Psalm 119:71 Good Books

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

Psalm 119:71

Many people struggle with the idea that suffering and affliction is a good thing.

David: You know the shortest verse of the Bible, Jacob?

Jacob: No

David: Jesus wept.

Jacob: Jesus wept...

David: One of the biggest problems we have with people today is for some reason they have it in their head that they shouldn't have any troubles, that suffering is a mistake, or it's unfair, or it's God being ornery. But what if suffering is the point? So that we can learn to let go and be easy in the Spirit. 

This quote comes from the Paramount Network limited TV series Waco. It's a conversation between cult leader David Koresh and an ATF agent. It represents an extreme interpretation of scriptures about suffering.

Believing "suffering is the point" led Koresh to seek out suffering, not only for himself, but for the people who followed his cult.

The point is not to suffer, and not to "let go and be easy", but to follow God. His reasons and His methods aren't always easy to understand, but the key is to seek to understand Him though His Word.

There are no simple answers or easy explanations for affliction. To even try in a short blog post risks reducing it to platitudes and over-simplification.

So instead I'll quote some excellent books that I highly recommend. Ann Voskamp, Joni Eareckson-Tada and Frederick Buechner's all tell a long tale of a life lived and the long road to understanding the reasons for suffering.

The only way to learn about affliction is to learn from affliction. These books will help along your journey.

From Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:

All these years, these angers, these hardenings, this desire to control, I had thought I had to snap the hand closed to shield joy’s fragile flame from the blasts. In a storm of struggles, I had tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But palms curled into protective fists fill with darkness. I feel that sharply, even in this … and this realization in all its full emptiness: My own wild desire to protect my joy at all costs is the exact force that kills my joy.
. . .
Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust. 

From Joni Eareckson Tada, When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty

Gut-wrenching questions honor God. Despair directed at God is a way of encountering him, opening ourselves up to the One and only Someone who can actually do something about our plight. And whether we, like Greg, collide with the Almighty or simply bump up against him, we cannot be the same. We never are when we experience God.

From Frederick Buechner, A Crazy, Holy Grace: The Healing Power of Pain and Memory:

The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret that make us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead. It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later.

Eugene Petersen: Bringing out the God-flavors & God-colors in the world

NOTE: Since this was posted, new information has come out:

Christianity Today: Actually, Eugene Peterson Does Not Support Same-Sex Marriage

My thoughts still stand as I wrote them earlier. And I'm not at all surprised by this quote from the newer piece today:

Peterson’s followup warned against pastors “getting clouded by controversy and cluttered with loud voices” rather than focusing on the specific needs of their congregations.

“I regret the confusion and bombast that this interview has fostered,” he said. “It has never been my intention to participate in the kind of lightless heat that such abstract, hypothetical comments and conversations generate.”

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Eugene Petersen, ever the subversive is once again stirring up the waters around him and forcing believers and seekers to think outside the box. And some Christians would rather reach for the tar and feathers than to welcome the opportunity to stretch their minds.

Will the country’s largest Christian retail chain continue to stock Eugene Peterson's books? https://t.co/5xexj0ezm8

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) July 13, 2017

Among the controversial quotes in the article, Petersen responds to a question about homosexuality and same-sex marriage:

I wouldn’t have said this 20 years ago, but now I know a lot of people who are gay and lesbian and they seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do. I think that kind of debate about lesbians and gays might be over. People who disapprove of it, they’ll probably just go to another church. So we’re in a transition and I think it’s a transition for the best, for the good. I don’t think it’s something that you can parade, but it’s not a right or wrong thing as far as I’m concerned.

Petersen went on to confirm that, if asked, he would indeed perform a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple.

In response, Petersen's books, including "The Message" may be disappearing off some shelves.

“LifeWay only carries resources in our stores by authors who hold to the biblical view of marriage,” a spokesperson for LifeWay, a Southern Baptist affiliate, said in a statement to CT.

I don't agree with everything Eugene Petersen said in his recent interview with Religion News Service.  Truth is, I've found an increasing number of things with which to quibble in his books of the past decade.

But if I only were to read books written by authors with whom I agree 100%, I would never read another book. I even have some quibbles with some of what I read in the Bible (although I submit to it's Author's wisdom in those matters).

Eugene Petersen has been one of the two two or three authors whose books I have recommended to others, over many years. His books on the Psalms (including Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer and A Long Obedience in the Same Direction have driven me deeper into the Psalms and enlivened both my teaching and writing.

His books on spiritual life and pastoring (Subversive Spirituality ,The Contemplative Pastor, and The Pastor: A Memoir ) are among my most treasured, even though I've never been either a paid professional preacher nor an elder/pastor.

His book Reversed Thunder taught me to love and appreciate the book of Revelation, rather than avoiding and fearing it.

As for his best known work, The Message, I've never recommended it as a substitute for other actual translations for study and exegesis, but it is a valuable resource as a poetic "commentary" on the Word. His take on Matthew 5:13-16 changed the way I live and teach. And for new believers with limited literacy skills (including many of the prisoners Karen and I work with), The Message is an invaluable entry ramp to faith.

So, I'll continue to enthusiastically recommend Eugene Petersen's works. Almost none of them, by the way, touch on homosexuality or same-sex marriage. They do touch on what it means to be a Christian whose life inhabits both the depths of God's Word and the breadth of God's Mission in the world.