5th Monday: When Grief Became My Idol - Christa Sapp

 

There are five common stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. After a miscarriage in 2019, I hit those stages hard and fast. So fast in fact I think I skipped right through denial and delved head-long into anger stirred in with an unforeseen amount of depression. 

 

I was angry at the entire universe. I was so small and insignificant in the vastness and busyness of the galaxies that it angered me. No one seemed to slow down enough to sit with me in my grief as much as I wanted them to. I WAS HURTING and everyone else around me needed to acknowledge that. 

If they didn’t acknowledge my grief and hang on long enough with me, I was angry. 

If they said the wrong thing, I was angry. 

If they didn’t say anything, I was angry. 

 

I eventually gave that angry piece of my grief journey to God after a lot of prayer and several apologies, but I still found myself spiraling into a deeper and scarier depression. Each month would pass, and I would imagine where I’d be in my pregnancy. The due date came and went. Then the first would-be birthday. Then another. With each milestone I’d find myself dreading for weeks, sometimes months, the coming day where I’d be reminded of what I was missing. 

 

With every instance, I’d find myself agonizing over how I would pass the day. Should I get a new piece of jewelry? Should I release some butterflies? Should we send off some floating lanterns? I’d worry that nothing would be good enough to remember the child we had lost. How would I include the kids? What if no one else cares like I do? WHY DOES NO ONE ELSE CARE?

 

Three years of this cycle continued. Regular mental breakdowns rolled in as I tried to figure out just how to memorialize the child we had lost. My husband came in this last time and found me with tears streaming down my face…again…as I went on telling him how anxious I was at the next would-be birthday coming up and not knowing what to do. It was then he really saw to my heart. He said so tenderly, “There is no guilt in being able to just live with our loss. You can actually move on with living and still keep their memory with you.” 

 

Woah, what? Guilt?

 

I was carrying this extremely heavy guilt that no one had ever placed on me. It wasn’t meant for me to carry. This guilt I carried was placed there with the idea that maybe if I didn’t properly memorialize the baby we’d lost that maybe one of those “would have been” days would pass me by and I would have FORGOTTEN! The honest truth is that I will never forget that we lost a child. No memorial, tree planted, or piece of jewelry could ever change that. I will never need a reminder that my child is gone.

 

I let God have the anger. I let God have the depression. I let God have my child! But I was so petrified of giving Him each and every day, each and every moment. I was afraid to let myself just be okay. In my head that meant I was telling the world that the loss no longer affected me. But I held tightly to it. It had become an idol. 

 

It was my husband’s gentle words that finally hit my heart. The reason why the burden was so heavy was because I never gave that piece of my grief to the One who was strong enough to carry it.

 

My loss belonged to me and no one was allowed to touch it, question it, or change it. I finally recognized that the last piece of my broken heart was still firmly clutched in my own hands instead of the hands of my Almighty God. I opened them and surrendered it all to Heaven. That is when I comprehended what it actually means to “let go.” 

 

Letting go doesn’t have to mean forgetting, ignoring, or replacing; it could simply mean taking what has held you back from fully trusting God and placing it at His feet instead of at an altar built for grief, anger, or any other pain you don’t want to release. I had to understand that my burden could only become light if I placed it in the strong hands of my Savior. When my grief became an idol, I needed to learn a lesson of surrender. It took this painful process to bring me to a closer, more intimate understanding of the heart of God. For that, I will forever be grateful.

 

Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

[1Peter 5:7]

The Daily Babel: New ‘Game-Changing’ Gadget Calculates Money Just Like Numbers

 

August 25, 2022 – Stephen Sapp

SILICON VALLEY—Nick O’Hara is one of thousands of college students suffering from overwhelming student loan debt. As our nation’s government continues to search for ways to help our brightest students overcome this crippling pandemic, the technology giant, Apple Inc., may have just invented the remedy. It’s called the iPlan Counting Machine or simply “iPlan” for short. 

 

At first glance, this new item looks very similar to your average, once-popular device known as the calculator. But when asked what makes the iPlan different from the others, O’Hara said, "Calculators only work with numbers, not dollars like this thing can.” Continuing to elaborate of his own accord he said, “The Apple logo makes all the difference I suppose.”

 

This “game-changing” invention will now allow students to calculate their monthly budget from money spent on essential items such as meals and cases of Red Bull to their largest purchases such as schoolbooks, cars, and cardboard cut-outs of their favorite social-media influencers. 

 

O’Hara has seen a full .02% decrease in his spending since purchasing this new product on a monthly-payment plan almost 6 months ago. He is positive this type of savings will go a long way into paying off his now six-figure student loan debt. And he’s not alone in his new-found optimism. 

 

Time Magazine is already proclaiming the iPlan, “a miracle, a marvel, and the true salvation for the devastating student debt crisis.” 

 

Who would have ever thought such a small tool for only $55 a month (plus taxes and fees) could make such a big difference? 

 

Possibly no one. 

 

But, for students like Nick O’Hara, he is counting on it to do just that.  

Miscellaneous: "Another Fallen Pastor Story" - Stephen

We celebrate the uncovering of people’s failures when we’ve become bored with our own.

We become shocked by the failures of others when blind to our own.

As Christians, we believe that mankind is born with a sin nature and yet we are many times stunned when that sinfulness is shown. This is evidenced most clearly in the falling of a pastor or Christian leader. This is not to negate the wrong they have done but to reveal my own surprise at those who walk away from their faith because of such actions. 

Faithfulness as a Christian is not perfection. It never has been and never will be for any of us this side of heaven. As long as we remain in this sinful world, faithfulness is the continual confessing and repenting of our imperfections to God and then living in the belief that He has forgiven and restored us every single time (1 John 1:9). It is certainly true that “preachers should practice what they preach” but may none of us forget that includes sermons on forgiveness and repentance that we allstand in need of. 

Every human vessel God has ever used to share His truth has been broken. With nearly every scriptural writer and prophet, the shards of such brokenness are exposed for all of us to read. We read of David and his adulterous affair leading to murder, Jonah’s disobedience as the cause for a fish’s reflux, and the catalog of names goes on and on. A good reminder that although moral failure is not inevitable, it is always possible.

As a pastor myself I realize this sounds a bit self-serving, but I hope my heart is heard. I too have been hurt when people I look up to as spiritual leaders fall into immorality, corruption, or an outright deconstruction of their faith altogether. Can I still use their books, their studies, and their advice? Can I even mention their name anymore in counsel or a sermon? Or, worst of all, if someone like them can fall, is there any hope for me and my faith?

Can I still share the thoughtful apologetics of Ravi Zacharias with people dealing with doubts after the haunting revelation of his sexual abuse?

Can I still grab the book, “Dug Down Deep” by Joshua Harris for his down-to-earth doctrinal illustrations knowing that he has walked away from his faith completely?

Carl Lentz and his adulterous affair.

Bill Hybels and his fall from one of the largest churches of my childhood era.

Rob Bell and his journey from trendy books and videos promoting Christianity to becoming a spiritual leader of anti-biblical heresy.

The foreign missionary, that one of my previous churches supported, who ended up murdering his wife just a few, short months after speaking to my student ministry.

And the pastor in your community who wasn’t famous but left a loving group of believers hurt and disillusioned. 

The list just continues to grow like a cancer with the only difference being that those who follow the diseased seem to be more affected in the end than the one diagnosed. 

According to scripture, every pastor, including these listed, will give an account for how they shepherd their “flock” (Heb. 13:17). They…we…will not get away with any wrongs we inflict upon those God entrusts into our spiritual care. This is both a humbling and sobering thought. A thought that should encourage us daily to grow in our spiritual maturity for when one of us falls it is our lack of such maturity that is exposed. 

As pastor and writer Kevin DeYoung states: “We should not think that mature Christianity requires us to constantly downgrade ourselves and talk as if we are constant spiritual failures.” If a pastor's goal, like all Christians, is to become like Christ then a daily abiding in His holiness should begin to cultivate our own (John 15:5; 1 Pet. 1:15-16). But too many, including us pastors, are seeking to live the moral life of Jesus without an abiding, growing relationship with Him. And if the need for this writing is any indication this will always end in hypocrisy and, if left unrepented, some form of public failure. 

With that in mind may all of us who claim the name of Christ make a declaration. We may not be able to prevent another fallen pastor story, but when we read that next headline, we will remind ourselves that Jesus, our Savior, is not the subject of it. He is still unblemished. And if that is Who our faith is in, then our faith remains unblemished as well.

You see my desire in all of this is not to lessen the pain by removing the responsibility of the fallen vessel but by encouraging each of us to place a greater faith in their God than the vessels themselves. 

Another fallen pastor story certainly has its unfortunate consequences, but may our faith not be one of them. 

It doesn’t have to be. 

For Jesus and He alone is still the “author and finisher” of it (Heb. 12:2). 

REFERENCES:

[1] https://www.theechonews.com/article/2021/04/ravi-zacharias-sexual-misconduct-is-revealed

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/29/joshua-harris-i-kissed-dating-goodbye-i-am-not-christian/1857934001/

[3] https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/02/carl-lentz-and-the-trouble-at-hillsong

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/03/01/independent-report-finds-allegations-against-willow-creek-founder-bill-hybels-are-credible/

[5] https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/us/rob-bell-bible-belt/index.html

[6] https://www.pjstar.com/article/20140910/NEWS/140919958

[7] DeYoung, Kevin. “We should not think that…” 24 August 2021, 11:05 AM. Facebook.

Miscellaneous: "Purposefully Different" - Ron

No bravado can hide for long that which does not exist. There is no personality so strong as to mask hypocrisy forever. There is one certainty: the hollow leader will shatter in the end. As Hawthorne wrote, “No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true” (Hawthorne, 1902, p. 258). If one is to lead effectively, he must lead from the inside out, as it were. There must be a conviction planted deep within the inner man which grows out into his daily living.

Christians must be purposefully different.

Jesus told His followers that they would be salt and light and that as such they would be as noticeable as cities on a hill (Matthew 5:13-14). The truth is that each believer in Jesus Christ serves as an ambassador and pilgrim on this earth. The question is not whether a believer has influence. Jesus says each of His followers does. The question revolves around the kind of influence an individual will have. Thu-Huong Ha (2016) quotes John Donne, who wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main” (n.p.). In the article, Ha attempts to view Donne’s quote through the lens of England’s Brexit efforts. One may just as easily see in Donne’s words a parallel to Scripture. One does not live and die unto himself. Rather, we have influence. In the sea of life, we make waves as we travel and those caught in our wake are changed because of it.

Collier and Williams (2004) call the command to be salt and light both a “responsibility” and a “privilege” (p. 21). The Christian must take this responsibility and privilege seriously because Jesus is the One giving the charge. However, the Christian in a position of leadership has an additional weight of responsibility. Since all Christians are leaders, we each bear this weight. “In order to make a difference, you have to be different” (Collier & Williams, 2004, p. 23). As has been noted above, the leader who attempts to influence in a direction that he is not heading himself will come to failure. The Christian leader must choose to be intentional in his leadership; he must be “different on purpose” (Collier & Williams, 2004, p. 20).

Psalm 19:7 says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (KJV, 1985/1611). The psalmist goes on to write that God’s Word both warns and rewards those who will take heed to live accordingly (Psalm 19:11, KJV, 1985/1611). Psalm 19 finishes with one of the simplest – but most profound – prayers in all of Scripture. This is a prayer that each Christian can pray every morning, every evening, and a thousand times in between. “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in they sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14, KJV, 1985/1611).

Being different on purpose starts with a desire to know God’s Word and a willingness to be changed by it. It is the realization that one will most certainly fail when left to himself. Natural instincts are poor guides for morality for man is a wretched and ruined thing. Whether intentionally or not, Collier and Williams (2004) sum up the prayer of Psalm 19:14 with this rhyme: “There are just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self” (p. 83). They go on to write that “…a godly leader is a person who makes godly choices and uses his influence to teach others to do the same” (Collier & Williams, 2004, p. 85).

Once a leader deigns to be reshaped by God’s Word, he can truly be the kind of salt and light that Christ commands him to be. Christian leaders understand that “our responses must be based on God’s Word if we are going to make a difference in the lives of others” (Collier & Williams, 2004, p. 23). Furthermore, they know that they will not need to try to find ways to be different. The truth is that “if we just obey God’s Word, we will be different” (Collier & Williams, 2004, p. 23). It bears repeating that this difference only occurs when one is intentional with implementing God’s instructions into his life.

As you go through your week, may you seek to be different both on and with purpose. You influence numerous people daily. In which direction are you leading them? If there really are only two choices on the shelf, make sure you choose wisely!

References:

Collier, K., & Williams, M. (2004). Biblical leadership: Becoming a different kind of leader. Ambassador International.

Ha, T. (2016). John Donne’s solemn 400-year-old poem against isolationism, “no man is an island,”        is resonating with brits today. Quartz. https://qz.com/716088/john-donnes-solemn-400-year-old poem-against-isolationism-is-resonating-with-brits-today/#:%7E:text=for%20one%20            excerpt%3A- ,No%20man%20is%20an%20island%2C,a%20part%20of%20the%20main.

Hawthorne, N. (1902). The Scarlet Letter. The Riverside Press.

King James Version Open Bible. (1985). Thomas Nelson, Inc. (Original work published 1611)