Saturday, December 31, 2011

Bad Backs, Broken Pots, and the Resurrection

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."   
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV)

On Thursday, I threw out my back.  I've thought that I've dealt with back pain before, but I'm now able to understand those who are out of commission because they've really thrown out their back.  It has been one of the most miserable experiences of physical discomfort I've had, in part because I'm prone to worrying over things I can't grasp and in part because the treatment for it has been to essentially immobilize myself while my body heals up from whatever it is that was irked the wrong way.  It's been uncomfortable, painful, and humiliating.

The humiliation of it has been, perhaps, one of the more difficult aspects of this for me to deal with.  At just about 30 years of age, I was unable to help my wife get our apartment moved out of and our things into a new place.  Instead, God very graciously provided for a handful of people - most of whom are over the age of 50 - to do what I was unable to do.  In the midst of dealing with this, then, I've had to consider how God's good purposes are being worked out and how God would make me more holy through this experience.  And seeing as lying down and walking around a bit are all I've had occasion to do the past day or so, here are some initial reflections:
  • Whether I like to acknowledge it or not, my body bears the consequences of sin.  This is a truth that is easy for me to acknowledge about the world around me, but something I insulate myself from concerning my own body.  When my little girl asks me why someone is sick or hurt, the response she hears from her daddy is "Because of sin in the world."  And that's the right answer.  But it's harder for me to swallow that pill as the answer for "Why?" when something discouraging affects me.  I'm quick to think that I shouldn't have to deal with this or that it could have been avoided if I just wouldn't have done this or that.  Yet the trouble that accompanies the lives of God's people living in a fallen world isn't just persecution or opposition from the devil.  It's not less than that, but it includes other things too.  It includes bodies that don't work the way they should.  And God does not exempt His people from dealing with those maladies.  What He does do, however, is sanctify them to us, and use them to grow us in holiness.  When an unbeliever deals with the hardship of physical discomfort, their hope is set on getting better.  When a Christian deals with the same hardship, we have much higher sights to set our hope on - beyond getting better, our hope is in the God of all comfort, who made our bodies, and who has promised us that we will one day have bodies perfected for eternal communion with Him.  Which leads to the second reflection...
  • The older I get, the more potent the hope of the resurrection is and has to be for me.  In a culture obsessed with youth and its perceived invincibility, nothing seems more irrelevant than the hope of the resurrection.  It's a nice prospect, meaning little more than that the life we live now can somehow extend through all the ages.  But the hope of the resurrection means that the lives we live now have a taste of the goodness of the Kingdom that will be consummated.  Eternal life for an unbeliever is already at its peak - preserving the thrills of age 23 forever.  But for the Christian, our sense of expectancy is heightened as the disappointments and discouragements and tolls of life add up.  What will it be for us not to be distracted from the worship of the thrice-holy God by a bad back?!  What will it be to not have a single anxiety burden us as we seek the enjoyment and glorification of God?  These things take a more prominent place as we are forced to consider them when tasting the bitter herbs of life in a fallen world.  But the sweetest taste belongs to the future, where we who believe have a certain inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
  • My life is not essential to the purposes of God - but it pleases God to use me.  My inability to help my family did not ultimately compromise the ability of my family to get things taken care of.  It changed our plans, but it didn't stop them.  And in a way, it's an humiliation that's intended for thanksgiving and a right orientation to God's design for us.  It is very much the case that not a single one of us is the hinge upon which the purposes of God will succeed or fail.  Yet just because we aren't a hinge of failure or success, doesn't mean that God is not pleased to involve us in His purposes.  And here is where our self-regard can take a serious adjustment for the better, biblically speaking.  Seeing yourself as non-essential (because God is, alone, perfectly essential and sufficient) is humiliating.  But knowing that you, a non-essential, created being, have a place in spite of the fact that you aren't essential, should direct you to thanksgiving that God should be pleased to work His purposes in and through such a small being.  And it turns Kingdom service from self-motivated picking and choosing, to thankful, glad-hearted involvement in God's work.  The jar of clay that holds a treasure is not essential to the treasure, but the fact that the treasure's owner would choose to display his treasure in it makes all the difference.