8 Survival Skills for Changing Times – Part 7-10

December 25, 2012 by admin

Appreciating What Suffering Teaches – Part 10: Readings – 2

My amputation showed me the unbalanced emphasis our society puts on our physical bodies. Many of my friends thought that if they were in my shoes—or shoe, I should say—they would have withdrawn. Girlfriends on my track team asked, “Becki, since you were so athletic, how can you have your leg taken away and not be angry?”

I responded, “Well, sure, I loved having two legs, but that’s not the most important thing to me. If anything, my body often distracted me. Now it’s easier to see that what truly matters is my relationship with God, how I’m living and who I’m loving.”

Many of my friends knew I was a Christian. They also knew my dad was a pastor, which in itself was sort of a stigma. But I let my friends know that my beliefs were my own and not imposed by my dad. They knew that church and Campus Life were also important to me.

Some of my friends had ignored the spiritual side of me because they weren’t Christians. After I lost my leg, they began to say, “You’re different. Why aren’t you reacting to your amputation like I would?”

Finally, they listened as I told them about my faith in Jesus Christ and that I was living for something much more lasting than what I was physically. “My relationship with Christ gives me a higher purpose than just what I could accomplish with my physical body,” I said. “After all, I have given my life to God; it was really His leg that was lost, not mine.”

I knew God had answered prayers for my healing. He had healed me—emotionally. Incredibly, I never experienced serious depression or anger over my amputation. Incredible to me and unbelievable to everyone else! Only my family and close friends knew I wasn’t acting. People, from the very first day, tried to talk me into anger or tell me I was in denial. People urged me to “get in touch with my feelings.” I was and my feelings were fine!

I know this attitude was God’s doing, because I know myself! I don’t usually say, “O.K. Praise the Lord, and pass the potatoes!” I’m not a hokey Christian whose frothy faith glides me through any circumstance. I usually give God a fight or at least a quiz before I yield to His ultimate power and authority. This was an extraordinary reaction from me, but God never told us life with Him would be ordinary.

Shortly after my surgery, I had to choose a book for an English-class report. Since I had been impressed by Joni when I met her in person, I decided to read her book. Her attitudes strongly molded the way I dealt with my disability. I remember thinking, “I can learn from her times of anger and depression so that maybe I won’t go through all of that. Maybe I can skip to be where her life was at the end of the book when she could see God using her disability. I want this amputation to be something positive.”

I realized my disability could by no means compare to her quadriplegia, which affects much more of life than an amputation. But I saw that her attitudes applied to my situation. Her life dramatically affected mine, especially in how she wanted to praise the Lord by everything she did.

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What God Gives When Life Takes, Becki Conway Sanders, Jim and Sally Conway, InterVarsity Press, pages 90-92.

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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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8 Survival Skills for Changing Times – Part 7-9

December 24, 2012 by admin

Appreciating What Suffering Teaches – Part 9: Readings – 1

Pain itself, the hurt of pain, is a gift. After years of working with lepers, Dr. Paul Brand learned to exult in the sensation of cutting a finger, turning an ankle, stepping into a too-hot bath. “Thank God for pain!” he says.

Doctors once believed the disease of leprosy caused the ulcers on hands and feet and face which eventually led to rotting flesh and the gradual loss of limbs. Mainly through Dr. Brand’s research, it has been established that in 99% of the cases, leprosy only numbs the extremities. The decay of flesh occurs solely because the warning system of pain is absent.

How does the decay happen? Some villages in Africa and Asia have a unique job for the town leper: he stands by the heavy iron cooking pot watching the potatoes. As they are done, without flinching, he thrusts his arm deep into the scalding water and recovers the cooked potatoes.

Dr. Brand found that abusive acts such as this were the chief cause of body deterioration in the leper. The potato-watching leper had felt no pain, but his skin blistered, his cells were destroyed and laid open to infection. Leprosy had not destroyed the tissue; it had merely removed the warning sensors which alerted the leper to danger.

On one occasion, as Dr. Brand was still formulating this radical theory, he tried to open the door of a little storeroom, but a rusty padlock would not yield to his pressure on the key. A patient, an undersized, malnourished ten-year-old, approached him, smiling.

“Let me try, Sahib doctor,” he offered and reached for the key. He closed his thumb and forefinger on the key and with a quick jerk of the hand turned it in the lock.

Brand was dumbfounded. How could this weak youngster out-exert him. His eye caught a telltale clue. Was that a drop of blood on the floor?

Upon examining the boy’s fingers, Brand discovered the act of turning the key had slashed the finger open to the bone; skin and fat and joint were all exposed. Yet the boy was completely unaware of it!

The daily routines of life ground away at these lepers’ hands and feet, but without a warning system to alert them, they succumbed. If an ankle turned, tearing tendon and muscle, they would adjust and walk crooked. If a rat chewed off a finger in the night, they would not discover it until the next morning.

The discovery revolutionized medicine’s approach to leprosy. And it starkly illustrates why Paul Brand can say with utter sincerity, “Thank God for pain!” By definition, pain is unpleasant, so unpleasant as to force us to withdraw our finger from a stove, lightning-fast. Yet it is that very quality which saves us from destruction. Unless the warning signal demands response, we might not heed it.

Brand’s discovery in the physical realm closely parallels the moral argument for pain offered by C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain. Just as physical pain is an early warning system to the brain, it is a warning system to the soul. Pain is a megaphone of God which, sometimes murmuring, sometimes shouting, reminds us that something is wrong. It is a “rumor of transcendence,” which convinces us the entire human condition is out of whack. We on earth are a rebel fortress, and every sting, and every ache reminds us.

Without pain, we would contentedly build our kingdom of self-sufficiency and pride, professing not to need God (didn’t Adam?). Pain removes that privilege. It proves to us that reality is not the way it was meant to be. Something is wrong with a life of wars and screams and insults. We need help.

If you once doubt the megaphone value of pain, visit the intensive care unit of a hospital. In the face of extreme suffering, the human masks are stripped off. Nothing else is important. Blue collar, white collar, black, white, male, female, beautiful, ugly, brilliant, stupid—those status games don’t matter in Intensive Care. What matters is life and death. Pain—and only pain—can shout loud enough to bring us to that point.

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The Reformed journal, “In Defense of Pain,” Philip Yancey, November 1975.

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Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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8 Survival Skills for Changing Times – Part 7-8

December 21, 2012 by admin

Appreciating What Suffering Teaches – Part 8: For Discussion and Reflection

What is a valuable lesson you have learned through sorrow?
Many people become bitter when suffering marks their lives. What determines a person’s response?
Can entire congregations learn lessons during difficult times? What determines whether or not this happens?
Nations experience revival more frequently during hard times than they do when all is going well. Why do you think this is?
For what reasons might learning to appreciate the lessons of suffering qualify as a key survival skill?
“Sharing in His sufferings” is a phrase that comes up several times in the New Testament. In what ways do you feel you have shared the sufferings of Christ?

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Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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8 Survival Skills for Changing Times – Part 7-7

December 20, 2012 by admin

Appreciating What Suffering Teaches – Part 7: Be There for Others (continued…)

The play, A Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt, shows how one historical figure got caught in the conflict between this world and the world to come. The main character is Sir Thomas More. The play revolves around More’s refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy in 1534, in which Parliament acknowledged Henry VIII as the only Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England. The oath was especially distasteful to More, a Catholic, because it was in reaction to the Pope’s unwillingness to grant Henry a divorce. The king had wished to be released from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could take Anne Boleyn for his wife.

In fact, in the final courtroom scene which follows, More is betrayed by a witness who had been a friend, Richard Rich. At the conclusion of his testimony, Rich begins to leave, but Sir Thomas speaks up. “I have a question to ask the witness. That’s a chain of office you are wearing. May I see it? [He looks at the medallion.] The red dragon. What’s this?” The answer given is that Sir Richard has been appointed Attorney-General for Wales. More looks into Rich’s face with pain and some humor. “For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for Wales!”

There’s that idea again. Don’t fix your eyes on what is seen, but on what is unseen.

Of course the greatest example of this kind of thinking is our Lord. Peter writes about Him this way:

But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps.

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth.’”

When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:20-23).

This is exactly what Jesus did: He entrusted Himself to His Father and let Him see to it that the end result was right. When you receive a “beating” you don’t deserve, allow this suffering to teach you to be more Christlike, to identify more closely with what He went through on your behalf, and to appreciate even more the miracle of His love.

Peter gives one final reason to learn to appreciate the lessons of suffering. Remember that his words were written to people being persecuted for their faith. In America we know almost nothing of this.

“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12-13).

Did you catch it? “That you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.”

There’s a lot in this world that isn’t fair, that doesn’t make sense, that ends without a satisfying resolution, that issues the wrong verdict. These all make us anticipate with joy the revealing of Christ’s glory. That’s when all will be made right. Suffering encourages us to keep our eyes fixed on that day. Peter continues:

“If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. … So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good”(vv. 14, 19).

I feel as though I’ve barely broached this topic of learning through suffering. But even in this short space I trust I’ve made you aware that you may be holding a precious survival skill in your hands and not know it. Don’t let it slip too quickly through your fingers.

When your path is marked by suffering, which happens often in a rapidly changing world, learn to appreciate the lessons pain can teach you. And as we approach the end times and see even more change, let us look with anticipation to the glorious return of our Lord.

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Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

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