Faith, Suffering, and Identity

 Faith, Suffering, and Identity By Amanda Idleman “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” - Matthew 5:3-6 The story of Job is a popular one in the Bible. It is referenced to provoke discussion on many topics: how to comfort another through dreadful experiences, the ultimate sovereignty of God, and what to do when we are the ones going through a truly terrible time. In my college Old Testament course, our teacher alluded to the fact that some believe the story is just too awful and too dire to be real. Those theorists believeJob was a fable passed through the times to teach the listeners the aforementioned topics. God is sovereign, and who are we to question His ways? Life can be very hard; in the end, God honors our faithfulness. I used to believe this as well. It didn’t make sense that a God could be that cruel. It’s easier to believe the story of Job when we soften it by saying it’s most likely not completely true. We could get into the sovereignty of God, the chaos of the world, and how sin can create similar terrible experiences in our lives,but the point of this article is to highlight one key fact. Life is hard. It may not be hard now, but at some point, everyone experiences something that rocks them to their core, challenging beliefs and identity. I don’t think many Americans like the story of Job because it’s a bit…uncomfortable. Job had plenty of challengesand troubles that ailed him physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of his dire story is that, in losing each of those things in his life, that meant a lot, he lost his identity. He lost everything that made him who hewas. Or did he? Job responded in two ways: by complaining a bit and by remaining faithful to God. After a reprimand, he was eventually honored for his faithfulness. Why? To us, it looked like Job lost all those factors that formulated his identity, but as we found out, his identity was held, not in vices, fame, money, or family, but in his eternal, provincial identity asa son of the one true God. Job saw himself first as a citizen of Heaven before anything else. What will happen when you lose an integral part of who you are? If not your faith, what factor or factors make up who you are in the first place? These are the questions I want us to ponder.With answers, we can start preparing so we can respond like Job by eschewing the identities the world tells us to sow into and which will inevitably fail at some point. I think our culture is having an identity crisis. We value comfort, quick relief from pain, and, some would say, even our less privileged citizens live better than the majority of third-world countries. Many of us are the sum of multiple factors that weconsider crucial to who we are. Unfortunately, for many, these supplant our identity in Christ and include vices, addictions, fads and trends, pop culture, and hobbies. The moment we put more importance on something outside of God, we will be challenged. Whenwe let our job or even our family consume us in idolic fashion, we will be disappointed because those things won’t be there forever. We see booming numbers of believers in countries in which Christians are persecuted. How?! This is the crux. Those believers have no choice but to acknowledge the truth, something we all must reconcile with someday. We are all broken. We all need a Savior. Our eternal needs are met by Christ alone. The first four Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-6 teach us this. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” What do mourning, meekness, hunger, and thirst have in common? They are traits of broken people, those who have come to the end of themselves and must rely on God. They have no other choice. They’ve lost their house, job, family, health, and friends, as Job did, and they have nowhere else to go but God. The following ideas are just a few ways we can try to find the end of ourselves and place our identity in Christ: 1. Stop trying to look like you have it all together. The American way is one of resilience, self-help, looking tough, and getting it done. Those traits are why we are number one leaders in the world, some would say, but we have lost sight of the original example of what it means to be a leader. Jesus served.He broke tradition, turned the other cheek, and cleaned people’s dirty feet. We need to acknowledge and even accept our brokenness. Mourning is ok. Weeping is welcome. Letting go of all the other identities we hold onto is what God wants. Next time someoneasks you how your day is going, actually think about it instead of responding with the ubiquitous, “I’m good.” If you’re not, be honest. We gain admirers when we have it all together; we gain friends when we show our weaknesses. 2. Look to the past We learn from the past. That’s why we should study it. To prevent us from making the same mistakes, we should invest in reflection, in which we consider how God has helped us before, so we might strengthen our faith that He will help us again. David’s psalmsare full of reflections in which he realizes that God was always there and always helped him. This can only happen if you actually stop and reflect, meditate and pray. Ecclesiastes 7:2 reminds us that “Death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart.” That is…..sobering.Yes, death awaits everyone, but it is not the final stop for everyone. As citizens of Heaven, we ultimately get to go home to be with God. This reassurance can assuage the fear of death that plagues us all. With too much stock in temporal things, we risk losingourselves. Replacing all of that with the only identity that remains forever, being a child of God, can help us navigate the valleys all of us will inevitably experience. Intersecting Faith and Life: What is blocking you from claiming Christ as your true and only identity? What things do you put before your relationship with the Lord? How can you begin to sow into your relationship with the Lord so you will have access to his perfect peace when life’s strugglescome your way? Further Reading The Bible Story of Job What Is the Story of Job in the Bible? ----------------------- You Have No Choice But to Forgive By Clarence L. Haynes Jr. �Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.� � Colossians 3:13 When you think about the marks of a Christian, there is one mark that should be present, which sometimes we can too easily gloss over. That mark is forgiveness. When we need forgiveness, it is amazing how we seek after it. Yet when we must give forgiveness,sometimes we can be a little slow on the draw. Have you ever wondered why that is? One reason is we forget how much we have been forgiven, and when that happens, we can treat the act of forgiving someone else as if we are doing them a favor instead of extendinggrace that we ourselves have received. I want to remind you if you are going to be a true follower of Christ, then you must exercise forgiveness. You really have no choice if you truly want to follow Christ. Why Must You Forgive? There really is one good reason why you must forgive. Because God has forgiven you. That alone should be enough to motivate you to forgive others, and yet, many times, it is not. I want you to look back on your life for a moment and think about all the sinsyou have committed against God and against other people. (I would ask you to start writing them down, but you will soon discover that list is going to get very long.) Regardless of how long that list is when you came to Christ, that entire list was wiped clean.God forgave all your sins because of the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for you. You don�t need any other reason to forgive someone because this one reason is enough. A Terrible Example of Forgiveness In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the story of the unmerciful servant. Allow me to sum up the story for you. A man owed the king a debt of ten thousand bags of gold. Just for perspective, one bag of gold was the equivalent of twenty years of a day laborer's salary.This servant owed ten thousand bags. It would have taken him two hundred thousand years to repay the debt, which means the debt was never going to be repaid. Not by him, not by his family, nor by any generations of people that came after him. However, eventhough he owed the king this much debt, the king chose to show him mercy and forgive his debt. This same servant then went out and found a man who owed him a hundred silver coins which was the equivalent of a day�s pay. This man could have easily repaid thisdebt, possibly in as little as one day. However, this servant had the man thrown in jail because he could not repay him. When the king heard this, he rebuked him and had him thrown in jail because he failed to show mercy and forgiveness for a small debt afterhe had received it for his big debt. May I ask you to guess who we are in the story? By comparison, we are the man who owed a debt we would never be able to repay, and yet God, in his mercy, forgave us. After having received so much mercy, why then do we harbor unforgiveness toward those whohave hurt us? Unfortunately, saying �but you don�t know what they did to me� is not good enough. If you should ever feel this way, all you have to do is remember how big your sin list was and how many times you violated God�s commands and yet today, you standforgiven. Let me say this. There is no reason to justify not wanting to forgive someone. It does not matter what they have done. To think otherwise is to behave like this unmerciful servant forgetting how big a sin debt you really owed. Let�s not be that person. A Practical Exercise As you look inward today, ask the Lord to show you if there is anyone you have not forgiven, and then forgive that person. Forgiveness does not mean you forget; it means you no longer hold it against that person. When you can do that, you are operating in thegrace and forgiveness you have received. I promise you will be thankful that you did. Intersecting Faith and Life: Forgiveness is not just for the other person. Forgiveness releases you from the grip the other person�s actions have over your life.