Everybody Hurts, (Sometimes)

(Yes, that's an R.E.M. reference, from that revolutionary 1992 album, "Automatic for the People.") Jim and I have spent this week with a thousand other EPC pastors in sunny Sacramento, California, for our denomination’s General Assembly - learning, networking, strategizing, and voting as participants in the wider connectional body into which they are vowed. It’s a pretty awesome and humbling responsibility we have to stay committed, supportive and accountable to an extended family beyond our family at St. Patrick, but we are vow-keeping covenant people. So while there’s been a whole lot of socializing and sweating (it’s been 110 degrees all week!), it's nothing at all that we could classify as “suffering for the Kingdom.”As I’ve been mulling over these themes of hurt and healing for Sunday's sermon in our "Psalms! The Voice of the Heart" series, we’ve also been sharing in many conversations with other pastors and missionaries about what Jim jokingly calls “The Doctrine of the Sneakiness of God.” The more we reflect on the best, most healthy decisions of our lives, it seems we’ve nearly always been sort of “tricked” or “pushed” into them. It’s as if God knew what was truly good for us, but He also knew if we’d had any inkling as to what He was up to, we’d have turned and run the other direction! Humans rarely walk headlong into pain (thank you, amygdala!), and there’s a real wisdom in that kind of caution. But since our pain-averseness also often keeps us from experiencing the very fullness of life in Christ, God just has to have the whole thing kind of rigged in our favor. “For I know the plans I have for you…” kind of assumes he’s been orchestrating some kind of benevolent mass conspiracy for us, doesn't it!?So many complaints toward God seem to revolve around this idea often called “The Problem of Evil.” It goes something like this: since God either can’t or won’t prevent suffering; He must be either powerless, evil, or nonexistent. While we can certainly empathize with the kind of heartache that causes one to doubt God and His goodness, there’s a flip side to that argument. It’s called “The Problem of Goodness.” If God really is as evil or powerless or nonexistent as one might resentfully assert, then where does all the goodness and power from? How can you explain redemption and beauty and self-sacrificial love? How come so many of life's best gifts come right on the heels of its most excruciating moments? At the end of the day, intellectual difficulties abound no matter what philosophical positions you take. But here’s something we can all bank on: “Life is hard and you can’t get all your Heaven here” (again, Jim’s words).So what do we do with the pain we experience but didn’t ask for, that we would have fiercely avoided, if only we’d seen it coming? Well, the short and always correct answer is "repent and believe the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ," but the longer conversation will just have to wait for Sunday. Hope to see you there! In the meantime, here's a helpful tip from the great southern philosopher-poet, Mr. Michael Stipe:

When your day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,

When you're sure you've had enough of this life

Well hang on - don't let yourself go

'Cause everybody cries, and everybody hurts sometimes.

Sometimes everything is wrong, now it's time to sing along