Sustained

The third of a three part series on suffering. The story began in Stripped, continued in Pruned, and concludes here.

“Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.”

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

One of my favourite musicians, a spoken-word and hip-hop artists called Propaganda, released a song last year called Crimson Cord. Its verses, recounting tales of abandonment and moral failure, are contrasted with the repeated chorus: 

The pain that guides us
The strings that tie us
The coincidence that proves to us God's existence.
Joy we misplaced
Beautiful mistakes
The scarlet thread
The Crimson Cord.

Wear your scars out loud
That's the fingerprints of the Lord
A crimson cord, baby, a crimson cord.
A timeline, a scarlet thread
A crimson cord, baby, a crimson cord.
Let me celebrate your crimson cord.
And that's beautiful, a crimson cord.
No regrets, boy, a crimson cord.
Evidence of God's love, that's a crimson cord

The point of Prop’s song seems strange. How can such discouraging stories result in a chorus and, ultimately a song, so hopeful? Propaganda is looking beyond what is glaringly obvious in the here and the now. He looks through the lens of faith and sees a God who is at work and is redeeming the brokenness, even using it, towards something good. 

In my previous entries in this series on suffering, I described the troubles of my past year. One afternoon, at the height of these struggles, I found myself on my lunch break thoroughly discouraged and almost despairing of any hope. 

But like the beam of light from Galadriel’s phial that encouraged Frodo in his darkest hour, I remembered Psalm 118:17: “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.” I began to remember all the small examples of God’s kindness during this period, the small knots on the rope I was hanging onto. I recalled the timing of my diagnoses, the wise council of my parents, and precious conversations with my pastor Gavin giving me guidance and encouragement just when I needed it. I recalled the moral support from friends at work, the understanding of my boss, and words of wisdom from friends at church provided at just the right season. I recalled the conversations (mentioned earlier) with my pastors and even the music from Josh Garrels and the quotes from books that proved so timely. I recalled my own Crimson Cord. 

Here is another example, another knot from this scarlet thread. Over the last 12 months my church offered a “book of the month” for our congregation to read and discuss. The book for the month of May was the puritan Jeremiah Burroughs’s ‘The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.’ No doctor could have ordered a better medicine for my soul. I’ve already quoted excerpts from this work that spoke strongly to me. Several nights I would leave work having received a particularly devastating piece of news and think to myself; “the only way I can handle this is to go home, cry, then read another chapter of Burroughs”. I clung to the volume’s comfort and wisdom as it counselled, consoled, and built me up in the strength of the Lord. How kind of the Lord to have this reading assigned at just such a time!

As I write this, it is early October, five months since these trials were at their peak. Life still isn’t easy. Certain issues have been resolved, others I continue to struggle with. I’ve gone off and had other adventures and the Lord has taught me new things. I look back on this time of suffering and I remember the darkness. But I also recall a certain strange sweetness. The Lord was good. He provided. He brought those trials upon me and, in the end, I am glad for it.

At the beginning of 2015 I read I book of essays examining the influence of C. S. Lewis. In one, theologian Kevin Vanhoozer described a certain vocabulary Lewis repeatedly used. “For Lewis, waking is a way of describing one’s conversion, a coming to new life. The Christian life is all about wakefulness. Theology describes what we see when we are awake, in faith to the reality of God, and discipleship is the project of becoming fully awake to this reality and staying awake.”

That concept of describing the Christian life as “the project of becoming fully awake to this reality and staying awake” has stuck with me and churned its way through my thoughts this whole year. I become so focused on the here and now. My way of thinking defaults to that of the world around me, which feels so real and is so all-consuming. But it is not ultimate. It is, in fact, the “shadowlands”. That is not to say it is not real, or does not matter. It matters very much, for it is made by God and is in fact the theatre of God’s salvation, the world in which we learn to be in awe of him even more. 

But when my eyes get lazy and when I fail to see God at work, I then walk around with my nose to the ground, stumbling over roots and rocks rather than beholding the vistas of greatness all around me. So I need discipleship. I need community to alert my to the unseen and align my vision with that of God’s Word. I need to reorient myself daily in the Bible and seek the face of God in prayer, and then I need to continue to be awakened throughout the day. 

“I believe” cries the psalmist.  “Help my unbelief!”

So I’ll continue to seek God’s glory. Not by just by aiming to succeed in lofty accomplishments, but by a life of what my friend calls “radical ordinariness”. A life of seeking his face through prayer. A life of seeing his face clearer by fighting remaining sin. A life of bearing fruit. 

Pruned

The second of a three part series on suffering, continuing the story that began in Stripped.

“Contentment is taking pleasure in God’s disposal. This is so when I am well pleased in what God does, in so far as I can see God in it, though, as I said, I may be sensible of the affliction, and may desire that God in his due time would remove it, and may use means to remove it. Yet I am well pleased in so far as God’s hand is in it.”

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

One of my pastors, Gavin Peacock, regularly reminds me that “God doesn’t waste anything, including any period of your life. He uses it all.” During these recent troubles I’ve found this to be true. I certainly haven’t liked these times of trials. But looking back, I’ve realize how much I’ve grown through them. I now see that, though bitter the taste, I would not choose to trade these events for something easier. They were given to me for a reason. I’m like a child who hates learning how to read, and the Lord is like a wise tutor who says “yes, this is hard, but it is training and you will thank me later.”

As the exhaustion of work and medication trials set in, many of the things I wanted to do had to be put aside. This of course included school and opportunities at work, but also the many ways I could support my church, writing opportunities (my website and requests from others), and other personal creative projects (a new podcast a friend and I mapped out and a series of interviews). I mentioned last time how this experience humbled me, bringing me face to face with my inabilities. But I still felt like I was wasting the resources given to me by God. With frustration I complained, for are we not commanded to bear fruit? Could I not offer something to show for the life I had been given?

I brought this conundrum to Gavin one day. He had me imagine a tree that is producing lush apples. If this tree starts to focus on these apples, channeling all its resources into what they look like and how well they are growing, it will eventually run out nutrients, wither, and die, killing itself along with its fruit. Instead, the tree would be wiser to focus on its roots, digging deep into the good soil, bringing nutrients to the entire tree. Then fruit will then come, unbidden and unlooked for, freely offered to whoever needs it. That truly is the best kind of fruit.

Later, my pastor Clint Humfrey brought to my attention Jesus’ words in John 15:2: “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit [the Father] takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it might bear more fruit.” To the branch who wants to bear fruit, being clipped by sharp shears seems counterintuitive. Compare a wild tree to a freshly pruned tree. Which tree seems healthier? The wild tree appears to be more productive; notice the healthy foliage it grows in every direction and the multitude of branches, complete with small apples. In contrast, the pruned tree looks naked and bare, perhaps even bruised and bloody. But the Farmer knows his trees and through his pruning he is preparing growth that will result in fruit far better than what the tree would bear on its own.

This illustration, brought to me by my pastor from the words Jesus himself, has brought me much comfort. Again and again I’ve told myself “Trust the Farmer, Daniel. Be encouraged by the painful pruning!” “The branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it might bear more fruit.” God is pruning because he realizes the tree’s potential. He prunes because He has better plans for that tree, plans that position him in His garden of foliage.

The story continues in Sustained.