"ok"

This is one of the top 5 hardest posts I've had to write. The purpose of this space is to record what I learn. Changes that need to  be made in my life are spiritual. If they aren't made, they affect me spiritually. They are things that I am constantly learning and relearning, and changes can come fast or slow. Those changes in belief and mindset may or may not effect a change in my day to day life. If they do effect a change, it may happen quickly or slowly, depending on the change itself. I write all this because I do not in any way want to render what I have written in the past as less real and powerful than it was. It was Biblical truth then, and it still is now. They were things I needed to learn, things God intended me to learn, and things that I am different, closer to him, for learning. But to a degree they were learned in a classroom, free of consequences largely. The classroom is a good place to learn, but I am no longer there. If anything, what is going on in my life is now driving what I need to learn Biblically.

In short, I am struggling in life. I moved and assumed I would have employment within a few weeks, maybe a month at most. It has now been 2 months. Savings are drying up and things are getting harder. Throughout this I have believed (and been encouraged by a ton of friends and family) that I will be "ok". My family will be "ok". "God will provide". But the struggle, in the everyday reality of life as well as 2 Timothy, is how one defines "ok". What exactly does God promise? My final Sunday School class at Calvary was about this and so that has influenced me quite a bit as well. I know what I want him to promise. I want him to promise financial security. I will stress that I don't want him to promise wealth. That isn't the plan. I just want enough food to be safe and comfortable. I want enough money to be able to pay the mortgage when it starts and the rest of the tab for the house and the utilities and the heat and the credit card and the cell phone and so on and so on. I don't need new cars, I'm happy with the ones we have. I don't need more toys, better clothes, cooler electronics or things like that. That sounds like contentment, doesn't it? That's what I thought. A verse even came to mind, one I even wrote about not long ago:

"6 Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment,7 for we brought nothing into the world, andwe cannot take anything out of the world.8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content."

Could this be interpreted as a promise that we will always have food and clothing? I don't see how. What about the martyrs? What about people who starved to death, whether for their faith, or just for lack of resources? So many true believers have suffered in so many ways. Another verse comes to mind, one that has always intrigued me. These are the very words of Jesus, spoken to his followers while he was still on the earth:

"12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake.13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness.14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer,15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death.17 You will be hated by all for my name's sake.18 But not a hair of your head will perish.19 By your endurance you will gain your lives."

The combination of verses 16 and 18 has always been a wild section. Sometimes there may be apparent contradictions between different places in Scripture. I believe that there are no contradictions in reality but in many places it can appear there are. In this single passage however, just a sentence apart, we see that "some of you they will put to death", and also that "not a hair of your head will perish". How is this possible? How can one be put to death, yet have not a hair of their head perish? "Not a hair of your head will perish" is a saying that communicates that no harm will come to you. From this we must infer that in the value system of God, physical death isn't harmful. What an intense concept. You can DIE, and still be "ok". Now this is something I have known for quite a long time and believed. I've seen it. I've seen friends and family die and rested in the knowledge that they are ok. But are those the only 2 options? Does God promise a comfortable life while one lives, and then death? Is there not also the possibility of incredible hardship in between? There must be, for so many have faced horrible lives, and not lost their faith. I spoke with a teenage girl who went to an impoverished country. She believed that despite their great suffering, there was more need here, in these wealthy United States. Her reasoning? Those people had nothing tangible, they lived in shacks, literally starved, and wore shreds of clothing if any. But they had HOPE. In her words, "they knew where they were going". We have so much more tangibly here, but the reality for her was that here there are millions dying without hope for the next world.

All this leads me back to my situation, and the reality that I am being driven to understand. I will be "ok". But that is a tough truth to swallow. Here are my thoughts from an email I sent to some friends a couple days ago, it sums it up well:

"Don't misunderstand me, I know I'll be ok. I also know there is little for anyone to do except say things like "you'll be ok" and "God will provide". The issue of course is that this is God's definition of "ok". People who love God starve, are martyred, go bankrupt, lose their jobs and houses, etc... every day. And they are "ok". Their identity in Christ is secure. The hard part is making your "ok" the same as his "ok". Maybe that's why I have to do this. Frankly after the last couple years of teaching kids about how they need to adopt God's ok vs. theirs, and condemning the American churches idea that God gives us our personal selfish desires when we serve him, I have to actually live the difference I taught. To a degree I always thought that because I lived paycheck to paycheck, had huge student loans, and even carried a little credit card debt, I was there, I was suffering for God, still giving, and proving that I didn't need a savings account, home, or vehicles manufactured in the current millenium. Guess I was wrong. Now, I'm getting there. I'm being taught that. I don't like it. I go back and forth. A massive part of me doesn't want God's "ok". Actually I want it, I just want an earthly "ok" as much or more. Most people I see get both. That's the heart issue I have right now. It's easy to say you want God's ok when you already have your own desires version of "ok" too. Having both rocks. I know, I had both the last 8-9 years or so. I see the people at the church I go to praising God etc... and I don't really care, they mean nothing to me. They are completely set (most are beyond set) in a earthly sense, and so they give God glory for that. Doesn't mean much from my perspective. They're ok by earthly standards, that's clear. They may or may not be ok by Gods standards (no one can know that but you and God). That's the mental and spiritual gymnastics I'm fighting through right now. So I know I'll be "ok". I have a guarantee of that. That means I know I everything I need to, and yet also that I have no guarantees at all from a house/job/family perspective"

And I haven't even mentioned 2 Timothy yet! I've skipped ahead to Chapter 3 which is where so much of this is. 

"10 You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,11 my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me."

What caught my eye here was the phrase "aim in life". Sometimes seeing the idea of "purpose" worded differently lets you see it again for the first time. Is there any better, more clear way to say that? Aim in life. What you want to accomplish with your life. Boom. That cut me to the heart. All these things I have wanted, that I was hoping for a promise from God to provide, expose my aim in life. It may not be excess, but it was comfort. God, meet my needs comfortably and give me a pain-free existence and then I will wholeheartedly serve you. I really meant that, and I really intended to serve God. But that's according to my terms, and the pages of history are littered with the accounts of well-intentioned fools who set out to please God according to their own plans.

Paul doesn't need to TEACH on living this way. He DEMONSTRATES it. In the passage above he writes that the Lord rescued him from persecution but the truth is that he knows a time will come when a physical earthly rescue will not occur. Similarly to Peter he knew that every arrest could be his last. He lived with no illusion that God has placed a permanent "hedge of protection" around him from a physical standpoint. Indeed Paul knows that this in fact is the end as he writes this very letter. A little later he pens these words:

"6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

There is a certain calmness, a presiding confidence with which true followers of God face the certain reality of their impending earthly death. I've been privileged to observe it on several occasions and I pray that God grants me the opportunity, grace, and strength to display that same attitude for my sons to learn from (I would prefer that opportunity come quite some time from now though). Paul displays this calm confidence here. It is the simple confidence that he is "ok". That was all he needed. Is it so with me?

I nearly ended this here, but the reality that need to be pushed is that there is no middle ground. Two ways to live and all that, you know. There is one alternative. It is spelled out in 2 Timothy 3 in the verses prior to Paul talking about his own aim in life. In fact, he presents himself as an alternative lifestyle to the sinful ones he has just talked about, here is that passage:

"1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith.9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men."

I found pieces of my recent attitudes in more than a dozen of the offenses listed there. I have not been living in some middle ground. I been living with an unholy attitude. I have loved things and comfort more than God. If this change in life has come about to effect a change of my heart, then it is a change that needs to be made. I still hope God uses me to reach the people I was so confident he was calling me to a few months ago. But if I am privileged to do so, I will do so on his terms, according to his will, and in submission to him.