Month: July 2021

New Autism Video

How can the church improve with people on the spectrum? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This will be a short blog entry. I normally wouldn’t do something like this, but this is an important video series I think needs to get out. I was thinking of doing a series on eschatology, and that will probably come in the future. For now, I am thinking some blog posts however on that topic since I did surprise someone I admire recently with my viewpoints on end times.

Honestly, I made this video on Sunday, but I made some mistakes with how to render it properly and a lot of technical stuff and I thank a friend of mine who helped me out. In the future, I hope to someday learn how to make better videos with at least basic effects and editing. For now, this is just going to be me talking about my own experiences and thoughts on the matter.

In future videos, I will be looking at other points on how I think the church can do better to reach people on the spectrum. After all, these are also people that Jesus loves and died for and they need to know that as well. The language you use to reach someone on the spectrum will be vastly different from what you use to reach your everyday neurotypical.

For me, making the videos is ultimately the easy part. After I distribute them, it is up to the rest of the church what they will do with them. Do we want to heed the call to show Christ to the person on the spectrum, or are we going to just let this group of people fall by the wayside, which would be in disobedience to Christ? One reason I am sending this out via blog is in the hopes that some of you will watch, share, and ultimately, act.

Please keep an eye on my channel for the latest videos as I plan to produce them more often. The best way to do that, of course, is to subscribe. Also, if you really like what you see, please do consider becoming a partner on Patreon. Every little bit helps.

And here is the video:

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

MacArthur and the Principle of Charity

How do we read even our opponents? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There’s a rule in debates of any kind that if there are at least two possible readings of a text and you have no good reason to prefer one to the other, you go with the one that puts your opponent in the best light. You would want him to do the same to you if he thought your statements were ambiguous. If you don’t understand a concept also, you should not put it in a way that is absolutely ludicrous.

So let’s look at something John MacArthur is claimed to have said. My friend who shared it is a Catholic and I have not known him to post false information so if this was never said, I will gladly rescind any comments about MacArthur, but the concept will still be the same because this is a common mistake. Anyway, it all begins with this picture.

I understand a lot of my fellow Protestants get antsy when they hear the phrase “Mother of God” and I will be discussing that concern later on, but no matter how much you might think Catholicism is false whether you just disagree with it or whether you think it’s the biggest cult on Earth, and I am indeed the former, let’s state something about what is meant by Mother of God. The fact is that no Catholic takes it to mean something along the lines of, “God did not exist and then Mary came along and Mary gave birth to God and God came into existence at that point.” Every Catholic knows that God in His divine essence was not born. God is eternal. They do know that a man named Jesus who is both God and man was born. That is what is meant.

Now that doesn’t mean you have to accept every bit of Mariology that comes from Catholics and Orthodox, but it does mean that you can accept this term when it is understood. If by Mother of God, one means that Mary gave birth to a person who is fully God and fully man and brought the incarnation into the world through her body, there is not a problem. Protestants agree that Mary was the one to do this and to this degree, she should indeed be honored even in Protestant circles. While I think Catholics and Orthodox have gone too far with Mary, I think the Protestant reaction has gone too far in the other direction.

Now let’s address something a Protestant friend said in the discussion. Catholics should say what they mean. When people hear Mother of God, they do tend to think something along the lines of God came into being through Mary. Why not let them just say what they mean then?

The problem here is that everyone does theological shorthand. Were you to go up to Protestant Evangelicals and ask “Is Jesus God?”, they would say yes. Now you go to someone like Greg Stafford, who is a Jehovah’s Witness who wrote a book defending them. He will take that and go this way.

Jesus is God.
God is a Trinity.
Jesus is a Trinity.

Obviously, no one accepts this, but Stafford will use it to show the Trinity is nonsense if you think Jesus is God. Some will look at this and say, “I know it’s wrong, but I don’t see where.” The problem is the first premise is theological shorthand. Evangelicals don’t go around stating the doctrine as “Jesus is the man in whom the fullness of the divine nature, the second person of the Trinity, dwells in bodily form.” No. We just speak of the deity of Christ and say Jesus is God hoping people will understand rather than use a long and clunky phrase every time.

Getting back to the picture itself, the reality is MacArthur should know enough about Catholicism to know this. I could grant some grace to Joe Protestant who doesn’t walk in highly theological circles and hears this phrase and reacts that way. On the other hand, how much better would our discussions be if we would go to our opponents over ideas like this and say “Do you really believe this? Explain this to me please.”

And again, if the citation is wrong and MacArthur never said this, fair enough. This can be changed. What is still the same is the point. We ought to read our opponents in the best possible light and if we don’t know something, try to understand before critiquing. How much better could our dialogues be if we did that?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

How Does This Work?

Do we need to know how two things work together? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I saw again someone asking the question on how an immaterial mind, like God, can affect a material world? I am not at all saying that we shouldn’t ask the question, but I find it striking that these people act like saying “We don’t know, therefore it can’t happen.” These are also the same people who share the idea that religion is against finding answers to questions and science is the one that says, “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”

Apparently, that means in all questions except for those about religion.

I replied the same way that I always do. Right now, I am sitting at my desk typing, at this point, on this blog. I am willing myself to type. I do not know how that works, but yet I am doing it. Even if I held to a purely materialistic view of man, which I don’t, I would not know how to explain that.

When it comes to the world we live in, let’s suppose, as I do, that I have arguments for God, an immaterial being, that I find conclusive. Let’s also suppose that while they are not hills I am ready to die on and a debate I don’t really enter into that much, let’s suppose that I have reasons I find conclusive for believing in an immaterial aspect to me. One such reason even in scientific circles is Near-Death Experiences. True, some scientists do think they’re bunk, but some, and not just Christian ones, spend a great deal of study on these. My thinking on them is I think some of them are true, but they are not meant to give you the furniture of the afterdeath.

I do also take it as a given that there is such a thing as a material world. I’m not going to bother dealing with the thoughts of people like Bishop Berkeley or Eastern thought that can say the material world is an illusion at this point. That could be fascinating to do some time but now is not that time. For now, we’ll just say that there is something immaterial and there is a material world.

Let’s also suppose, as I do, that I have reasons I think justify me in believing in the reality of miracles, such as the resurrection of Jesus. Even if there had been no resurrection, that does not mean I would be unjustified in believing in miracles if I think I have good evidence of them. If this is the case, then I already have reason to believe the immaterial can act on the material.

In what might seem like a slight detour, let’s consider evolutionary biology. In this area, many creationists often say that there is no known mechanism on how life came about from non-life to get evolution started. There are many proposals, but none that are conclusive. Again, I am not a scientist, but let us suppose that this is still the case. This in no way means that there is no answer or that the answer cannot be found. It could be hypothetically the case that the answer is never found, but it will not disprove evolutionary biology. I would encourage those on the more creationist side of the debate to not go that route as it is just God of the gaps and if an answer is ever found, that seemingly puts God out of a job.

However, evolutionary biologists who would complain about that technique of creationists, and I think rightly so, need to make sure they’re not making the same mistake. This would be a sort of materialism-of-the-gaps. Now in both of these debates, it would be different if someone could give some sort of argument that could prove that either of these is impossible, but as far as I know, this has never been done.

This also means that you are not obligated to know every in and out of your worldview no matter what it is. I don’t expect an evolutionary biologist who is an atheist to tell me every aspect of the history of our species and of our cosmos and answer every question I have in order to hold his position. He should want to know as much as he can, but no one can know it all. At the same time, on the grounds given above, a Christian can say they do not know for sure, but why not be “scientific” and say “Let’s find out.”

Either way, this is a poor objection. I would like it that the side that keeps saying “Let’s find out” would want to actually study the subject they are arguing against and find out if they are misunderstanding.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Spiritual Forces At Work

When should we be hesitant to speak? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There are two types of talk in the church that I am hesitant when I hear people expressing. Both are eeriely similar. One is when Christians talk about what God is doing and one is talking about what the devil is doing.

Let’s start with what the devil is doing. There seems to be a dangerous overemphasis on this. If a Christian is struggling with a sin or an unbeliever is being obstinate in their ways, well that’s Satan at work there. Now I am not denying that demonic powers can be at work at times, but consider this. We talk so much about the devil that I understand how some Christians think he’s really the mirror opposite of God, as if he’s omnipotent and omnipresent.

Sadly, when we talk about this, we hardly ever talk about the person involved. When a man is struggling with pornography, well that’s Satan going after him. That could be, but here’s what I do know is going on. A man is watching pornography and wanting to stop and struggling. Am I to think that if the devil was removed from the picture, that the man would no longer have the struggle? If you think that, then it would seem that if we could just remove Satan from the picture we would all be perfect people.

If you don’t, then you know that with or without the devil, the man is struggling. The man himself needs to repent. The man needs to get help such as accountability software and a therapist and a group like Celebrate Recovery. So let’s consider, of these two elements, the man himself and the devil, which one does the man have the most control over.

Shouldn’t that be the focus?

And should we presume the devil is at work without a sound basis?

Now what about God?

I have heard Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox all talk about what God is doing in their midst. Each one claims the favor of God for their actions. Now in my view, God is at work in all three churches to bring about His glory and there are real Christians in each church.

However, when we do this, we are acting as if we are sitting on the divine council itself and we are seeing what the will of God is and can know it. Once again, this could be God at work, but maybe God is not directly guiding people all the time any more than the devil is directly tempting people all the time. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, evil people know how to give good gifts to their children and I don’t think we should say they’re only doing that because God is guiding them.

My problem here is with a sort of presumption and when we do this, we are giving divine authority to our own decisions and actions. We act like we are as certain of this as Moses was that He was doing the will of God in guiding the people of Israel. This is awfully dangerous and I really think we can add a lot of danger for new Christians who are going to presume they should be able to sense the direction of God in their own lives so much.

Perhaps we should have some humility towards the divine and just do what we know God has revealed for us to do in Scripture and trust that He is at work somehow in what we do even if we don’t know how and it doesn’t mean He is directly causing the events to happen. Once again, what can we know the most about? We can know about what we are to do many times and we can control what we do.

Maybe we should focus on what we know.

Again, none of this is denying that God or the devil could specifically be causing XYZ. What is being said is we can’t know, but we can know our part. Focus on what we do know and not on what we don’t.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Thoughts on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

What do I think of Douglas Adams’s work? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Opening note: This is about the original trilogy. It’s not about parts four and five. That doesn’t make sense? That’s fine.

One of my favorite lines to use to answer a question is to just say “42.” Where does it come from? The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (HGG) The book is often quoted in pop culture the way that the Princess Bride is in movies. Maybe not that much, but that’s the best parallel I can come up with.

As I started, I found that Adams was a marvelous writer who has great humor with juxtaposition. He’ll get you going on something that you think is really important and then all of a sudden, he will shift totally to something else as if that point he was going on doesn’t matter, and yet at the same time, it seems natural. Also in these books, hardly anything is serious, even if it is a serious matter. Someone destroyed the planet? Well, that’s rough, but move on. Are you facing certain death? Too bad, but somehow it will work out.

The work is also no doubt, extremely imaginative. Adams has a creative genius that has created multiple worlds and races and has a unique idea of naming. Even after introducing a new race, before too long, you think you know it. Again, there’s a naturalness to the writing style.

For me, the first book was by far the most enjoyable. This is the one that starts Arthur Dent, the main character, on his trek through the universe exploring various worlds after the Earth is destroyed. This one was the one that seemed to have the most guiding it in the sense of purpose and destination. This is the one where the story seemed the most cohesive.

The second one is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which really only shows up at one point in the novel. Here, there isn’t much that I found memorable aside from the lines near the start about in the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

The third book is Life, The Universe, and Everything. At this point, I started being convinced that it was being made up as Adams went along bit by bit. Sometimes it seemed like something was introduced and Adams completely lost sight of it later on. I have been told by others that they also thought the first book was the best and the second and third just weren’t the same. At the same time, I am intrigued enough that I plan to go through books four and five, especially since I bought book five when I saw that it was on sale at a bookstore going out of business.

Douglas Adams was an atheist, but that doesn’t mean Christians can’t enjoy the work just like we can enjoy movies and TV shows and music by non-Christians. We need to be engaging with the work of non-Christians to understand where they are coming from and how they see the world. If we stay in our own subculture, we won’t be able to interact with the culture around us. Paul knew the pagan poets well enough to quote them.

If you like science fiction and you’re looking for a good read, this is an amusing one to go through. I plan on reading parts four and five as I said and I will review them when I am done. I don’t know yet if at this point it will be reviewing them one by one or reviewing them as parts four and five of the trilogy combined. Didn’t make sense again? That’s okay.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Game Theology

What do games and God have to do with one another? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This is a post where I am really seeking feedback from you. I am working with some friends now on starting a group podcast tentatively called Game Theology. I am also working with another friend who has had a similar idea to create a group based on Christianity and gaming together as well.

So what I would like to know from you is what would you like to get out of such a podcast? I am thinking we could do things everyone else does, like game reviews and tips and of course, some personal footage of what is done, but we will also go deeper. We will try to discuss the worldview behind various games, noting that very rarely will we say a game has a Christian focus to it. We can still discuss worldviews connected to games either way.

So here are some possible topics.

One I have in mind now is gaming etiquette. I play regularly with friends, Final Fantasy XIV, which is an MMORPG. (Multi-Man Online Role Playing Game.) How should a Christian play with other gamers? How does he best honor Christ with how he plays a game?

Violence in games is another one. Is it always wrong to beat the bad guy? Should you never be happy when you have beaten him? Are there some games so violent that Christians shouldn’t play them?

What about women in video games? Many times, women are presented in exaggerated terms to make them appear ultra attractive. For women in games, it’s almost as if the least amount of armor they wear, the better that they will be protected.

Are video games just a waste of time? Why should we be playing anyway? If we ask this though, couldn’t we say the same thing about something such as sports? How should we measure our time with video games and for that matter, any other hobby?

What are the benefits some of us have got out of being gamers for years or pretty much all our lives? What are our testimonies of how our worldviews have been shaped? Why do we enjoy what we enjoy?

These are a few questions and I’m sure the people I am working with will be having more of their own to bring, but I wanted to throw it out there to my readers as well. What would you like to see discussed? Does a Game Theology Podcast even sound interesting to you?

Let me know.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

God As A Means

What is the point? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many times, I get really annoyed when Christians start talking about Heaven so much. It’s not so much because Heaven is unimportant to talk about. It is. The problem is that seems to be all that we talk about and when we talk about Heaven, it’s not even for the right reasons.

Let’s start with the first point. Listen to many Christians today and you would think the whole point of Christianity is going to Heaven. A small child comes forward and accepts Jesus and now he has to look forward to that when he dies, he will go to Heaven. What is he told about the here and now? What is he told about the purpose of his life? Well, be a good person. Congratulations. Even secularists do the same with their children. They can also offer that without all this stuff that people find so hard to believe, so what a shock when children will dump Jesus later on in their teen years. What was the point anyway?

Nothing is said about us being servants of the Kingdom. Jesus is your savior, but nothing is said about what you are to do for Him. It’s all about what He did for you. Nothing is said about how He is supposed to be your king. When do we hear about holy living in the here and now for the glory of God?

As for the second problem, I have heard many Christians describe Heaven and when they do so, their descriptions are quite lacking. The lacking in the details of Heaven is nothing is said about God. You see, you get to live forever and you’re reunited with your loved ones and you have this mansion and these streets of gold. It’s as if God is an afterthought.

With this, God becomes solely a means to obtain what we want for ourselves. God is not the goal and the great reward. He is the means to the goal and the great reward. It’s almost as if this kind of attitude is wanting to rape God for the good things that He has.

I can assure you it was incredibly awkward even writing that last sentence, but that is the only kind of parallel I can come up with. Perhaps such a graphic illustration is what some of us need anyway. All the good stuff alone does not make Heaven.

I have heard there was an episode of the Twilight Zone where a man dies and goes to a place where he has a mansion and all the good things he wants. As time goes on though, he gets bored and when asks about that is told that’s the way it is. He asks why it is that Heaven is like this to which he is told, “Who said you were in Heaven?” I am not saying this is what happens, but one could imagine how twisted it would be for a hell to be a place where you seem to have all you want at the start and then find out that it is unfulfilling. Ultimately, only God can eternally satisfy the longings of man, something I still have to remind myself of.

Besides that, when we see our loved ones, it’s almost as if we think we will pick up right where we left off. Last night, I finished reading again C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed. He describes the same sort of idea and does also realize he is being tempted to treat God as a means to see his beloved again. Lewis throughout tries to think about what could be happening to his bride. Perhaps she is still being sanctified. Why think that her pain is entirely ending? Could she be experiencing separation? While Lewis was a Protestant, he did still pray for her and was open to some sufferings of purgatory.

Perhaps it is because we do not see God as desirable Himself that we look at Heaven like this. Why do we not see God as the great reward Himself? As an apologist, I wish I had an answer, but I do not at this point. It is a question I am still mulling over. I hope to do some future blogs as I think about it in the future.

I suppose in closing all I can say is to think about why you are doing what you are doing. Is God a means to an end? What is the point of your life now? Are you presenting God as the goal or just the afterthought, the means to the end?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Does The Bible Always Give Something New?

What should we expect in our study? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Sometimes, I hear people say that every time they read the Bible, they get something new out of it. Now to some extent, this could be true. Imagine if you become a Christian and you grew up in a world that didn’t have a Bible. For quite a while, you will see new stuff because you didn’t grow up with a Christian background. However, if you study every day, after a while, those passages will grow familiar. You won’t see brand new things every day.

My concern here is for new Christians. Like I said, if you grew up without a background knowledge of Christianity, it could be different, but what if you did have one? Does this mean you will see something new every time? What if you don’t? Does this mean that you are a deficient Christian?

Too often in the church we tend to speak in high spiritual language and I suspect we’re doing it to look like really good Christians in front of others. Very rarely do you see some of these people who say this talk about a deep and personal struggle that they’re having. It’s understandable to an extent. I’m going through Lewis’s A Grief Observed again and thinking about how he wrote it under an assumed name at first. I’m glad we know who wrote it today. Some of the best comfort I receive in church is not from people in the church, especially leaders, sharing their strengths, but sharing their weaknesses.

We all know there’s a tendency in church to make us all look better than we are. This is particularly so with testimonies. Greg Koukl once said if you were in a band in college and became a Christian, you were a disenchanted rock star. If you smoked some marijuana, you were a recovering drug addict. It’s too easy to hear a testimony and wonder “Why isn’t my life like that?”

To get back to the Bible, this is not to say that there is limited knowledge in the Bible. We can study that book forever and I suspect there will always be more to uncover. It is to say not every session is meant to have the heavens open up with trumpets sounding. Sometimes a Bible study will just reinforce something we already know and need to be reminded of. Sometimes we could even get bored. How many people say they want to read through the whole Bible and Genesis and Exodus have some great stories for them, but then they get to Leviticus and start to get weak?

There is also another way to get biblical insights. Some of my best insights nowadays come from reading books about the Bible by people like biblical scholars who look back on the text with the insights of the original languages or the original culture and they point out matters I wouldn’t have noticed on my own. Then I can go back to the text and see that in there and say “That does put this text in a new light.”

Some of you might be shocked about that. “Going to someone else to understand the Bible?” Yeah. We have this strange idea often that it’s me and the Holy Spirit. However, if that is what you think, why are you even reading this blog to see what I have to say? Let’s take it a step further. Why care what your pastor has to say in church on Sunday? What do you need him for?

My ultimate concern here is overselling Christianity. We might be giving to some Christians an impression that isn’t really true, but makes us look good. Now if it is true for you, then by all means share more often. Tell us what you’re discovering. Now my great fear with that sadly is if my suspicion is right, you might have discovered something heretical. We’ll see if we can start discussing to find out.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Please Don’t Touch

Why is it hard on the spectrum sometimes? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

They’re getting close to me. It’s coming. I know it’s coming. I need to prepare myself. It will happen soon. Brace yourself. It’s coming.

“How are you doing?!” and a little pat on the arm or the back.

Move out of brace state. Crisis past.

If you think I am exaggerating, I am not. On the Autism spectrum, this is the way I handle it when complete strangers come up and touch me. Actually, I respond the same way when even people I know want to touch me. My own parents don’t normally get to touch me.

For boys, some of that is natural with parents. There is an age when a boy starts developing an aversion to his mother’s touch. He doesn’t like it and it’s very awkward for him. The touch of another woman? Now that is something entirely different.

For me, I think of the scene from As Good As It Gets with Jack Nicholson’s character walking down the street and saying “Don’t touch! Don’t touch! Don’t touch!” I don’t do that, but it would sometimes be nice to have that kind of sign. A lot of guys could be hesitant to touch a girl in public today, especially with MeToo and the threat of being charged with sexual harassment in any way. The problem is we assume that our fellow guys don’t mind.

I am sure a lot of them don’t, but those of us on the spectrum don’t come with signs that say “Spectrum!” So what relevance does this have for Christianity? Why talk about this here?

Because if there’s any place that something like this happens, it’s in the church. Many people in the church like to greet one another. If there is anything that I see as a benefit of the whole Covid scare, it’s that churches finally abolished greeting times. I hated those times so much. You shake hands and greet people and tell them how good it is to see them and you don’t interact with them the rest of the week.

Now if I do let someone touch me, that is a rare time, and it is a privilege. It is when there is a special event that has happened that has allowed me to trust someone. Just recently, I had a long conversation with a friend in person that I had had an issue with and when I told him how things looked to me on the spectrum, it was stunning and it was a time of healing for us. Towards the end, he said, “I want to touch you, but I know you don’t like that.” I said, “You can give a little.” He said he wanted to give me a hug, which he did, and I gave a one-handed one back.

Again, if you’re not on the spectrum, you might not understand this, but on the spectrum, this is the way I am. I can compare it to the old classic video games that when someone touches your character, you get damaged or in some, even die. It’s like receiving damage to an extent for me. It is asking me to cross a boundary that I don’t want to cross because I don’t know if you’re a friend or a foe yet.

So what would be my advice? Don’t touch people you don’t know at church. What if that person is on the spectrum and doesn’t like that? Instead, try to get to know them somehow first as much as you can. If someone like me on the spectrum inclines to let you touch us, then consider it that at that point you have earned tremendous trust with us. We still might not like being touched to some extent, but we will accept it.

Please in a church service be cautious how you approach a stranger. I’m someone that can brace myself and not like it, but the wrong person could have a very verbal outpost putting themselves off from church and possibly the gospel.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

When I Don’t Trust God

How do you handle a lack of trust? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I could have easily titled this “When You Don’t Trust God”, but I know you have that struggle if you’re a Christian already and I think it’s good for you to know that I do. Sometimes in the Christian world, those of us in ministry can sometimes be seen as if we are above the day to day struggles. We have the answers to the questions and we have the good theology. Our lives work out well.

That is a lie.

John Piper is well known for his Desiring God concept, but he also wrote “When I Don’t Desire God.” It’s a personal book. I haven’t read that yet, but I don’t deny for a moment it’s true. There are times that John Piper does not desire God. So it is that there are times I don’t trust God.

And folks, this is what faith really is. I am not for one moment doubting His existence. If people say I believe in God for emotional reasons, they are entirely missing the boat. I am convinced because of my rationality which makes the emotional struggles all the harder.

I am not even questioning His goodness. I do know God is 100% good. The problem is that doesn’t bring me comfort at times because there’s a part that wants to say, “If this is what goodness really looks like, then I could do with a little less good in my life.” As C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed after the death of his wife

“Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and
I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me
about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect
that you don’t understand.”

Lewis has much to say about the goodness of God. He talks of people who say they are not afraid because God is good. Have they never been to a dentist before? I had a surgery job done in my teenage years by a good doctor, the one considered the godfather of scoliosis surgery. I am sure the staff at the children’s hospital consisted of good people. I still struggled for a year with walking on my own for a good operation done by good people.

There are times you look at what’s going on in your life and wonder “How did I get here?” A lot of the self-help people will say “You are responsible for your own life and your outlook on it.” We are told that in groups like AA, nothing can heal until a person accepts responsibility, but after that everything can heal. Therefore, for your life, you need to accept responsibility.

That can be good advice, but it really only works insofar as you are directly responsible If you tend to take good care of your body and you get cancer, are you to take responsibility for that? If your child is killed in a car accident by a drunk driver, are you to take responsibility for that? If you lose your home in a sudden natural disaster, are you to take responsibility for that?

Now keep in mind that in all of these disaster scenarios, I am not at all you saying you don’t own your responses to them. Some people beat cancer and some don’t and one of the #1 reasons for who does and who doesn’t is often attitude. There’s the old saying that one person says “I can” and the other says “I can’t” and both of them speak truly. Even if you physically can’t beat cancer, as sometimes the best attitude in the world won’t overcome, you can still choose how to live the remainder of your life.

There is a sense in which our struggles come from within in what we tell ourselves of the things around us, but do they not play a role? Suppose I am walking down the street on a daily walk for exercise. Now I am a typical guy with my book and playing some Pokemon Go as I travel and I turn to walk down the street and way off at the end of the street, I see a bear.

Rest assured, that never happens here, but this is a big for instance. Am I going to suddenly have anxiety? You bet I am, and while we can say that that can largely come from what I tell myself about the situation, there is no doubt the stressor is there, such as if the next thing I saw was tranquilizer guns shooting the bear and knocking it out and Animal Control coming and putting the bear in the back of a secure vehicle, I would have some aftershock anxiety, but I would be a whole lot better off.

In these times, people come and they mean well but they often say things that are so mundane. They’re true, but not helpful. You are told “You need to trust in God.” Wow. What a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that? Yes. And when you are rolled into that operating room and going under the knife and don’t know what will happen, just trust the surgeons. You can be told that all you want, but it won’t change the reality. When your walk with God is going well, it’s easy to tell someone else to trust in God. No. I don’t want it to be that while I’m in the foxhole and the bullets are whizzing over my head that someone from HQ messages me and says “Trust in God.” No. Come and really get in the trenches with me and I will better hear what you say.

The reality is we know we ought to, but we are majority blind fools in many ways. Yes. We know God works all things for good to those who love Him. Yes. We trust that if God allows it, He does so for our good as well. Here’s what that doesn’t change. It hurts. It hurts and when we look at where we want to be, where we want to be seems so far away we don’t know how we can ever get there.

Let’s also keep in mind none of us trusts God entirely. If we did, we would never sin. We do. We fail every day. I would certainly hope my Catholic and Orthodox readers would have understanding of a great quote of Martin Luther. The gospel is just one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. We’re all wounded on the journey in some way and we’re traveling with other people who are wounded. Maybe right now you’re in good health. That’s great, but remember as you tell me about the joy of Christ that I know somewhere is true, but rings hollow now, that sometime in the future if we both are living, there will come a time when you are in the valley of suffering and the last thing you will want to hear about in some ways is the joy of Christ because it is not resonate with where you are.

In an odd way, what is comforting to hear about now is not joy, but suffering. Tell me about Joseph being in prison and telling the cupbearer and baker, “Please tell Pharaoh about me and get me out of this prison.” Joseph had found favor with God and was serving well and the warden had put him in cause, but he knew he was there wrongfully and while conditions could not have been better for him than they were, he still wanted out. Tell me about Daniel being thrown in the den of lions when his only crime was being faithful to His God. Tell me about Jesus begging to go to the cross. He had prayed “If there be any other way, let this cup pass through me.” Do we not think the Father would have loved to have been able to say “Actually, there is another way we can bring salvation to the world. The cross is not necessary.”

You see, the future is a place that is far off and distant. As a child, my family and I used to go to Myrtle Beach on vacation. It was in South Carolina and we started in Tennessee. At four in the morning when we’re heading out, the beach seems like an eternity away. You want to get there and we know the constant refrain of children. “Are we there yet?”

The children are realists though. They trust that their parents want to get them to the beach and to do so safely and know how to get there, but the child only sees miles and miles of interstate that look exactly the same. Telling them about the pleasures of the beach on the way sounds distant and hollow. It is the same way as when Peanuts refers to Christmas as being on top of a steep hill. The closer you get, the steeper the hill gets.

We often say that God is there when you are suffering, and it is true, but it is often still not much consolation in honesty. Lewis again writes that when life is good, God seems to be everywhere to the point where He can practically seem as if He’s so overwhelming you that you don’t enjoy your life. However, when you are in need and when you want to experience Him the most, the door is slammed in your face it seems. Being told God is there is no more a comfort than the child being told Christmas is coming or that they are on their way to the beach. It is met with a “Yes, but” and that is not helpful.

There’s a story that the great composer Beethoven had a friend who had suffered a great tragedy. The musician went over to his house and rather than see the friend, sat down and played the piano for half an hour and then left. The friend regarded that as the most helpful visit of all. Somehow, the music Beethoven played shared his longing and sympathy for his friends. As we often say, talk is cheap. Show me your actions instead.

At times like this, it is hard to trust God, but at those times, what reveals us most is not really our words but our actions. Everything I am writing in this post goes with what I am going through right now. Some of you know what’s going on. Some don’t. I don’t want to say here what it is. Either way, to quote the common saying, “The struggle is real.”

The actions though are still where it’s at. If you meet someone who is still trying to serve and do the right thing for the Kingdom even when it is hard, be thankful, though I would say at the time inwardly. There are many times for all of us it would be easier to throw in the towel altogether and give up. Go ahead and lie in bed all day and do nothing. Close the windows and curse the light.

Again, we have to refer to Lewis. Those Christians that still get up and serve regardless are the ones facing the struggle the most. It is easy to serve the Kingdom when everything is going your way and you’re prospering in all or most areas of your life. When you have struggles with God and you still serve, that is the hardest.

And maybe in reality, is it not entirely a lack of trust of God. I could just as well argue it is the pain and suffering that is trusting the most. Who would we say would be trusting God the most? A Pollyanna Psalmist who only wrote Psalms of praise and thanksgiving, and there is a time for such Psalms, or one who writes also the Psalms of lament and suffering. This is the Psalmist who trusts God with what he really thinks about this world. The Hebrews writer tells us to boldly approach the throne of grace, and it is the true person who knows that God is real and comes to help that feels safe enough to boldly come to that throne to register a complaint. Job had his own accusations against God and even though he darkened God’s knowledge without counsel, he was declared in the end to be the one who also spoke rightly, unlike Job’s friends.

As I think, it could be that you could say I am not trusting in God when I worry about the future, and that is true, but that doesn’t mean I’m not trusting in God at all. I’m still trusting in Him that I can go to Him with my complaints. I’m trusting Him that I can go to Him and tell Him what’s wrong. I’m trusting Him that I can go to Him and tell Him that I don’t like the way things are. I can even go to God and trust Him when I want to outright accuse Him of some statements. I can do this knowing they are not true, but still saying “This is how I really feel at the moment.”

To my atheist readers also, this is what faith in God means. Let’s drop this nonsense that faith in God means knowing that He exists. James dispels that one easily in his epistle. Faith in God is trusting Him and in that case one could say in spite of the evidence, because of the wrong evidence. It is not the evidence of simply present reality. It is the evidence of all that He has done in the past and the character of who He is. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where faith takes place. Faith is a willingness to follow God and His commands even when for the time being, it appears to profit you nothing. It’s easy to follow your commanding officer when you think he’s ready to send you back-up at any moment and you only need to hold off the enemy for a short time. It’s hard to when you can’t reach him and you don’t know where he is, but it is the true person who trusts his officer who still keeps firing away at the enemy regardless.

Thus, there are times I don’t trust God and what am I to do? Act. Act accordingly anyway. I have learned in all of my emotional struggles, that they don’t really last a long time. There are many times that I am in the valley and each time I think, “This is the worst valley I could ever be in!” and at the time, I think I am right, and a few years down the road, I find myself in a worse one. Every time I have been brought through. Sometimes, I have been brought through kicking and screaming and not wanting to trust the hands that want to carry me through, yet still I make it a point to go on. Where else will I go?

If anything, I think it would also be good if we Christians often dropped the spiritual platitudes we still too often share. We often act like intense struggle is the exception in the Christian life. It is not to be. It is the rule. It is how we handle those sufferings that will reveal who we are and the world will see us. It’s easy for the world to know we are Christians by our love if we rejoice and love when everything is good. They do that as well! It’s how we will handle the crucible of pain that will reveal our love the most. If we are showing love, it is to people who need that love the most intensely. They may even as we do with God at times smack our hands away in anger and want nothing to do with us, but we still love.

If you are also in the time when you are not trusting God, you are not alone. Trust if anything requires it being difficult to trust. It is easy to think about how the laws of science work so well when you are going about your day to day mundane life. If you have to get on a space shuttle and fly out where everything you do, including your return to see your loved ones on Earth again, depends on how well people are calculating the laws of science and how well they work, it could be different. I cannot speak on that, but it would be interesting to ask an astronaut someday if I could. Maybe I will see if I can track one down. Actually, I’m doing that right now. Perhaps that’s a future blog post.

And also if you are there, I am not going to give you platitudes. Just know that in my own way, I am also walking through it. None of us are where want to be entirely yet. All of us are still works in progress. When you meet me on my journey, it might be best to not talk. Just grab another sword and walk alongside me together. Even if we walk in silence, at least we walk together facing the next day.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)