God suffering on a cross. There is no answer to the question “Why?” apart from Jesus. That God is part of the problem of suffering may not complicate matters after all. How, or to what extent, he created the problem, is not the question.
He is the answer and we need him.
Eleven
GAINING CONTENTMENT
A contented man is the one who enjoys the scenery along the detours.”1
A quote like this deserves a story…
Your heart is racing as you sketch out plans for a move. A move to Rome, Italy. You study the language, food, and art, and buy history books of the Basilica and Sistine Chapel. You flip through home buyers’ guides and picture breakfast on a balcony overlooking a sunny bay. Your hopes are soaring. It’ll be the adventure of a lifetime.
Winging your way to Rome, the plans change. Your 747 lands in Holland. You stumble out of the Amsterdam airport bewildered, clasping Italian brochures and asking, “Where am I? What’s going on?” The landscape is flat; the weather cold and damp. You gag on Dutch Brussels sprouts and learn how to say “tot ziens” rather than “arrivederci.” Even though disappointment stings, you may as well get used to wearing wooden shoes. Holland is now your home. Shelve your shattered hopes and get on with living. Once in awhile you miss Italy, but you learn to survive in Holland. It’s not unbearable, just different.2
That’s life. You’re flying along at a good clip, then plans change. A heart attack sidelines your brother or AIDS infects your son. God may part the heavens with a miracle, but more than likely, you will have to accept the obvious. You will bear the pain and hang on. You will spend weekends helping your brother’s family. You will push aside prejudice and change the sheets on your son’s bed. Or you will change the diapers of your twelve-year-old who is mentally handicapped. You will hold on to marriage vows despite a cold shoulder and an empty bed. Stick to a budget and forestall vacation. Clamp the lid on raging hormones and make a date with the TV and dinner-for-one.
You resign yourself to the way things are.
Once in awhile you wonder what it would be like—or was like—to live without the dull ache of constant pain. But most of the time, you block it out. You cope with a new language, different ways of doing things—not the ways you prefer—and you learn to survive in a world you’d never choose.
I can’t live, really live that way. I don’t believe you can either. Maybe pets who are trained for the leash can and horses who are schooled for the bit, but not humans. Animals submit—horses yield to the heavy harness and resign themselves to the plow. But we are not animals. God weeps when he sees us put the blinders on, like horses with spirits broken. He weeps because he never intended for us to live lives of solemn resignation. For one reason, stoics unwittingly place themselves at the center of everything. For another, our souls are too significant. Even in the desperation of silence, inside the shell of a hardened heart, passion pulsates like a dying ember. A warm breeze revives a distant memory. A song stirs a faraway hope. A hand on the shoulder awakens desire. We long to be fully human. We ache, we taste bitterness and gall. We taste tears. Animals don’t cry; or if they do, they don’t wonder, “Is there more to life than survival?”
Maybe we can survive, but it can’t stop there.
“Will I ever be happy, really happy again?”
Yes and no. You can be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10). In other words, you may end up enjoying Holland. Perhaps more than Italy.
WHEN YOU CAN’T ESCAPE
Will I ever be happy in this place? It’s all I could think of after I got out of the hospital and wheeled through the front door of my home. Doorways were too narrow. Sinks were too high. Three little steps were a roadblock preventing access to the living room. I sat at the dining room table, my knees hitting the edge. A plate of food was placed in front of me, but my hands remained limp in my lap. Someone else—at least for the first few months—fed me. I felt confined and trapped. Our cozy home had become an adverse and foreign environment.
My confinement forced me to look at another captive.
The apostle Paul had seen the inside of more than one small room from which there was no escape. For over two years, Paul had been shifted from “pillar to post” as one Roman leader after another disclaimed any responsibility for him. Nobody—neither Felix nor Festus—wanted to touch him with a ten-foot pole. So he was shipped to Rome.
Once there, Paul, shadowed by a guard, continued to be under house arrest. He thanked the believers in Philippi for their concern and reassured them with his words in the fourth chapter of his epistle: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty” (Philippians 4:11).
Paul was talking about an internal quietness of heart, supernaturally given, that gladly submits to God in all circumstances. When I say “quietness of heart” I’m not ruling out the physical stuff like prison bars, wheelchairs, unjust treatment, and disease. What I am ruling out is the internal stuff—peevish thoughts, plotting ways of escape, and vexing and fretting that only lead to a flurry of frantic activity. Contentment is a sedate spirit that is able to keep quiet as it bears up under suffering. Paul understood how to live this way.
He learned it. It meant acquiring skills. Understanding something and then practicing it. What did he understand? “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12).
What was the secret Paul learned? In his seventeenth-century classic The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs notes that the New Testament word rendered as “contentment” in our English Bibles carries the idea of sufficiency. Paul uses the same Greek root in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul’s secret was simply learning to lean on the Lord of grace for help. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
Paul had to master this. It meant making tough choices—deciding this, not that; going in this direction, not that one. Why does the secret involve such hard work? Because “approaching the throne of grace with confidence” is not our natural bent. “Finding grace to help in time of need” doesn’t come automatically. Just take a look at a few of Paul’s well-chosen words in Philippians: “I press on…I strive…I stand firm.”
In a small way, I understand making choices like these. I got tired of being fed at our dinner table. But when I tried to feed myself with paralyzed arms, I wanted to give up. A bent spoon was inserted into a pocket on my leather arm splint. With weak shoulder muscles, I had to scoop food on the spoon, then balance and lift it to my mouth. It was humiliating to wear a bib, smear applesauce all over my clothes, and have it land more times on my lap than in my mouth.
I could have surrendered—it would have been easy and many wouldn’t have blamed me for quitting. But I had to make a choice. A series of choices. Was I going to let embarrassment over my food-smeared face dissuade me? Was I going to let disappointing failures overwhelm me? I decided the awkwardness of feeding myself outweighed the fleeting satisfaction of self-pity. It pushed me to pray, Oh, God, help me with this spoon! My secret was learning to lean on the Lord for help. Today I manage a spoon with my arm splint quite well.
I didn’t get back use of my arms or hands.
But I did learn to be content.
Christ is not a magic wand that can be waved over our heartaches and headaches to make them disappear. “In [him] are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Wisdom and knowledge—including knowing how to be content—are hidden in him, like a treasure that needs to be searched for. To search for something concealed requires hard work: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13
).
God doesn’t leave us on our own. “I have learned the secret of being content…I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). As we wrap our hands around a task and, in faith, begin to exert force, eureka! Divine energy surges through us. God’s strength works in us at the moment we exercise faith for the task. “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me—I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]” (Philippians 4:13 AMPLIFIED).
You make the choices and God gives you the strength. He gives you the strength to hold your tongue when you feel you have cause for complaining—even when your husband hasn’t attended his fair share of PTA meetings. He imparts the strength to look out for another’s interest before your own—even when it’s the coworker in your office who uses you as a stepladder to the top. He infuses the strength to choose a bright attitude when you wake up in the morning—even though it’s another day of the same old routine as you care for your disabled child.
You still have an irresponsible husband, a greedy coworker, and a handicapped kid, but you have quietness of heart.
GAINING THROUGH LOSING
Remember when I said suffering is having what you don’t want and wanting what you don’t have? Subtract your wants and you’ll have contentment.
It’s a way of equalizing your desires and circumstances. The apostle Paul was an expert at this arithmetic. For example, he was glad his Philippian friends were sending him gifts. “I rejoice greatly” he says, but quickly adds, “I am not saying this because I am in need…”
Not in need? In a jail? “I am amply supplied,” he assures his friends (Philippians 4:18). Good grief, Paul, why then are you rejoicing greatly? “I am not looking for a gift,” he explains, “but I am looking for what may be credited to your account” (v. 17). Paul subtracted his desires and, in so doing, increased his joy—his joy over supplying the needs of others.
Paul wasn’t living in denial in that dank dungeon; he simply adjusted his longings in light of Christ’s sufficiency. Christ was more than enough whether Paul was “well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:12).
The world is clueless to this sort of math. The world will try to improve its circumstances to match its desires—increase its health, money, beauty, and power. It’s wiser to subdue your heart to match your circumstances. Christians may not be able to rule their life situations, but they can rule their hearts: “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower,” says James 1:9. Burroughs wrote, “Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment: When there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances.”3
Cecile Van Antwerp has lived in a wheelchair many more years than I, plus she resides in a nursing home. When I went to visit her, I was struck by the small size of her living alcove—just enough room for a bed and chest of drawers in the corner by a window. Yet with photos, a flower arrangement, a colorful afghan, and a plaque on the wall above her headboard, she has made it her home. She has scaled down her heart’s desires and fashioned a small, cozy nest out of a tight, cramped space. She’s contented.
How do we become skilled in such arithmetic? How do we get this kind of “subtraction”? By feeding the mind and heart on those things that bring contentment rather than arouse desire. I’m not talking about rule-keeping. Rules only lead to the arousal of cravings. (You can’t help but dabble in desire as soon as you see, “Don’t Touch This” and “Don’t Do That.”) I am talking about common sense.
Or call it behavior modification. Don’t want to get hurt? Then stay away from things that cause hurt. You’ll never catch me lingering in the lingerie department where they display tall, elegant mannequins wearing beautiful silk negligees. I don’t care if it’s a Styrofoam model—it’s standing up, and I’m not. And it’s gracefully wearing things that hang like a sack on me! Being paralyzed, it’s not practical to wear lacy garter belts or brocade bedroom slippers. Gazing at these gorgeous garments makes me think restlessly, Boy, I’d love to wear that! and so I only remain on third-floor lingerie long enough to purchase a few necessities and then I’m out of there.
It’s the same with sixties psychedelic music. Those weird, crazy sounds were background music to my suicidal despair, when I would wrench my head back and forth on my pillow, hoping to break my neck at a higher level. Now I turn the dial whenever I hear screeching guitars or a hard, angry beat. I cannot listen. I’m not living in denial or refusing to face up to reality; I merely have a healthy respect for the powerful effect of music—I am as paralyzed now as I was then, and I’m asking for trouble if I expose my mind to music that conjures dark thoughts.
Food is another thing. Because I can’t exercise like most people, I have to watch my calories more closely. In the evening when I leave the office, I occasionally catch the enticing aroma of char-broiled steak wafting from The Wood Ranch Barbecue Pit across the freeway. It’s murder. I’m a pushover for their fried Maui onion rings. I avoid that restaurant when I’m starving, just as I bypass the French pastry aisle at the supermarket.
Gaining contentment does not mean losing sorrow or saying good-bye to discomfort. Contentment means sacrificing itchy cravings to gain a settled soul. You give up one thing for another. It’s hard. Hard, but sweet. You are “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” You “have nothing, yet possess everything.” First Timothy 6:6 says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain” and the gain always comes through loss.
No wonder contentment requires enormous strength!
Jeremiah Burroughs writes,
[A Christian] is the most contented man in the world and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world; these two together must needs be mysterious…He is contented if he has but a crust, but bread and water…yet if God should give unto him Kingdoms and Empires, all the world to rule…he should not be satisfied with that. A soul that is capable of God can be filled with nothing else but God.4
ANOTHER EQUATION
“I complained about having no shoes until I met a man with no feet.”
Trite but true. Involve yourself with those in more humble circumstances. It fosters contentment in you and revives it in others. A double blessing.
I’d have sworn I was satisfied, sitting at a coffee bar in the mall with my out-of-town guest, Mary Jean. She, like me, almost never takes a break. She travels long hours and works hard in Christian ministry. When Mary Jean flew out for a relaxing visit, I assumed it would be good for us both to do something normal—what better than to kick back and meander a mall? We got as far as ordering Cafe Lattes outside of Nordstrom’s. We sat, sipping drinks, cooing at babies parked in strollers, and admiring spring dresses on passers-by. We chatted about fat grams and the First Lady’s newest hairstyle. The conversation inevitably drifted to Christian ministry.
I told Mary Jean about my friend Bonnie Young who lives at Magnolia Gardens Nursing Home at the other end of the valley. “Bonnie’s neuro-muscular disease has advanced to the point where she lies in bed all day,” I told her. “It’d be good if we could spend some time praying for her today. I heard she is very depressed.”
We sat in silence.
Suddenly, we exclaimed together, “What are we doing here?!”
We gathered our stuff and scurried to a phone. Yes, Bonnie was able to receive visitors. No, we wouldn’t be intruding—she doesn’t have many friends drop by. We sang hymns driving down the freeway until we pulled into the shaded driveway of the nursing home. We hurried down the dimly lit hallways, greeting the wheelchair users lined up against the walls. Bonnie’s room was the last on the right.
Her eyes lit up when she saw us. She couldn’t communicate much through her stiffened smile. Breath and words did not come easily. We sang to Bonnie and occasionally sat quietly, enjoying birds c
hirping outside the window. At the close of our visit, I asked if she would like to slowly repeat with us the Lord’s Prayer. Expressionless, she nodded. While a bedpan clattered on the floor down the hallway and someone kept babbling by the nurses’ station, we united our hearts and spoke to our Father.
Mary Jean enjoyed her visit, including a jaunt to the beach and an evening out at a fancy restaurant. But the highlight was the marvelous chance to visit a friend in more humble circumstances than us. There will always be a sale at Nordstrom’s but not always an opportunity to foster contentment by involving ourselves with a friend in need. “In humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).
It’s not a matter of comparing another’s tragic plight to your circumstances in order to jack up a grateful spirit. It’s not “pitying the poor unfortunate.” It’s all about perspective. Like the letter I received from one of the mothers at a JAF Family Retreat…
Dear Joni,
I am writing to let you know about four-year-old Zachariah who now has a growth on his aortic valve. Because Zach is ventilator dependent, the cardiologist is worried about doing surgery.
It is very painful as a mother to watch her son suffer knowing he doesn’t understand why. It is not the worst situation nor is it the best. But in God’s great wisdom and love for us, it is his will and I humbly submit, knowing his faithfulness reaches to the skies. Zach is a child and this is his 26th hospitalization and 15th surgery. Through times of pain, surgery, questions, decisions and tears, I know that I know that I know he will see us through this, too. Not barely, not hanging on by a thread, but gloriously and peacefully.
When God Weeps Page 18