The Last Temptation

This, the Friday before Easter, is a hard day. 

I'd much rather jump straight into Easter, to the joy of the earth singing as it once again feels the touch of Jesus' feet.

Yet you cannot get to the empty tomb without going through the suffering of the cross.

I've written a lot about suffering and pain in these pages. I am often tempted to do almost anything to avoid feeling pain.  

It recently struck me that perhaps that is what temptation really is: Satan doing everything he can to help you avoid suffering here on earth.

We don't know about very many of Jesus' temptations, but God gives us enough glimpse to know that He, like me, desired to avoid pain. 

That is what Jesus' wilderness temptings were: Satan trying to convince Jesus to believe in him and take the easy, pain-free way of becoming king rather than believing God and obeying His pain-filled, cross way of becoming king. 

The way that would also rescue His people.

Too often, I believe Satan instead of God.

Yet Satan did not end his tempting of Jesus in the wilderness.

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time. ~ Luke 4

That opportune time?

The Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus' last temptation. 

The temptation to once again take the comfortable way instead of the suffering way. The temptation to believe in Satan's hazy seductions rather than in God's rock-solid promises.  

Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will but Yours be done. ~ Luke 22

I bow my head in shame, knowing how often I choose to believe Satan.

Yes, He was God, yet He still struggled as much as we do with this same temptation.

And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. ~ Luke 22

And so we come full circle. 

That which began in a garden now ends in a garden because this time the man obeyed.

Jesus obeyed. He chose to believe in God's promise while knowing the immediate consequences of pain.

My heart wants to weep because I know why He did this.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ~ Romans 5

Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death -- that is, the devil. ~ Hebrews 2

Because He loves us and He wants to rescue us, to rescue you, from the power of pain and death.

This. This is why we linger long on this hard day instead of leaping ahead to Sunday. To remind us to believe in God's promises of the end of death and pain even while knowing of the fleeting death and pain we might face in obedience. 

May I end with something I wrote and a video I made with a friend? (if you are viewing this via email/in a reader, click here to view this video) 

Pause for a moment and dwell on the hard things so that on Sunday your heart can resonate even more fully with Easter's joy.

Temptation.

It swirls around me like a hurricane

sending my intentions spinning into the blackened sky.

I hear the voice of God

I hear Him tell me what is good

Why can I not obey?

My consistency is that I fail to listen

My constant is that I continue to fall.

The ugly truth?

I don't believe God.

I don't believe Him when He tells me what is best.

If I believed, I would obey.

If I trusted in God's goodness, His love, I would always do what He asks.

I would choose love instead of anger.

I would choose compassion rather than bitterness.

I would forgive instead of clinging to my grudge.

I would assume the best rather than enjoying my irritation.

I would think of others and forget about myself.

How can I obey,

how can I root out this ugliness that is deep inside my heart?

I cannot listen when I will not trust.

And yet I remember.

God is mercy and God is grace.

He changes hearts and He captures our gaze.

He is faithful if we ask;

His wisdom He delights to give.

Christ stayed in the wilderness

He faced down our sin

He trusted in God

Trusted God's love and goodness

Christ conquered to make me a conqueror.

Grace.

It captures my heart and teaches me to trust

changing my nature so that I am now able to believe what God says

And obey.  

(special thanks to Kati Pessin for putting together the video and to our Pastor for his thoughts on Christ's temptations)

art credit for the video: music is "Window" by Album Leaf

What will you do when God says "no"?

What do you do when you don't get your way?

My eldest screams with a red hot rage and sobs tears of hurt and disappointment.

As much as I would like to hold my head up high and speak with condescension about the ways of a child, I can't. Instead, I will bow my head with shame and confess that, even if I don't do it out loud or in front of people, I have much the same reaction in my deepest places.

I received another "no" from God this week.

It really hurt. Yet another of my well-laid plans was swept away with the dust of a hope.

I do gain deep peace and joy from knowing beyond a doubt that the only reason that God said "no" was because that wasn't what was best.

And, just as I wrote recently, my heart still grieves.

There is a piece of me, that child that can't seem to grow up, that wants to shout and rage and stamp its foot and demand a "yes" from God.

The desire, the temptation, is not wrong. As I often tell my eldest, the feeling is not wrong, but what you choose to do can be either wise or foolish.

So what did I choose to do?

This time (I wish that I could say "every time") I chose what was wise.

With tears, I praised God.

I thanked Him for telling me "no" because I trust that it was best, that it was done out of love.

Then I went to church and worshiped.

You make all things work together for my good.

You stay the same through the ages,

Your love never changes.

There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning.

And when the oceans rage,

I don't have to be afraid

Because I know that You love me.

Your love never fails.

My whole life I place in Your hands.

God of mercy, humbled I bow down

In Your presence at Your throne.

I called, You answered

And You came to my rescue

And I want to be where You are.

You stood before my failure,

Carried the cross for my shame.

My sin weighed upon Your shoulders,

My soul now to stand.

So I'll stand,

With arms high and heart abandoned,

In awe of the One who gave it all.

I turned my eyes back to Jesus and gained back my perspective. No matter to what God says "no", it is so small compared to the huge thing to which He has already said "yes": allowing us to become His children through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He has given us everything, and so...

I'll stand

My soul, Lord, to You surrendered.

All I am is Yours.

art credit: 

songs are from Your Love Never Fails (Jesus Culture); Came To My Rescue (Hillsong United); The Stand (Hillsong United) 

sketching is The Three Crosses by Rembrandt

What You Should Do Next

What should we do now?

How should we respond?

When life seems to be running rapidly into a dead end

When we feel carved out and emptied by the rivers of this world's realities

When the weight of our pain threatens to crush

When our hearts are pitted and scarred by pain, anguish, shame

What should we do?

Yes, we continue to obey, to follow the signs.

To what purpose? To what end?

The men who walked in the fire told a king that even if God refused to rescue, they would continue to obey.

The man who lost all but his life declared that even if God took the last thing remaining to him, he would continue to trust.

Why do we obey, why do we trust even when we cannot seem to find the light?

Listen.

Listen to the Word speak.

Listen to what the Word says as He is drawing very near to His own darkness.

"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!"

The Glory of God our Father.

Out of the rocks, His glory bursts forth.

Out of the dead and the dying, His beauty shines out.

All praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Father, glorify Your name!

(If you are viewing this via email/in a reader, may I suggest that you click here to view this video?)

Follow the Signs

May we continue our conversation from last week?

Reality is hard.

Our family has become steeped in pain and loss.

Many others suffer far greater tragedies.

Reconciling the hurt with the heart of God is hard.

It is tempting to add a veneer of softness, to speak in cliches that turn raw, ripped-open pain into a lie.

Sometimes this is even encouraged among those of us who follow Christ.

Yet to do this denies that we are real, that our hearts can be ripped in two, that our pain and loss can suffocate and almost overwhelm us.

To do this denies that Christ is real, that His body and heart were also ripped apart.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

All through the Bible, God seems to not place much importance at all on whether we are free from pain or suffering. 

Abel. Abraham. Joseph. Moses. Uriah the prophet. John the Baptist...Jesus' cousin. All of the apostles...Jesus' closest friends.

Understanding why Kristina had to die is hard.

I might never know the reason.

God's purposes are not for me to understand His plans: His plan is for me to understand Who He is...Faith is this unwavering trust in the heart of God in the hurt of here. (Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience)

Can I trust in the heart of God?

In C.S. Lewis' story of Narnia, The Silver Chair, two children (Jill and Scrubb) and one Marsh-wiggle (Puddleglum) are given by Aslan (the Christ-figure) four signs with which to find the lost prince of Narnia. They completely muff the first three signs which leads to their imprisonment with a madman who is chained to (you guessed it!) a silver chair. The fourth and last sign is that someone "will ask you to do something in my name, in the name of Aslan". The madman entreats the three travelers to free him, which is where I will pick up our story:

"Once and for all," said the prisoner, "I adjure you to set me free. By all fears and all loves, by the bright skies of Overland, by the great Lion, by Aslan himself, I charge you --" 

"Oh!" said the three travelers as though they had been hurt. "It's the sign," said Puddleglum. "It was the words of the sign," said Scrubb more cautiously. "Oh, what are we to do?" said Jill.

It was a dreadful question. What had been the use of promising one another that they would not on any account set the Knight free, if they were now to do so the first time he happened to call upon a name they really cared about? On the other hand, what had been the use of learning the signs if they weren't going to obey them? Yet could Aslan have really meant them to unbind anyone - even a lunatic - who asked it in his name? ... They had muffed three already; they daren't muff the fourth.

"Oh, if only we knew!" said Jill.

"I think we do know," said Puddleglum.

"Do you mean you think everything will come right if we do untie him?" said Scrubb.

"I don't know about that," said Puddleglum. "You see, Aslan didn't tell (Jill) what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he's up, I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off following the sign."

That doesn't let us off following the sign.

We aren't guaranteed that anything here on earth will turn out okay. I wish we did have that promise. 

Instead, if we have nothing else (and we do have so much else!), if we can turn to and trust nothing else, we have the cross.

After his wife of only four years had died of cancer, C. S. Lewis said 

If only I could bear it, or the worst of it, or any of it, instead of her...But is it ever allowed? It was allowed to One, we are told, and I find I can now believe again, that He has done vicariously whatever can be so done. He replies to our babble, "You cannot and you dare not. I could and dared."

And so I find that perhaps, after all, it does not matter why. It does not matter from whence came the hard thing. 

If God ever had to prove anything, at the cross He proved His love, His promise to work for the best of all He created.

It is not a bad thing to seek for the why's and how's and from where's. God is able to handle our questions, our fears.

Yet if we never get any answers, if we never know the reasons, if we never understand, we who have chosen to follow Christ, who have allowed Jesus to be the Lord of our lives, we who have embraced His sacrifice of love...

We aren't let off following the signs. 

Art Credits: Photograph of Cross wooden statue by Asta Rastauskiene; Marsh-wiggle picture (I was not able to find the original); Rembrandt's The Three Crosses  

Thanks also to my wonderful Dad who gave me some of the ideas in this essay.