WHEN TROUBLE COMES TO STAY

“How long, O LORD.”
—Psalm 13:6

My father used to tell a story about a country parson who announced one Sunday that his sermon would be taken from Mark’s recurring phrase, “And it came to pass…” “That’s the way it is with trouble,” the old preacher said. “It doesn’t come to stay; it comes to pass.”

Not always, however. Sometimes, despite all we do to fend it away, trouble comes to stay. We lament with David, “How long, O LORD?”

Four times in this short psalm David asks that question and rehearses the trouble he’s seen, troubles that go on and on and seem to have no end. It’s easier to endure trouble when the end is in sight, but what are we to do when it seems to go on forever: An aging and demanding parent who lingers on; a troubled relationship for which there is no resolution; a painful physical condition that has no cure? You ask, “Has God forgotten me forever” (vs. 1).

David’s answer is short and sweet: “I will trust in your love.” This is our assurance as well: no matter what, we are loved by infinite love. This is the source of a tranquility and joy that transcends every difficulty.

Some years ago, I read a story about a young man who went to Ireland to celebrate his uncle’s eightieth birthday. On day of his birthday, the man and
his uncle got up before dawn and took a long walk along the shores of Lake Killarney. Suddenly
the uncle, despite his aches and pains, went skipping down the road, beaming from ear to ear. His nephew said, "Uncle Seamus, you look
happy.” His uncle replied, “I am, lad. You see, me
Abba is very fond of me.”
Do you believe that your heavenly Father is fond of you? If you can answer, “Oh, yes, He is very
fond of me,” then you know something of the great heart of God. Believe me, despite the trouble you see, he has loved you too much, and given too much, to stop loving you now.

For that reason, “Keep yourself in the love of God” (Jude 21).

DHR

THOU ART INDEED JUST, LORD, IF I CONTEND

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build-but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain. [1]

Hopkins begins with a quotation from Israel's prophet, Jeremiah (12:1): "You are indeed just, Lord, if I dispute with you..." He then picks up a theme imbedded in the Old Testament wisdom literature: Why do sinners prosper? [2]

Hopkin's plea is more personal: "Why do sinners prosper while my efforts to do the right thing seem to end in disappointment and failure." It would appear that God, who had been his friend, was now his enemy. God could hardly do more to thwart and defeat him.

He contrasts his own frustration with the flourishing condition of those who live for the "sots and thralls of lust," who, in their "spare" moments, "thrive" more than one who has spent his entire life in the service of God.

Hopkins takes note of the lush "banks and brakes" (hedgerows and thickets) of the countryside which are showing the new growth of spring. He finds them thick with leaves and "laced" (interwoven) with "fretty (indented) chervil (parsley)"

He sees the plants shaken by fresh and refreshing winds. He thinks of birds building nests for their offspring: "Birds build-but not I build." He cannot create life. All he can do is "strain"-toil to produce one work that wakes. He is "Time's eunuch," sterile, useless, hopeless.

Perhaps you recognize yourself in Hopkins-in your own disillusionments and failures: You serve in some part of God's vineyard, but gather little fruit from your labor; you pray for years for a difficult spouse or rebellious child, but see no change in their behavior; you struggle with habitual sin and seem to make no progress. You ask, "Why must disappointment all I endeavor end?"

There is but one cure for us in all our discouragement: to look up to our Father's face-no more than that: "Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain." [3]

DHR

[1] The emphatic opening word of the last line, "Mine," modifies "lord of life."
[2] Job 9 and 21; Ecclesiastes 8:14; Psalm 49 and 73
[3] Or as Jesus would say, "We ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1).

DISCOURAGEMENT

"I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing..." (Isaiah 49:4).

It is a startling fact that the Servant of the Lord, our Lord Jesus—who was made like us—had moments of bitter disappointment. This is one of the many ways in which he, in his humanity, became "acquainted" with our suffering and grief.

Some suggest that these thoughts arose in Gethsemane, but I think moments of discouragement were woven throughout the warp and woof of Jesus' ministry, and were the result of continual opposition, rejection, denial and betrayal. What was diffused throughout his life is condensed in this one verse: "I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing..."[1]

"Nevertheless,"[2] the Servant insists, "my judgment is with the Lord, and my work is with my God (49:4)" It is for the Lord alone to judge the success and significance of his work. Furthermore, he is in partnership with his God and thus, in the end, he cannot fail!

So, the solution to our discouragement is to "spend our strength," but to look away from the outcome to the one who is faithful to perfect his work in due time. We may not see what our Lord is doing in our lifetime, but we can know with assurance that our labor is not in vain.

There's a lovely tailpiece to this text:

Indeed (God) has said,

"It is too small a thing that
You should be My Servant
To raise up the tribes of Jacob,
And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;
I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,
That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 49:6).

In other words, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"[3]

DHR

[1] Cf., Mark 8:21; 14:27; 14:50; Luke 9:41; John 13:21.
[2] The strong adversative with which this verse begins "But indeed!" emphatically counters what has preceded.
[3] Jesus did not see this promise fulfilled in his lifetime here on earth. Fulfillment was later and through other hands. So it may be for you and for me.

Last week I mentioned 17th century English Puritan divine, Richard Dent, and his book, A Poor Man's Pathway to Heaven. In it he describes a conversation between four men: Theologus (one who has knowledge of God), his old friend Philagathus (a lover of Good), Asunetus (one who does not understand), and Antilegon (the consumate skeptic). In his chapter on "Pride of Dress," Dent goes where few men dare to go: into an appraisal of women's apparel!

Philagathus laments: "(H)ow proud many be of baubles. For when they have spent a good part of the day in tricking and trimming, pricking and pinning, pranking (playing with) and pouncing (teasing hair), girding and lacing, and braving up themselves in most exquisite manner, then out they come into the streets, with their peddler's shop upon their back..."

Asunetas agrees: "What say you, (Theologus), to these doubled and redoubled ruffs (ruffles) which are now in common use, strouting (enlarged) fardingales (hoops) long locks, fore tufts, shag hair, and all these new fashions which are devised and taken up every day? It was never a good world since starching and steeling, busks (corset stays) and whalebones, supporters and rebatos (stiff, flared collars), full moons (circular collars) and hobby-horses (new fashions), painting and dying (came into vogue). And what say you to painting of faces, laying open of naifed (naïve or youthful) breasts, dying of hair, wearing of perriwigs, and other hair coronets and top-gallants? And what say you to our artificial women, which will be better than God hath made them?"[1]

Antilegon: "I marvel you (Theologus) should be earnest in matters of apparel. You know well enough that apparel is an indifferent thing; and that religion and the kingdom of God do not consist in these things."

Theologus. "Apparel in its own nature is a thing indifferent;[2] but immodest, and offensive apparel is not indifferent." Whereupon Philagathus, invites Theologus to, "set us down some directions out of God's holy book, concerning attire."

Theologus' answer is to quote St. Paul, who, "willeth that women should array themselves in comely apparel, with shamefacedness and modesty, as becometh women that profess the fear of God." St. Peter, he adds, "giveth like rules also: for he saith, speaking of Christian matrons, and professors of holy religion, that their apparel must be, 'inward, that the hidden man of the heart may be clothed with a gentle and quiet spirit, which is a thing before God much set by.' For after this manner, saith he, 'in times past, the holy women, which trusted in God, did attire themselves,' as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and such like ancient and grave matrons."

But, Philagathus is undeterred. "I pray you, sir, set down your judgment for outward attire.

Theologus, no legalist, refuses to go beyond scripture: "This is all that I will say, touching the point, that (clothing) must be as the apostle saith: comely, decent, handsome, neat and seemly."

Philagathus: "But who shall judge what is comely, decent, etc? For every man and women will say, their apparel is but decent and cleanly, how gallant, brave, and flauntingsoever they be."

Philagathus' question is well taken: Conventions and fashions change. How shall we judge what clothing is appropriate for our culture?

Theologus answers: "Herein the examples of the most godly, wise, grave, and modest men and women are to be followed: for who can better judge what is comely, and modest, than they."

In other words, propriety rises from within. Inner goodness shows itself outwardly in the way both men and women dress and is the pattern for others.

How eminently practical!

DHR

[1] I have a friend who used to say, "A little powder, a little paint, makes a gal what she ain't."
[2] Theologus, in another place, notes that there are occasions when fine attire is entirely appropriate (in the English court, for example) for the goal is to blend in and not be noticed for our clothes.

"A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS."

The angels keep their ancient places;-
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

-Francis Thompson.

Some years ago I came across a short-story by Columbian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez entitled, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings." It begins with a violent storm, after which a fisherman, Pelayo, discovers a half-drowned old man, lying face down in the mud in his courtyard. The man can't stand up because he's impeded by a set of enormous wings.

Staring at this bedraggled birdman, Pelayo and his wife Elisenda decide he is a shipwrecked foreign sailor, somehow managing to overlook the need to explain his wings. Assuming he is nothing but trouble, Pelayo locks the old man in his chicken coop, planning to dispose of him by putting him out to sea on a raft. He and Elisenda wake the next morning to find a crowd of neighbors in the courtyard and a far more complicated situation on their hands.

At first, the villagers treat the old man as a freak; they toss him food and speculate about what should be done with him. The village priest arrives to inspect the captive. He
finds the old man's pathetic appearance to be at odds with the church's traditional image of heavenly messengers. Finding the old man smelly and decrepit, his battered, moth-eaten wings infested with vermin, the priest concludes that, "nothing about him measures up to the proud dignity of angels."

But word has already traveled too far, drawing fantastic crowds and creating a carnival atmosphere. Surrounded by all this activity, the old man takes "no part in his own act," tolerating the abuses and indignities of his treatment with patience.

In time, and with other more exciting prospects, the crowds disappear from Pelayo and Elisenda's courtyard as suddenly as they had come, and the unexplained mystery of the strange birdman is quickly forgotten.

In time, the old man becomes a nuisance, dragging himself about, always underfoot. Elisenda seems to find him everywhere in the house, as if he were duplicating himself just to annoy her. At one point she grows so "exasperated and unhinged" she screams that she is living in a "hell full of angels." Finally the old man's health deteriorates further, and he seems to be near death.

As winter gives way to spring, the old man's condition begins to improve. He seems to sense a change taking place in himself and to know what it means. He tries to stay out of the family's sight, sitting motionless for days in the corner of the courtyard. At night, he quietly sings sailor's songs to himself. Stiff new feathers begin to grow from his wings, and one morning Elisenda sees him trying them out in the courtyard. His first efforts to fly are clumsy, consisting of "ungainly flapping that slipped on the light and couldn't get a grip on the air,'' but he finally manages to take off. Elisenda sighs with relief, '"for herself and for him," as she watches him disappear, "no longer an annoyance in her life but an imaginary dot on the horizon of the sea."

An old man with enormous wings, an inconvenient guest, a challenged child, an aging parent... "Some have unwittingly entertained angels."[1]

DHR

[1]Hebrews 13:2. Cf. Genesis 18:1-8

I've been reading a 17th century English Puritan divine, Richard Dent (not to be confused with former Chicago Bears defensive end, Richard Dent), who wrote a book for new Christians entitled, A Poor Man's Pathway to Heaven. It's one of the books that God used to bring about John Bunyon's conversion.

In it he describes a conversation between four men: Theologus (Theologian), his old friend Philagathus (Lover of Good), Asunetus (Clueless), and
Antilegon (Skeptic).

Here's a paragraph that got my attention:

Theologos: Some of God's dear children, in whom no doubt the inward work is
truly and soundly wrought, yet are so troubled and encumbered with a crabbed
and crooked nature, and so clogged with some master sin ; as some with
anger, some with pride, some with covetousness, some with lusts, some one
way, some another; all which breaking out in them, do so blemish them and
their profession that they cannot so shine forth unto men as otherwise no
doubt they would; and this is their wound, their grief, and their heart
smart, and that which costeth them many a tear, and many a prayer: and yet
can they not get the full victory over them, but still they are left in
them, as the prickin the flesh, to humble them.

Philagathus: Yet love should cover a multitude of such infirmities in God's
children.

Theologos. It should do so indeed: but there is great want of love, even in
the best; and the worst sort espying these infirmities in the godly, run
upon them with open mouth and take upon them to condemn them utterly, and to
judge their hearts, saying they be hypocrites, dissemblers, and there is
none worse than they. (That is, those who judge a sinning brother are worse
off than their sinning brothers.)

It reminded me of C. S. Lewis' essay on "Nice and New People":

If you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house
full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of
your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by
an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not
despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He
knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you
can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) He
will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may
astonish us all--not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a
hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be
last).

(C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity pp 214-215).

It seems to me that Lewis' parenthetical remark makes the Dent's point about those of us who would judge a struggling brother.

DHR

WEE BAIRNS

In my college years I worked as a guide at a boys camp, taking campers on treks into Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. On one occasion one of my boys--a rather slow chap-- lagged behind and took the wrong fork on a trail. When we arrived at our campsite he was nowhere to be found. I immediately went out to find him.

Just before dark I came across him sitting by a small lake--utterly lost and alone. In my joy, I gave him a bear hug, hoisted him on my shoulders and carried him down the trail to his companions.

Scottish pastor, George McDonald, describes a young woman finding a "wee bairn" alone and lost in the woods. She gathered him up in her arms and carried the tiny infant home to her father, at which point she gained an insight that "was never afterward to leave her: now she understood the heart of the Son of Man, come to find and carry back the stray children to their Father and his." When afterward she told her father how she felt he answered her "in just four words and no more." 'Lassie, ye hae it!'"

So I would have you know the heart of Jesus, the Son of Man, who came to find and carry back his straying children to their Father, "for the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10). He came to seek and to save you, no matter how far you may have strayed and how lost you may be. You may not know much about God yet, but if you know that, "Ye hae it!"

DHR