Month: June 2019

I’ll never forget my first car accident. I was traveling at 45 mph when a driver in oncoming traffic turned left in front of me. I never saw it coming, so I didn’t make any adjustments. There wasn’t even time for me to hit the brakes. I suppose that’s the way it often is with accidents.  If there had been some forewarning, we might have done something to avoid them. But sometimes you don’t have a clue – you’re minding your own business, doing nothing wrong, and you’re hit out of nowhere.

 

How can people avoid what they don’t know is going to happen? Ecclesiastes 8:7

 

Trauma comes in many forms, but it’s always a lot like a car accident. In just a moment, less than the blink of an eye, everything changes. You’re stopped in your tracks and where you thought you were going is no longer your immediate concern. Now you all you can focus on is getting from this exact moment to the next, and sometimes you wonder if you’re even going to make it.

 

Soldiers aren’t the only ones who deal with traumatic stress, and it doesn’t require a visit to a war zone to experience trauma. We have an enemy who is poised to bring the battle to us, who “prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). His goal isn’t just to trip us up or make us have a bad day. His aim is to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Trauma is one of the many tools he uses to derail us and he’d like nothing better than to keep us living in the wreckage.

 

There’s something in our culture that says we should rise above suffering and pain, that we shouldn’t let losses get to us. If we were doing it right, we would have an unphased, unaffected approach to life. But when we’re attacked, beaten up, plowed into, how are we supposed to do that? Sorrow is not the result of some failure or weakness. It’s the normal response to living in a fallen world. Things are not as they should be.

 

The question is, do we believe that they can be? The promise for the Christian is that one day they will be (Revelation 21:5). While we wish that ‘one day’ was today, Jesus said, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

 

Jesus knows firsthand the reality of trials and sorrow. But He doesn’t leave us there. He says we don’t have to lose our hearts over them because He has overcome all the hurt there could ever be in the world. Not erased it, but overcome it. So while there is pain, there is also comfort. Trauma doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

 

God does this thing where He takes an expected outcome and brings about something completely different. So although we understandably want to avoid sorrow, “sadness has a refining influence on us” (Ecclesiastes 7:3). Sorrow causes us to seek comfort. Weakness causes us to look for strength outside ourselves. So let it do its work. Let tears soften the soil of your heart. Let helplessness cause you to seek help. Let desperation draw you to the Savior. He has prevailed, and if He has, so will we.

 

As for me, I look to the Lord for his help. I wait confidently for God to save me, and my God will certainly hear me. Do not gloat over me, my enemies! For though I fall, I will rise again. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord himself will be my light.
Micah 7:7-8

One of the largest monuments in Washington, DC is the World War II memorial.  It really is a fitting tribute to the heroism and courage and sacrifice of the men and women who fought in that terrible conflict. At the center of the memorial is a fountain, and on hot days people often take off their shoes and dangle their legs in the water.

 

My daughter looks on anxiously; she wonders if bare feet are disrespectful. I, on the other hand, take a more lenient view. While the memorial shouldn’t be treated like a pool, it honors those who sacrificed something – their freedom, their plans, their innocence, some even their lives – so that others could live.  To live was the point of the entire thing.

 

Even the most willing servicemember would prefer not to die for their country, but to serve in such a way that they and others might have more life. They consider what they’re saving to be so valuable that they’re willing to protect it with their very lives. For we the beneficiaries, that’s not something to be taken lightly or quickly forgotten. There’s a responsibility that comes with living a ransomed life. The greatest tribute and honor to give such sacrifice is to live, and to live well.

 

Building memorials isn’t something new.  Even in ancient times people set up visible reminders to counteract the human tendency towards amnesia.  The Bible mentions several – Joshua and the Israelites built memorials when they passed over the Jordan River into the Promised Land (Joshua 4:4-9). Samuel built a memorial when the Israelites defeated the Philistines (1 Samuel 7:12).  But those memorials weren’t about the heroic deeds of men; instead they were reminders of the faithful, extravagant love of God. The awe-inspiring deeds done on behalf of His people.

 

This is good to remember. Because there will come a day of discouragement, where your enemy will challenge you with doubt. God’s answer to our doubts is always Himself, a reminder of who He is. What He has done is the proof of what He will do.

 

This is what comforted the psalmist, Asaph, as he dealt with fear and discouragement – “I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them. O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you? You are the God of miracles and wonders!” (Psalm 77:11-14).  This was God’s response to Job’s understandable confusion and distress (Job 38-41). And it was His reply to Thomas after the resurrection (John 20:27)

 

When our circumstances look doubtful, when the enemy suggests that God doesn’t love us, doesn’t care about what’s happening, that He’s powerless to do something about the situation, God’s response is this – I am the Lord. Consider who I am. Don’t forget who I am. When you know who I am, you will understand that I am not your enemy but your friend. That I am inclined to be kind to you, to be merciful, to have compassion, to respond to you, to rescue you. I have the will and the power to do all that is needful. And my timing, while it often won’t match with your timeline, is nevertheless perfect.

 

We will never go wrong by remembering who God is and all that He has done so that we can live (John 10:10). Life is what He intends for us, wants for us, and has made possible for us.

 

“I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba as a ransom for your freedom. Others died that you might live. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.” Isaiah 43:3-4, emphasis added