December 22
It’s Not Easy
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up…
––Ecclesiastes 3:1-3
I met up with a couple of longtime brothers and we got to talking about what it’s like to walk with Christ over several decades. One of my buddies accepted Jesus when he was seven, the other was twelve, and I was in high school. The conversation gravitated toward two truths.
- Jesus is the only answer.
- Life is hard and then you die.
Now, we weren’t saying these are the only truths—just the ones that seemed to be hitting our lives the hardest at that time. Premature deaths in the family; major losses; regrets.
The older I get, the less problem I have reconciling those two statements. What’s interesting, however, is how hard Satan and the world try to convince us of the opposite: Jesus is not the only answer, and that happiness is your birthright. Hey, I’m not a nihilist—the fact that I have full confidence in my eternal destination is enough to give me joy each day. Add to that a loving wife, kids, and two precious grandchildren, and my quiver is full.
No, what my buddies and I were talking about is the great paradox: We receive the greatest gift the world has ever known (salvation), but life is still very hard. In order to grow through the difficult and painful times, we need to be transformed by them rather than consumed in them. Anyone who tells you that’s any easy process is either deceived or grossly uninformed. So how do we deal with pain and trauma in a way that doesn’t derail us? Here’s what I have learned:
- Living in anxiety is a futile exercise. As I’ve mentioned before, more than ninety percent of the things we worry about never come true. Of the ten percent that does come true, eight percent isn’t as bad as we imagined.
- When a real crisis hits—a death in the family, serious illness, financial reversal—we need to turn into the storm instead of trying to outrun it. The fastest way through the problem is to confront it. Denial is the killer of resolution.
- In the midst of crisis, we need to sit in it. I’m not talking about inaction—doing nothing, denying it’s there, or trying to medicate it away. I’m saying that in that crucible, we quiet ourselves and press into the Father. We ask, “Lord, how should I handle this?” and, “How do you want me to operate in the midst of this crisis?” and, “What do you want me to learn from this?”
- Seek the help and comfort of your safe circle. A herd of buffalo will gather tightly together and head into a storm, the bulls on the outside and the cows and calves in the protected center. That makes sense.
There are only two outcomes from extreme trauma: We face the problem (eventually, sometimes it takes decades) and allow God to transform us through the pain; or, we deny or medicate the pain and transmit it onto those closest to us. (Like the expression, “Hurt people hurt people.”)
What crisis are you facing today? We don’t have to love pain (that’s crazy), but we can surrender all the broken shards of our trauma into the hands of the One who knew trauma well. No, it’s not easy. But yes, we grow from it—if we choose to.
Lord, sometimes life seems like more pain than gain. Take the broken pieces of my past—and the pain of my present—and use them to transform me into the image of Your Son.