“Everyone loves a test!”
If that were a true or false question, the correct answer would be easy.
I’ve spent the last few days marking exams for the course on Revelation I’ve been teaching at seminary this summer. It was nice to be on the judging side, rather than the student side. I can’t remember how many hundreds of tests and exams I wrote, but I wish I’d had a party after the last one.
What happens when depression or anxiety strikes people who love the Lord?
The body of Christ should be the greatest place to get help, but there’s a problem. To begin with, for anyone, Christian or not, there’s more shame associated with emotional issues than there is with physical sickness, because mental health issues seem to reflect on our worth and value more than physical illness does.
But what makes it really hard for Christians to ask for help is the fear that, in addition to this, people will also question the reality of our faith or our walk with the Lord. And so we hide. And it gets worse.
I admit it. I was wrong.
I really had thought spending the winter in south-western Michigan would mean escape from 35 years of relentless snow. Until well into February, I was right. The total snowfall had been negligible. And so when the forecast called for six to eight inches and everyone started to panic, I called it Michigan snowmageddon and mocked the locals who were rushing to the supermarket to clear the aisles of bread and milk and cancelling every event in sight. Even without a snowblower, my superior level of fitness and a trusty shovel would be enough to face any challenge a feeble American winter could throw at a battle-hardened Canadian.
I hate the thought of being tested.
I spent a morning this week going through a battery of medical tests, and have more to come. My new doctor loves the idea of preventative medicine, which seems to involve his patients utilizing all available diagnostic services, in the good cause of forestalling worse to come in the future. It has nothing to do with my age, of course.
James 1:2-4 tells us pretty clearly that testing is not only from my doctor, but from God. In fact, he says, testing leads on to maturity and the state of lacking nothing.
And there you go. I thought the prosperity gospel had it all figured out that endless financial blessing is what leads to me lacking nothing. Evidently not.
Light in your darkness. It’s something we look for as the days grow short and the nights grow long.
It’s also the title of a book proposal of mine being currently considered by a literary agency in Texas.
The book is about suffering. Why is it that bad things happen to God’s people? How do we process that? For the book, I went to people who could speak with authority, friends who have experienced significant tragedy in life and have walked through it with their faith in God intact, probably even deepened.
As Christians, we have to face these issues head on.
