by jphilo | Mar 2, 2012 | Church Newsletter Columns
Wretched man that I am!
Who will set me free from the body of this death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:24-25a
We’ve had plenty to be thankful about this winter. Not much snow. Warmer than average temperatures. Good driving conditions. With the days getting longer and spring around the corner, my heart should be positively overflowing with gratitude. But it’s not.
Instead, I do plenty of complaining. About the miserable state of our gravel road. About how every mild day brings the stink bugs, box elder bugs, and Asian soy beetles out of the walls and into our old farmhouse. About the possibility of this winter’s mild, dry conditions morphing into a blistering hot, summer drought.
Yet I rarely express dissatisfaction with my penchant for complaining, even though plenty of scriptures warn against the practice. In Numbers, complaining earns the Israelites earn an extra forty years in the wilderness. Job describes his complaints as rebellion. Two of Jesus’ best buds, Peter and James, advise new Christians to stop complaining, too.
However, scripture doesn’t just warn against complaining. It tells us what to do instead. In Leviticus the priests are commanded to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. The Psalms advise turning thanksgiving into song. Jesus gave thanks as he broke the bread that signified his imminent crucifixion. Over and over Paul tells believers to give thanks in everything, rejoice always, rejoice in everything.
Rejoice.
Rejoice.
Rejoice.
Still, complaining remains my default response unless the Holy Spirit exposes my ingratitude for the joy killer it is. When that happens, God breaks my heart. He shows me how complaining dims His glory, and Paul’s despair become mine.
Wretched woman that I am! Who will set me free from this body of death?
But Paul’s hope, spoken in his next breath, becomes mine as well.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Christ, who gave thanks in the face of death.
Christ on the cross.
Christ in the tomb.
Christ, risen from the dead.
Christ, who sits on the right hand of the Father and intercedes on my behalf.
Christ is my hope and weapon and protection as I struggle with ingratitude.
Christ, not the weather or other circumstances, is a reason to give thanks always.
Lord, may you be a reason for rejoicing in my life and in the lives of all who love you. Amen.
by jphilo | Feb 3, 2012 | Church Newsletter Columns
Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim;
I box in such a way, as not beating the air;
but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly,
after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:26-27
I do not like exercise. At all. Ever. It took me almost two years to learn to walk, three months to get the hang of jumping rope, an entire summer to catch onto playing jacks, and three years to ride a bike. Consequently, I can’t fathom why anyone would willingly engage in painful activities like bending and stretching.
Similarly, I never understood why anyone would consult a physical therapist until a sore knee landed me in physical therapy. Where the therapist, who must be a direct descendent of Attila the Hun, decided my weak glutes cause my gait to alter which stresses my knee and makes it sore. So week after week. she assigns new, torturous glute-strengthening exercises to make my mornings miserable.
And every morning after exercising and “feeling a burn” I lived without quite happily for 55 years, an image of Paul training forms in my mind. I picture him wrestling in prayer after God struck him blind. Defending Gentile freedom from Hebrew law during the Jerusalem Council. Attacking spiritual strongholds in city after city, taking the gospel to far countries floundering in darkness. Sparring with with Felix and King Agrippa in Caesarea.
How did he develop the spiritual muscle to engage in such spiritual sport? Perhaps it has something do with the three years he spent in Damascus after his conversion, but before beginning his missionary work. I sure would like to know what happened in Damascus. Was he under the tutelage of a spiritual therapist who revealed the apostle’s weak spots and prescribed spiritual strengthening exercises? Did Paul have to bend in ways he’d never bent before? Was he stretched to show compassion to those he once despised? Did the stretching and bending hurt? Did he ever want to quit? What motivated him to keep going, day after day, until he gained muscle and aim and purpose for the race set before him?
Still thinking about Paul, I pick up my Bible, journal, and pen. My muscles ache. My glutes burn as I ask God to reveal my lack of spiritual muscle and make me strong in him. I open the Bible and with pen in hand, start studying God’s word. Each day he stretches me in ways I’ve never stretched before. Sometimes it hurts. Most mornings I want to quit. But the passages about Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, hanging on the cross, and finally released from the tomb are the motivation needed to keep going.
With my eyes upon Christ, I press on.
