Tag: Hope

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Clint Gospel

The Radiance of Christmas Hope

This was a post I had up at The Gospel Coalition Canada. It is a relatively new network that resources Canadian Christians for gospel-centred ministry. If you would like to support this work, donate here.

Could we be any more stressed out? Probably. In the long view, we can’t be more troubled by crises in society than in Germany’s Weimar Republic, Quebec’s FLQ crisis, or the morning of September 11th in New York. There is no ‘turning back time to the good old days.’ But there is room for a lot more expectancy. We’re all looking for some hope, life, and light to dispel the gloom.

No doubt our situation is like the ancient lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, the land beyond the Jordan and even Galilee. They were described by the eighth century (BC) prophet Isaiah as “her who was in anguish” (Isaiah 9:1). There was even a sense of ‘gloom’ that had cast a shroud over the people. Isaiah had recorded that “they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness” (8:22). This is how you might feel after following a Twitter thread, reading a Facebook feed, or after a hard day’s work. Or worse: after a diagnosis, a death, or a disaster.

Gloom

No gloomy life lost in confusing times and a confusing mind can contemplate a life of light. That is why depression and melancholy can be so debilitating. The idea of a life of clarity, purpose, joy, and laughter remains unimaginable to the one stuck in the anguish of gloom. Gloom and anguish choke our desires for truth, beauty and goodness. Our sin-collapsed nature makes our desires for God crumble to dust. None seeks for God—not one (Romans 3:10-11; Psalm 14:1-3).

Only the inbreaking of dawn gives hope to the gloomy who walk in darkness. That kind of inbreaking is what Isaiah prophesied would come to “the nations” (9:1). If the wonder of conversion is inexplicable, then the description of this ‘dawn’ is close to it:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone; You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with the joy of the harvest, they are glad when they divide the spoil” (Isaiah 9:2-3).

Dawn

The great thing about the early light of dawn is its promise. Even though it can still be relatively dark out (especially on Canadian winter mornings), the inbreaking dawn assures us that the brightness of the day is coming.

Just as the Gentile nations were lifted from their gloom with the ministry of Jesus Christ (Matthew 4:15-16), we see God’s initiative to bring dawn to the darkened.

That is what our Advent celebrations should remind us about—the expectancy of the Light. John testified that “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” (John 1:9).

From that first dawning of the incarnation of the Son, adding to himself a human nature, he brought the light of the gospel to be witnessed by those in anguish and gloom.

In our stressed-out society and harried holiday confusion, we can relish the fact that Christ’s brilliance and warmth bring infinite lumens to sinners’ shroud of darkness. His inbreaking kingdom—the already of the not-yet—is pushing back the darkness, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

This Christmas we don’t have to let the presence of darkness, smother our expectancy of Christ’s radiance. Instead let us luxuriate in his light, knowing our joy is to look upon him by faith now, and ultimately by sight. For it was truly said, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.”

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Canada Clint Gospel Society

An Open Invitation to Pride Parade-goers (with Confidentiality).

It’s Gay Pride Parade Day. Since the parade is scheduled at the same time that our church service meets, then I’m guessing you may not make it to our service this time. 

But I want to extend an invitation for you to come. If you wish to just talk, I can preserve your anonymity and keep your confidentiality.

I recognize that it can be difficult to come out of the LGBTQ2 community. To even begin to question the orthodoxy of the Pride movement is seen as hostile, traitorous behaviour.

That’s why I want to invite you to an exploration of an alternative. Let me explain. 

I think that for many LGBTQ2 folks there is becoming less and less confidence in the success formula of the rainbow movement. Many people have found initial acceptance in the community, only to feel deeper loneliness because of transient relationships. Others pursue long-term relationships but they never seem to be enough.

I also think that there are some people who live with being sexually abused, but they are not allowed to connect that abuse with their feelings today. I want to invite people who have been sexually abused to talk about what it means to be sinned against, to live in a sinning world, and to ask where a sinless refuge can be found.

There is a lot of pressure to be gay today. I think a lot of people at the parade are secretly feeling burnt out trying to be gay enough, or gayer than the next person.  Or maybe it’s being more conversant with insider lingo or being more active in LGBTQ2 social issues. I think a lot of people are getting exhausted trying to be ‘enough’ for everyone else. They are tired of trying to meet impossible standards. I would like to talk with you about liberation from standard-keeping, through the perfect keeping of a higher standard; in fact the highest. What if there was a way to get a declaration that said you had done enough? That would be truly liberating.

I invite you to talk about your anger and your bitterness. I think that you feel you have been misunderstood, dismissed, and despised. And the result has been you’ve felt hurt, and your hurt makes you bitter and even angry. I’d like to talk with you about the possibility of forgiveness. It might seem crazy, and to your peers, it might seem to show weakness. Yet forgiveness of others is the only way that you can be released from the cancer of anger in your heart. I would also like to point out that until we are forgiven ourselves, having admitted our own offences against the Being who is supreme over all— only then can we objectively forgive others. To be honest about who is offending and offended brings clarity and the beginnings of hope.

If you are secretly having doubts about your identification with the LGBTQ2 movement, but you are too afraid to speak, then accept my invitation to speak anonymously and confidentially. 

But the one thing I must warn you about is that Jesus Christ, in all of his love, will hurt our feelings. He does it because we need to hear his loving truth, even when the truth hurts. 

Yet in his love, Jesus offered the first invitation long before mine. He said: 

Come to me, 

all who labour and are heavy laden, 

and I will give you rest. 

Take my yoke upon you, 

and learn from me, 

for I am gentle and lowly in heart, 

and you will find rest for your souls. 

For my yoke is easy, 

and my burden is light.”

If you would like to accept this invitation please contact me at clint.humfrey@calvarygrace.ca

Faithfully,

Pastor Clint Humfrey

unsplash-logoToni Reed


Categories
Christel Gospel Marriage Spiritual Growth Suffering & Trials

Does Godliness Seem Like An Intimidating Goal?

I walk hand in hand with the man I love. Golden evening sun warms the flowing barley field, and we circle around it in contented quiet. My husband knows me well. My sensitive nature has been bruised, and I still feel the effects of it. Sometimes I wish I had thicker skin, but I’m reluctant to form calluses that shut people out. What I really want is to be able to forgive when people hurt me. But I’m weary, and it feels hard.“It’s like a muscle you have to train,” he said gently. “You just keep practicing until it becomes easier.”His comment got me thinking more about training for godliness. Each choice—no matter how small—is like flexing a muscle. The apostle Paul encouraged his spiritual son, Timothy, to “train yourself for godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7). And I wonder if training looks more ordinary than we imagine. As strange as it sounds, sometimes we need to think smaller. Our longings for extraordinary experiences can blind us to the opportunity right in front of us. Even good ambitions require little steps first. Before you climb a mountain, you have to do your push-ups. And sometimes finding the motivation to “train yourself” is harder than you imagined.

God’s Grace Is More Than a One-Time Blessing

Do athletic metaphors for spirituality make you feel deflated? Maybe you are struggling in your spiritual life and can’t imagine how you could run harder. Christians feel the pull of sin because we live in tension between what is sometimes called “the now and not yet.” Christ’s sacrifice for our sin has made us “perfect” and yet we are “being sanctified” (Heb. 10:12–14). Our position before God is holy, and yet in practice, we still struggle with sin—both our own and also the sins of others. Paul describes it by saying, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. . . . Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:19, 24).We all feel this tension of not being good enough and frustration with struggles that we can’t seem to conquer. Remember there is grace for this moment. God’s grace is not exhausted by justification but overflows into sanctification. So we can respond with Paul, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:25).

Where Do You Find Hope?

Scottish pastor, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, once said, “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.” In other words, however long we analyze our struggles, we need to spend that amount of time—times ten—meditating on Christ and His promises. When we read God’s Word, listen to preaching, and pray, our minds are transformed and our spirits are renewed. These disciplines feel ordinary, and even boring at times, but God uses these ordinary means of grace to do an extraordinary transformation in our hearts. Far too often our struggles blind us to the hope in front of us. Like a millionaire who acts homeless, we have a wealth of resources in Christ but can’t see past our circumstances to take hold of it. But when we look to Christ, we find hope, because in Him we have everything we need for life and godliness (  2 Peter 1:3). Does godliness seem like an intimidating goal? Do you know that there is hope in Christ when your heart feels weary?

A version of this article was posted at TrueWoman.com under the title, Spiritual Training for Weary Souls 

unsplash-logoMelissa Askew

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Categories
Christel Gospel Home & Health Spiritual Growth Suffering & Trials

Your Chronic Disease Leads to Something Better

disease
shadowlands of chronic disease

I’m never sure how to answer when someone asks how I’m doing health-wise. I’d like to say, “I’m okay for now,” or “I’m not sure,” but those replies seem to make people uncomfortable. There is an ongoingness to my autoimmune disease that’s hard to explain. It’s like the wind. Sometimes it blows hard, and other times it stands still . . . and you never know when the next gust will come.

One author wrote this about her autoimmune disease: “A spinal cord injury can paralyze you in a moment, but the paralysis of my disease is a long story. Worse, then better, then worse, then better. For years.”

When I was first diagnosed with lupus, fear of death hit me hard. Not so much because I fear being dead, but more because of what it would do to my young family. Sometimes fear still creeps up on me.

But I’ve come to see that the corruption of my body does not undermine the fact that I am still living. Nor is it at odds with God making all things new (Rev. 21:5). Everyone is dying, but sometimes it takes a diagnosis to remember what our purpose is in the meantime.

Shadowlands

Although it’s trendy to “live in the moment,” it’s hard to make sense of our difficulties without reference to the future.

There’s a scene in the movie Shadowlands between C.S. Lewis and his wife, Joy, where she expresses this sentiment well. He is in denial about her cancer diagnosis, and she wants to be able to talk with him about it.

Lewis says, “Now I don’t want to be somewhere else anymore. Not waiting for anything new to happen. Not looking around the next corner, not the next hill. Here now. That’s enough.”

Joy replies, “That’s your kind of happy, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“It is not going to last, Jack.”

“We shouldn’t think about that now. Let’s not spoil the time we have together.”

“It doesn’t spoil it. It makes it real. Let me just say it before this rain stops, and we go back.”

“What’s there to say?”

“That I’m going to die, and I want to be with you then, too. The only way I can do that is if I’m able to talk to you about it now.”

“I’ll manage somehow. Don’t worry about me.”

“No, I think it can be better than just managing. What I am trying to say is that the pain then is part of the happiness now. That’s the deal.”

The pain then is part of the happiness now. These words hit me every time I watch this movie. She is saying that the pain of future death intensifies the joy of life today.

For the Christian especially, death causes us to appreciate God’s grace, not only in this life, but especially in the one to come.

In the “shadowlands,” the sun isn’t shining. Clouds of pain and sorrow fill your horizon, and life feels hard. But even here the Christian must acknowledge that victory has swallowed up death (1 Cor. 15:54). Darkness has not won.

The apostle Paul rejoiced “in the hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2), not because his life was easy but because there was glory in his future. And because of that, joy invaded the present.

Hope of Future Glory

God’s blessings in this life are a foretaste of heaven, but without the pain we forget that blessings are merely pointers. We need the pain to remind us there is something better than this world. We wouldn’t long for divine love if human love was perfect. We wouldn’t long for feasting in heaven if there wasn’t starvation, eating disorders, and financial hardships here on earth. We would settle in our sin and take what we could get with no thought of what we are giving up.

The smell of rain, the sound of children laughing, the taste of a fresh blueberry, the pleasure of a friend’s company, and the comfort of a spouse’s arms—these blessings intermingle with pain and uncertainty and make us long for something better.

Ongoing illness is a beast to contend with. So is foster parenting, job insecurity, marriage troubles, persecution, and a host of other unnamed difficulties. But each “affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

Trials are those blessings in disguise that prod us out of our complacency and expose the inadequacy of our favorite worldly comforts.

Jesus invites us to find spiritual rest in Him (Matt. 11:28–29). Unlike its earthly counterparts, the rest Jesus offers transcends the shadowlands and defies our circumstances. As Augustine famously said in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

To my fellow shadowlanders: I feel your pain, but we need the hard places to remind us that we are not home yet. They wean us off of lesser hopes and push us into the arms of True Rest, where we were always meant to be.

Jesus offers you rest today. Will you trust Him with your future?

A previous version of this article was posted at  reviveourhearts.com.

unsplash-logoSimeon Muller

Categories
Anxiety Christel Gospel Spiritual Growth

You Don’t Have to Be Anxious and Troubled

Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her 

(Luke 10:41).

This story of two sisters resonates with me. Like Martha, I like things done well. I’m not a laid back, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. I may wish I was, but I have a deep-seated compulsion to cross my t’s and dot my i’s. I like my house clean, my meals balanced and my calendar organized. (Although I don’t accomplish this often!) Like Martha, I am frequently, as Jesus diagnosed, “anxious and troubled about many things”.

In Martha’s defence, she does have Jesus sitting in her living room. Jesus. This is not your average house guest. I imagine that Martha is not merely a resentful sibling; but she is sincerely distressed. She wants to please Jesus. She longs to be the perfect hostess, as defined by her family and culture.

Meanwhile, her beloved sister, Mary, was not helping. The text says that while Martha “was distracted with much serving” Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet” (v.39).

It’s not hard to understand Martha’s frustration when she asks, “Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?” (v.40).

Martha’s Malady

Jesus’ response to Martha is neither scathing nor placating. Instead, he cuts straight to the heart of the issue with both compassion and frankness; “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.”

When Jesus tells Martha that “one thing is necessary”, He doesn’t mean that food and shelter are superfluous. It was not that Mary had chosen a spiritual occupation (learning from Jesus) while Martha had chosen a carnal one (serving and hospitality). John 12 records how Jesus dined with them again, and again “Martha served” while Mary anointed Jesus feet with expensive oil. Jesus was not rebuking Martha for her role in the household—service and hospitality are Christian virtues–rather, Jesus was diagnosing a spiritual malady.

Those of us who resonate with Martha like to be able to control our environment. We trust in our own ability to make life comfortable, safe and sustainable. Jesus didn’t despise Martha’s servant heart; He loved her (Jn. 11:5). But Jesus loved Martha enough to tell her that her pursuit of perfection on earth was wrong-headed. Not only is it impossible for humans to control their circumstances with God-like ability, it’s also prideful and inherently unstable. There was a better way, and Mary had chosen it.

The Good Portion

Anyone who struggles with anxiety can tell you that it’s torturous and exhausting. Jesus’ rebuke cuts through the ropes that bind Martha to false obligations of perfection. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.”

The simplicity of Jesus direction is paradigm shifting. Martha is not the linchpin upon which all other moving pieces depend. She is a valued part, but not the centre. Martha’s problem was that she had an over-inflated view of both her ability and responsibility. She was limited by humanity, but expected her work to reflect the perfection of Divinity.

Perhaps Mary should have helped Martha, but Jesus said that Mary had chosen the “good portion”. These words bring to mind numerous Old Testament passages that speak of close communion with God as the believer’s “portion” or “inheritance” (e.g. Ps. 16:5-6, 73:26, Josh.18:7). Mary took the posture of disciple and servant. She chose close fellowship with Jesus as her priority.

The irony for Martha was that she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. meanwhile, the One who actually “upholds the universe” was sitting in her living room (Heb. 1:3)! She was tore up about food, drink and hospitality standards, while the Creator, Sustainer and Savior of humanity was sitting at her table. I can’t help feeling embarrassed for Martha when I read this passage, and yet how often do I choose to fixate on temporal things while matters of eternal value fade into the background?

We may not have Jesus at our table, but distance doesn’t make a difference. Only Jesus holds the universe together by the word of his power. He dwells in us by His Spirit (1 Jn 3:24) and strengthens us for the tasks ahead (Phil. 4:13). And yes, this is good news for the Marthas among us.

For those of us who resonate with Martha’s control-anxiety, we need to constantly choose the better portion; we must prioritize time at Jesus’ feet. We may have emails to send, people to feed and responsibilities to fulfill. But when we choose fellowship with God first, we acknowledged that He is the centre of our universe. He is the linchpin that holds it all together.

When the stuff of life pulls us in twenty different directions, the good news is this: only one thing is necessary. The rest is transient. Like Martha, our role may be to serve, but when we choose to prioritize close communion with the Lord first, it allows us to relinquish our control-anxiety to Him. The day ahead may be filled with responsibilities, deadlines and scheduled events, but our hearts are not frantic. “My flesh and my heart may fail,” says the Psalmist, “but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Ps. 73:26)

This article was originally published at The Gospel Coalition Canada as Good News For the Marthas Among Us

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unsplash-logoPriscilla Du Preez

Categories
Church Clint Sunday Recap

Sunday Recap: Adoptions, Hogs, Hopes, and Mountains

credit: Kym Unsplash.com

We just finished our conference on Puritan spirituality with Dr. Stephen Yuille on Saturday. As is often the case, we have a Q&A in Sunday School with the visiting speaker. So sticking with the routine, we started our Sunday in the same way.

I asked Stephen, a Canadian who is pastoring in Texas, about life and ministry there. He shared the amazing story of adopting his youngest daughter from China (the story is in his book A Hope Deferred: Adoption and the Fatherhood of God).

The funny moment in the interview was when I asked Stephen about the practice of hunting feral hogs in Texas.

We also discussed the challenges faced by churches in Texas, as well as the prospects for theological education in Canada. Stephen is taking a new position at Heritage Theological Seminary as VP of Academics.

In the main service, Stephen preached from Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”. The message was blessed by the Spirit, as we engaged in what Stephen had earlier described as the Puritan practice of “public meditation” on God’s Word.

Afterwards, Christel, myself and our sons took Stephen to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. We were worried that the cold clouds would obscure our view. But as we drove west and the mountains rose up, the fog parted and the brilliant sun shone through the blue sky on the crisp white towers.

We toured Canmore but it was cold in the sunshine (- 20 degrees Celsius). Surely it was a reminder for Stephen about Canadian winters, but we knew he would return for his warm Texas reprieve.

How humbling to see the towering Rockies and know that God is our mighty fortress who will last when they are gone. And so he and he alone is our true hope.