses this morning not just by his words but with his body, by conquering death and replacing it with the root peace of the risen Christ.

That root peace is why Roger Persons, a member of our congregation, when his wife Jean died while they were watching TV together, was able to address her then and there and say, “Walk with the king.” That root peace is why Jason Long and I, sitting at the top of Central Dupage Hospital with Brett Foster as the sunset beamed into the hospital room so strongly that I had to put on my sunglasses, felt strangely, in retrospect, like Brett was preparing us for our own deaths as well. When I think of Brett, my memory now skips from that hospital room to his funeral where we heard these words from the Orthodox poet, Scott Cairns, about the resurrection – not Jesus’ resurrection, but mine and yours.

…one morning you finally wake
to a light you recognize as the light you’ve wanted
every morning that has come before. And the air
itself has some light thing in it that you’ve always
hoped the air might have. And One is there
to welcome you whose face you’ve looked for during all
the best and worst times of your life. He takes you to himself
and holds you close until you fully wake.

And in our gospel passage, Mary of course – like all of us on this side of death – is not yet fully awake. She makes first contact with the resurrected Jesus, and it’s about as awkward as Peter embarrassing himself by trying to pitch a tent on Mount Tabor. Mary’s problem is that she thinks Jesus is dead, and when she sees that he’s gone, she consoles herself by saying, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

I wonder if it’s her root anxiety in the form of a sentence. It signifies confusion, frustration and maybe even a little panic. I almost imagine her wandering off in a daze reciting those words in some kind of stupor. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then the disciples show up, Peter and John. And of course, the best illustration I know of that moment in all the world is a train ride away at the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s by the African American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. It shows Peter kind of concerned, almost twiddling his thumbs because he knew he blew it – and John, the beloved disciple has this beaming look on his face, as if to say, “I knew it!” Tanner suffered from racial prejudice all his life – he believed in resurrection. Still, in our passage, neither Peter nor John stick around.

But Mary wanders back, still clinging to the best she can do under the circumstances. Call her the Bloodless Mary, wringing her hands as she repeats, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” And then she gets what we all think would work for us if only it would happen: an angelic visitation. “She bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.” I hope you’re catching that this is a reference to the ark of the covenant – two angels surrounding a void of presence – the absence that signifies that God cannot be contained. And the angels, puzzled, say to her, “woman, why are you weeping?”

And her reply? “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” The presence of the angels doesn’t clear up her confusion, so the Lord himself explains it to her. “She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Now that is a reference to the mystical treaties the Song of Solomon if there ever was one – God’s pursuit of the soul. “Whom are you looking for?” God asks this to all of us this morning.

But it doesn’t work! Mary thinks he’s the gardener. And she offers her good intentions and pious objectives one more time. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” She still clings to her pre-resurrection agenda. On Friday one of our speakers said that Jesus was LOUD on the cross and I think he’s loud here too. He has to be loud enough to snap her out of her pious plans to anoint his corpse. And so he shouts with a smile, “Mary!”

There have been a lot of good stories about Notre Dame de Paris this week, but here’s the best one I know of. Denise once told me that when she was there with her mother and sister, they were touring the Cathedral which was packed with tourists, when a mother lost her son. And my wife Denise knows the name of that boy, as does everyone who was in Notre Dame that day because the mother started to shout it. Dimitri! After three shouts the packed cathedral fell silent but she kept shouting, no – screaming, “Dimitri! Dimitri!” until he was found. And that, after all, is what Notre Dame’s architecture is – it is the risen Christ shouting to you through beauty. Shouting your name and mine, trying to snap us out of our own agendas, even our own ambitions to serve him. That’s what beauty does, what pain does, what tragedy, suffering and joy do. They’re all the risen Christ shouting our name again and again in the Cathedral of this cosmos while the cathedral lasts.

And like Mary, we wake up, “Teacher!” and we cling to him, as any of us would. That’s what coming to church is about. But then comes Jesus’ famous lines to Mary: “Don’t hold onto me.” He does not mean back off. He tells her to stop clinging to him because he has something for her to do. Not her agenda this time but his. Namely, go tell the boys. In all four gospels the women are first, the only difference is the number of women who are present. And each gospel, the mission of the women is the same – and it is from them that we get the message with which we began.

He is risen: He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Brian Yeich ~ What Providence Looks Like

At times it seems that people who come from Wesleyan Methodist backgrounds have an “arm’s length” relationship with the idea of providence. At its most basic level, providence is the activity of God working out God’s redemptive plans for his creation. It’s God working out a rescue plan for creation, and the idea that God is working behind the scenes without our involvement or cooperation is a bit unnerving to Wesleyan sensibilities. For after all, aren’t we the people who believe in cooperating grace (that is, that there is a degree of cooperation we engage in when it comes to God’s saving work)? We are the movement that emphasizes human free will and our ability to choose or reject the gift of grace that God offers. “Providence” just sounds too much like those Reformed or Calvinist folks, we think. But if we take a closer look, we see that the founder of our movement, John Wesley, had a very robust understanding of divine providence. So, what are we to think about providence as Wesleyans?

Let’s describe what providence is not. Providence does not mean that we have no free will. God’s providence does not rule out human freedom. Providence is not opposed to cooperation with God. Providence does not mean we are “off the hook” or that we have no sense of responsibility when it comes to spiritual growth. Rather, we cooperate with God as we grow in our faith by practicing spiritual disciplines, or the “means of grace.”

So, what is providence?

Providence is at the heart of Christian theology. Christians throughout the ages, although there have been exceptions, have affirmed that God is not simply a clockmaker who put the universe into motion and has since left it unattended to its own ends. Rather, providence affirms that God is working behind the scenes, sometimes imperceptibly, but working nevertheless. Drawing on centuries of Christian understanding, the late theologian Thomas Oden defined providence as, “the expression of the divine will, power, and goodness through which the Creator preserves creatures, cooperates with what is coming to pass through their actions, and guides creatures in their long-range purposes.”^[1] Providence is both evidence of God’s love for his creation as well as his sovereignty.

John Wesley had strong convictions regarding God’s providence. With his both/and approach, Wesley shared great insights into the nature of God and into the life of the Christian disciple through the lens of providence. In his sermon, On Providence, Wesley urged, “There is scarce any doctrine in the whole compass of revelation, which is of deeper importance than this. And, at the same time, there is scarce any that is so little regarded, and perhaps so little understood.”^[2]

While Christian thinkers for centuries affirmed God’s omniscience and omnipresence, Wesley acknowledged that our limited human understanding has trouble grasping the concept of God’s providential nature. Wesley emphasized that we should be humbled by the fact that God, infinite in wisdom and power, is yet concerned with his creation’s wellbeing. Wesley pointed out that while with God all things are possible, “He that can do all things else cannot deny himself.”^[3] While it is within God’s power to destroy all sin and evil in the world, for instance, this would contradict God’s nature. Particularly, this would contradict the fact that humanity was created in God’s own image. However, Wesley clarified, this is where the providence of God enters into the equation. While God allows human beings to choose between good and evil, God’s providence is a work, “to assist man [sic] in attaining the end of his being, in working out his own salvation, so far as it can be done without compulsion, without over-ruling his liberty.” Wesley envisions God’s providence operating in a “three-fold circle” within creation.^[4]

First, Wesley observed, the whole universe is governed by God, including the movements of the sun, moon and stars as well as animal life. Beyond this governance, Wesley describes three circles of God’s providence. The first of the three circles encompasses all of humanity. Within this circle, God’s providence works in the world… The second circle includes “all that profess to believe in Christ.”^[5] Within this circle, God is at work… The final and innermost circle, encompasses, “real Christians, those that worship God, not in form only, but in spirit and in truth. Herein are comprised all that love God, or, at least, truly fear God and work righteousness; all in whom is the mind which was in Christ, and who walk as Christ also walked.”^[6] (Interestingly, Wesley argued that it is within this circle that Luke 12:7 is realized: “Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”^[7] He commented, “Nothing relative to these is too great, nothing too little, for his attention.”^[8] While God is concerned for all of his creation, Wesley believed that the Lord gives special attention to those who are fully devoted followers of Jesus.)

Throughout his writings including his journal and letters, Wesley noted on many occasions the “train of providences” that God worked in particular situations. He often ascribes additional descriptive words like, “uncommon,” “various,” “wonderful,” and “whole” to further describe these instances in which Wesley observed the hand of God at work in the lives of Christians. He emphasized that while God has established general laws that govern the universe, God is free to, “make exceptions to them, whensoever he pleases.” ^[9] For Wesley, God’s care for creation and especially for human beings is not hindered by the laws of the universe.

In the conclusion of his sermon, Wesley encourages Christians to put their full trust in the Lord and to not fear. God’s providence means that we can trust him even when it seems that our world or the whole world is falling apart. He does not deny that we will face challenges and sorrows, but that we should walk humbly before God and trust that “God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”^[10] The Christian’s hope is in the Lord who not only governs the universe but also cares particularly for those who follow God. He knows the number of hairs on our heads. No detail escapes his attention. God’s providence gives us hope for both our present and our future. It’s not a matter of just saying that “everything happens for a reason,” for God is not the source of evil or chaos. However, we can trust that behind it all, God is at work. It does not mean that everything will go well for us, but it does mean that God is with us every step of the way. Perhaps that was the motivation of John Wesley on his deathbed when he uttered the words, “The best of all, God is with us.”^[11]

^[1] Oden, Thomas C. Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

^[2] John Wesley, “On Divine Providence” (1786), in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Thomas Jackson, 14 vols.,(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007), 6:315; hereafter cited as Works (Jackson).

^[3] Ibid. p. 317.

^[4] This idea is from Thomas Crane, A Prospect of Divine Providence which Wesley included in his Christian Library.

^[5] Ibid., p. 319

^[6] Ibid., p. 319

^[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

^[8] Ibid., p. 320

^[9] Ibid., p. 322.

^[10]Romans 8:28. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

^[11] Ken Collins, John Wesley: A Theological Journey, (Nashville, TN: Abindgon Press, 2003), p, 268.

Shaun Marshall ~ Learning How to Tell Your Story

This powerful sermon by Rev. Shaun Marshall comes from Genesis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGVGaoAmTes&fbclid=IwAR2XAxDJs4LtuB7m0-_llrJXgbqgbnXEAnaeGg_qODQneeC0bS5pIdOq18c&app=desktop