This year was different.

The events of the last year brought us back home. While those events were in no way desirable, the resulting move has been a big blessing.

This year Thanksgiving was at our house, twice. Thanksgiving with my family was Thursday and with Jules’ family was today (Saturday). Everyone was relaxed and the food was great both days. Everyone enjoyed themselves and there was very little stress.

I love my family and Jules’ family and enjoy spending time with both and I think we’ve established a new tradition because doing it all here has relieved a lot of stress from everyone else.

It is often mind boggling to me how God takes very difficult, even tragic situations in our lives and uses them to accomplish good things. As much as I would like to have my vision back I am repeatedly forced to recognize that I am in a better place than I was before losing my vision.

I don’t pretend to know or understand God’s plans but I just have marvel and praise Him when He continues to provide good things. I am so glad that He is running things and I’m not.

Thanks to all who have been praying for us. God does answer prayer!

<y lovely wife finally found a job in Atlanta making much more than she can make in Charleston. We move in two weeks back to where I grew up. In fact, that house we’re leasing is less than half a mile from my parents,

Also, for the first time ever, we’re using a moving company rather than moving ourselves. I’ve done my own move far to many times, not to mention moving friends over that years. We still have to pack though and that is the main focus right now. I’ll be glad when it’s done and we’re in the new house.

I’m sad leaving Charleston. I love this place and I’ve really put down roots. We have so many friends here and the best church I’ve ever been a member of at East Cooper Baptist Church. It is NOT easy to leave. But this is clearly the direction God is leading us and His plans are always better than mine.

It will be noce to be close to my parents who are getting older more in need of help from time to time. For years now they’ve not had either of their children close by. Now they will and they’re pretty excited that we’re moving back.

Still no word on Social Security but that’s no surprise. It is the government after all and they’re not exactly know for efficiency.

All in all God is really blessing us and I’m so thankful for that. Things can’t always be rosey but it’s nice when things go right and right now they are.

I’m hoping that I can find appropriate assistive technology that will allow me to at least continue using my computer without too much difficulty.  Writing this post, for example, is taking considerable effort and proofreading it is near impossible at present.

I don’t mind admitting that I’ve had some pretty down moments so far and I anticipate more of those.  This is a daunting challenge.  But I remain convinced that God has something good for me, though it may not look good to me.  I trust that He is in control and He knows what He is doing.

One of the things that struck me most in this re-reading of the classic work was what Lewis had to say about temptation.

Lewis said that only Jesus really understood the full force of temptation.  The rest of us don’t really understand temptation because we end up giving in to it.  The man who doesn’t even struggle against temptation, says Lewis, has the least understanding of all.

Lewis’ point is that to really understand temptation you must resist it.  If you give in right away you haven’t really experienced the power of it.  Only through resisting do we experience the power of temptation and to understand it to the fullest, we would have to always successfully resist.  Since only Jesus has ever done that, only He really understands the fullness of temptation.

We tend to have the opposite view.  We think that because Jesus is God, He never really dealt with temptation the way we do because He wasn’t born with a sin nature.  I confess that I’ve been guilty of such thinking at times but that is equivalent to saying that Adam and Eve didn’t experience temptation because they weren’t born with a sin nature.  That turns out to be an indefensible position considering that they were tempted and gave in to that temptation.

Jesus not only experienced the full force of temptation because He never succumbed to it, He also experienced the full consequences of temptation and sin because He bore our punishment in our place.

We want to make excuses.  We want to say that temptation is to difficult to resist and that God doesn’t really understand what we’re going through.  But the reality is that He understands better than we do.  He has compassion when we face temptation and fail but He does not excuse us.

For our part, we need to put some real effort into resisting temptation.  We recognize that we cannot prevail on our own, that only by the power of God in us can we ever prevail.  But I know from my own experience that far to often we fail because we don’t really even try.  We don’t depend on God for strength.  We don’t hide His Word in our hearts so that we can draw on that when we’re tempted.  Indeed, far to often we don’t want to resist because we really want to do the thing that is tempting us!

This is not a “popular” message among Christians today, Ron, but one that deperately needs to be shared. Christians who are struggling are often treated with contempt by the Church, as if their struggles are a sign that they are out of fellowship with God in some way. The truth is that when we make a commitment to serve God, we make ourselves a target of the enemy of God – Satan – and this is often the reason for our struggle. Too many in the Church don’t want to hear that.

My first “Struggles” post dealt with the idea that a good God wouldn’t allow people to suffer and the notion that struggle is actually good for us.  But Jenn brings up a good point.  There are those in the church who believe that faithful Christians are supposed to live uncomplicated, successful lives.  They believe that if we are suffering it must be the result of our own sin.

This was a notion not unknown in Jesus day and clearly, from the story of Job, we know it was common in his day as well  But what does the Bible actually say on this point?

John 9:1-3 says,

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

The disciples clearly thought as many Christians today think.  Jesus had a different view.  That is, the struggles we go through and the things we suffer are ultimately for His glory!  In the case of the man born blind, it gave Jesus the opportunity to heal him and point people to God.  But healing isn’t the only way God is glorified.  Often the opposite is true.  Indeed, a faithful Christian going through suffering can be one of the most inspiring things you’ll ever see because that person draws people to Jesus.

But there are other reasons for suffering.  As I mentioned in the comments, Jesus made this point clearly in John 15:20:

Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

The fact is, being a true disciple of Jesus comes at a cost.  The enemy will come against you if he perceives you as a threat.  Conversely, any Christian that never suffers attack is obviously no threat to the enemy.  If that describes you, perhaps you should reevaluate your relationship with Jesus.

Rom 8:16-19 says,

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Notice the conditional clause “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”  It certainly looks like suffering is a requirement of glorification.  Paul goes on to point out the the temporary suffering we face in this life isn’t “worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

James 1:2-4 says,

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The Bible has much to say about the suffering and struggles of the saints and nowhere does it even suggest that faithfulness leads to a pain free life or prosperity or anything desirable in terms of this world.  Indeed, we are told that “friendship with the world is enmity with God.”  Those who seek an easy life and prosperity are storing up treasures on earth, not in heaven.

We are strangers here on earth.  This is not our home and when we think like it is we find ourselves unable to grow in Christ.

I no longer seek to avoid struggles because I know they are part of God’s plan and they focus my attention on the cross.  And the fact is, I have no control, however much it may look to me that I do.  So I look to the Lord for the strength to carry me through the trials and to teach me what I need to learn from them.

Far greater minds than I have grappled with this question.  C. S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain comes readily to mind.  It seems natural to man to believe that, if there is a God and He is good, He  would not allow us to suffer.  The corollary is that if there is suffering there is either no God or, if there is a God, He is not good.  This appeals to our sense of fairness but as any parent knows, our sense of fairness is warped at best.

I can well remember the times when my kids were young and they would respond to some decision I’d made with “that’s not fair!”  My response was always the same and it ultimately had the desired effect.  “I can give you fair but I promise you won’t like it.”  You see our view of “fair” is generally that we get what we think we deserve.

Of course, any Christian with the slightest understanding of grace knows that if we got what we deserve, we’d spend eternity in hell.  The Bible is quite clear on this point.  Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Romans 6:23 goes on to say that the wages of sin is death.  So let’s not fool around with the silly notion that it is unfair for us to suffer.  That is simply an unsupportable proposition.

Still, the Bible teaches that “God is love” (1 Jon 4:8) so why would a loving God allow us to suffer.  Here the mistake we make is that we judge what God does or doesn’t do based on our own human experience and expectations which is a fundamentally flawed approach to the question.  When we come to the realization that God is God and we are not, we also realize that we have no basis for complaint.

The classic biblical text dealing with this question is Job.  For those not familiar with the story, Job was a man who followed God in all that he did.  He was also a prosperous man with a large family and lots of land and livestock.  He would be considered rich in modern parlance.

Satan is standing before God’s throne and God begins to brag to him about His servant Job and Satan replies that Job is only faithful because God has blessed him.  He claims that if God removes His protection from Job, Job will curse Him.  So God gives Satan permission to go after Job.  The only restriction is that Satan cannot harm Job’s body.

So Satan destroys all of Job’s wealth and kills all his children, leaving him with only his wife and destitute.  At this point most readers unfamiliar with the story will be responding with how unfair all this is.  Our sense of justice is offended by this story.  How could God do such a things as to allow all this to happen to Job?

But the story doesn’t end there.  Job, in fact, does not curse God.  Rather, Job praises God, which is apparently quite annoying to Satan but pleasing to God.  So Satan makes another charge.  He claims that Job is still faithful because God has protected his health and that if God removes that protection, Job will curse Him.

God again gives His consent to Satan, this time allowing him to take Job’s health but not his live.  Those who were offended before are really offended now!  Job ends up with boils all over his body, sitting in ashes and scraping his sores with pieces of broken pottery.  At this point in the story Job’s wife comes to him and tells him to “curse God and die.”  How’s that for support from your wife?

While there are certainly people today who have suffered losses as great as Job’s, we don’t find many of them in America.  Indeed, the struggles we normally face pale in comparison and yet we feel we’ve been treated unfairly by life and by God.

The rest of the story of Job consists mainly of some conversations between Job and his friends about why all this happened.  Job’s friends believe that God is just and would never allow all this to happen to Job unless he somehow deserved it so Job must have some unconfessed sin in his life.    Job resolutely denies this but he remains faithful.  He struggles with the “why” but he never curses God.  He does, however, make the case that he did nothing to deserve what has come upon him.

In the end God joins the conversation.  For those with an overblown sense of justice and fairness, the desire is to hear God explain Himself.  You think that God now needs to justify His action.  But that is not what God does. Instead He asks Job questions designed to make him realize that he is in no position to question God’s actions at all!  Questions like “where were you when I laid the foundation of the world?  Surely you were there!”  The bottom line is that God is sovereign and is under no obligation to explain Himself to anyone.  He created us and is free to do with us as He pleases.

So where does that leave us?  For many this isn’t a very satisfying resolution.  We still want our notion of fairness, justice and love.  We want to live happy lives free of worry and struggle.  We want to be free to do what we want without consequences.  And therein lies the answer.

Our desire, at its core, is to be free of God and that is the very definition of sin.  We are hopelessly bound up in rebellion against God.  Even as Christians we need to be constantly reminded that we are dependent on God for everything.  For some this is a hard pill to swallow.

My own experience has been that it is normally through the struggles in my life that I grow.  Just as you can’t build up muscle mass without regular exercise, you can’t really grow in faith without regular struggle.  At bottom, struggle is good for us as Christians.  It forces us to rely on God instead of ourselves because we are driven to the realization that we are helpless without Him.

Struggles and suffering will inevitably lead us in one of two directions.  Either we will look to God for strength and our every provision or we will shake our fist at God and sink deeper into despair.  It’s a pretty clear cut choice.

I can’t claim that any of the struggles in my life have been comparable to what Job dealt with.  In that sense I don’t really know what suffering is.  But I know that God has always been faithful in my struggles and He has always brought me through them and focused me more on Him.  I have good reason to believe that He will continue to do so, even if the struggles become much greater, because He has demonstrated His faithfulness in the past.  It doesn’t matter if the particular struggle makes sense to me or not.  What matters is where I place my trust.  Do I rely on myself to overcome or do I accept that God has all the power and I am powerless and totally dependent on Him?

Now, of course, I’ve dropped political blogging in favor of blogging about my experience as a growing Christian.  There is, however, a connection between the two in my mind.

When I went to Charleston Southern University I was a double major.  My majors were religion and political science.  People often looked at me as if I had grown two heads when I told them that.  The question in their minds was, “what in the world do those two things have to do with each other?”

For me the conservative political philosophy was a natural extension of my Christian beliefs. On issue after issue it has always seemed to me that the conservative position (as opposed to the Republican position) was much more in line with Biblical teaching than liberal positions.

I can just hear Christian Democrats screaming at me now so let me clarify.  I am NOT presenting a conservative Christianity apologetic.   I am explaining where I have come from in order to lay the ground work for what I have to say on the general subject of Christianity and politics.

You see, I did not stop political blogging because I changed my political views.  On the contrary, I hold essentially the same views I always have regarding what I believe to be correct or the best political philosophy.  What has changed is where I see that philosophy fitting in to the bigger picture of change in the world.

For many years I believed that if only we could, as a country, adopt the best political philosophy, we could turn America around and once again become a moral, Christian country.  I hope you see the problem with this.  I was placing my trust in a philosophy which is the same mistake Utopian thinkers have made throughout history.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this approach is that it ignores the basic inability of man to make himself better.  Utopian thinkers have always believed that if society only had the right approach, every social problem, every social injustice could be corrected and we could all live happily ever after.  But the fact is, mankind is hopelessly corrupt and morally bankrupt.  It is our nature to grab all we can for ourselves and not worry about everyone else.  If that were not true there would be no need for government in the first place.

That’s why conservatives are always disappointed when they elect Republicans they believe to be conservative.  While they may have been conservative when elected, they are subject to the same failings as all humans and when they face the temptations that come with power, they generally don’t handle it any better than anyone else.  So you end up with Republicans presiding over the largest expansion of government up to that time which is clearly not based on conservatism.

Regardless of which party is in power, it is still human men and women who are in power and they are all, along with the rest of us, fallen human beings in need of a savior.  Left to their own devices and their own personal philosophy, they will all become more and more corrupt because that is our nature.

As Lord Acton so aptly noted, “power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  This is true for the best of us as well as the worst.  It might take longer for the best but it is still the norm because we cannot improve ourselves.

This, of course, flies in the face of postmodern thinking which is generally committed to the idea that we can improve the human condition through our own efforts.  Never mind that thousands of years of history demonstrate the falsity of such a belief.  We still cling to the idea that, in spite of everything that has been tried before, if we just do this or that differently, we can achieve a different result.  Now there is absolute faith that flies in the face of all the evidence!

So if we are helpless to help ourselves, what hope is there?  The answer is that the God of all creation has already done for us what we could never do for ourselves.  He has provided redemption through His Son, Jesus, who died so that we might live.  Only through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross can we hope to effect any change in humanity as a whole and American society more specifically.

Following the 2006 elections I was so disappointed that I could hardly function.  I thought we were doomed as a nation.  By the time of the 2008 elections, I had gone through a change.  Even though the 2008 election results were far worse from a conservative perspective than the 2006 results, I was not nearly so disappointed.  The reason was that I grasped much more fully that God is in control and He knows what He is doing.  I knew that I could trust Him no matter how it looked to me.

I still believe that a conservative approach to governance is the best way to go but attempting that without a Christian worldview is just wasted effort because people do not feel accountable to anyone but themselves and no one does a worse job of holding you accountable than you do.  “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” Psalms 127:1

So my focus has changed from politics to Christianity because that is the real, the true answer.  Political philosophy can never save us.  Only God can do that through His Son, Jesus.

I’ve gone through seasons where I was praying regularly and productively, only to one day realize that somewhere along the way I had stopped.  When that realization hits it is often guilt inducing.  After all, I’m supposed to be a growing Christian who walks the walk.  How can I not pray?

Part of the answer seems fairly obvious.  The enemy doesn’t want us praying so he gives us lots of things to take the place of prayer.  And being the fallen humans we are, we tend to fall for it.

The guilt that follows is also from the enemy.  He tells us we’re wasting our time or we’re incapable of doing what we should so we should just give up trying.  The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, convicts us to get up and keep going.

I’m endeavoring to be more intentional about prayer.  I want to have my daily prayer time but I want to go beyond that.  I want to “pray without ceasing” as the apostle Paul put it.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve struggled with some problem or challenge at work that I seemed unable to find the answer to.  Like clockwork, when I tell my wife about the frustration, her response will be the same: “have you prayed about it?”  It becomes embarrassing after the umteenth time we go through this and I still have to hang my head and say “no.”

It is not only embarrassing, it is contrary to who I am as a Christian.  Prayer should be the default response to everything in life, whether we perceive them as good or bad.  God always knows what’s going on in our lives.  He is always in control and we can always trust Him to know what He’s doing.  Because of that we should be praising Him in all situations and looking for what He is doing.

So I’m working to improve my prayer life.  For one thing, I’m putting s small sign in my car that says simply “PRAY.”  When I get up in the morning I want to pray.  When I leave the house I want to pray.  When I arrive at a client’s location I want to pray.  When I leave the client I want to pray.  I want prayer to be such an integral part of my life that not praying is unthinkable.  I want it to be the default response to everything that happens in life

I know that God hears and answers when I pray.  I know this, not simply because the Bible says so, though that is reason enough.  I know it because I’ve experienced it far to many times to ignore.  God has always been faithful, even when I haven’t.  It is insanity for me not to pray!

Mom went in the hospital for surgery this morning.  The purpose of the surgery was to repair a hole in her bladder but while they were in they planned to go ahead and also repair a hernia that was really giving her some trouble as well as  one or two other things.

You have to understand that my mom is not a good candidate for surgery.  Today was the 38th major surgery of her life.  Because of all these surgeries she has a lot of scare tissue that makes doctors reluctant to operate on her unless it is absolutely necessary.  She also has a lot of health problems that make her less than a good candidate for surgery.  So it takes a lot for her doctors to decide to cut her open.  They would not have done so today if not for the hole in her bladder that was confirmed several weeks ago through a cystoscope.

She was in surgery about three hours this morning and all went very well.  It went so well, in fact, that they did not have to do anything to her bladder.  According the surgeon, her bladder had spontaneously healed itself!  He said he’d never seen anything like it.  He could see where the hole had been just a few weeks ago but it was completely healed.  Of course, since they were already in, they went ahead and did the other repairs they would never had opened her up for without the hole in her bladder.

This surgery was planned but not scheduled for almost two months.  Indeed, it drug on for so long that I was beginning to become annoyed about it.  I could not understand why, if this was so serious and had to be done, it was taking so long for it to actually happen.  The answer to that became clear to me today.  Here is what I believe.

God knew the doctors would not operate on mom for the hernia or the other problems alone but He, in His infinite wisdom, wanted them to anyway.  Now He could have done any number of things, including simply healing her other problems, but He had other plans.  He allowed this hole in the bladder to cause this surgery to take place.  But He also caused the delays to give her bladder time to heal first, which does not happen under any circumstances the surgeon was aware of.  The result of all this was mom got the other problems repaired and God was glorified because of the clearly miraculous healing of her bladder.

Skeptics will come up with all manner of objections.  Why didn’t God just heal everything?  Why didn’t He do something else entirely.  They will claim I am delusional or worse.  But the fact is, we can never fathom all the reasons God has for doing what He does.  I don’t know why He didn’t just heal everything but I know that what He actually did and what actually happened brought glory and honor to His name and that is what it’s all about!  Praise be to God and God alone!

The visit was actually pretty funny at points.  The doctor called me his poster child because of the level of improvement.  In fact, he’s apparently had discussions with the drug company about me.  Obviously he believes the treatment is entirely responsible for for all this.

I don’t want to minimize the value of medical treatments in general or this treatment in particular.  Indeed, I consider myself to be incredibly blessed to have ended up at this particular doctor who had just recently completed a small set of trials sponsored by the drug company with this treatment.  In my mind it is nothing short of a miracle that, of all the doctors I could have seen, I saw this doctor.  That is God at work my friends!

But I also know, based on other things the doctor has said over these last several weeks, that my results are not typical.  He always expected some improvement but I don’t believe he ever expected to see the level that occurred in just two days.  When he saw me on the Friday after the treatment on Wednesday, he was incredibly excited over the improvement in my visual acuity.  In fact, he was a lot more excited than I was because I wasn’t also experiencing improvement in visual field.

The bottom line is this.  I don’t know how much more improvement I’ll see or even if I’ll see any more improvement at all.  I do know that God has worked in miraculous ways already and I expect He will continue to do so!

I’m a fan of Rush Limbaugh and I’m not ashamed to say so but I don’t always agree with him.  For example, I don’t share his optimism when it comes to this country.  Rush is convinced that America is so great that no President and no Congress can bring it down.  I believe America has been a great country but we’ve lost much of what made us great.  Would I like to see us regaini that greatness?  Of course!  Do I think we can do so?  I don’t know.

We’ve gone so far down this road.  I argued before the election that the rate of change was slow enough that most American’s didn’t notice the slow march left and that, perhaps, what we needed was an acceleration of that march so that the American people would wake up and take notice.  I predicted that Barach Obama would be an even worse President than Jimmy Carter and it took a Jimmy Carter to get a Ronald Reagan.

Well, we got Obama and he and the Democrats are moving at breakneck speed to turn back any and all conservatives gains over the last eight years.  They are taking advantage of the current economic situation to shove through every liberal project they’ve saved up for the last 20 years.  I now few that they will take us so far that even a conservative resurgence in 2010 will not be able to turn us back.

It’s true that conservatives across the country are becoming more and more active but it’s also true that many Republicans in Congress have learned nothing from the last two elections.  The current omnibus spending bill working its way through the Senate is a case in point.  Even Alabama’s Richard Shelby, along with several other Republicans, is supporting the bill that is stuffed with pork.

The future of America looks pretty bleak to me.  But, as I’ve been saying to people around me for a while, regardless of what Obama or the Congress do, I am consoled and lifted up by the fact that God is still in control.  That doesn’t necessarily mean a rosy future for America or Christians but it does mean that God will walk with us through whatever is to come.  I believe, for example, that God will use what’s coming to strengthen His church and that can only be a good thing.

For far too long the church in American has been virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding culture.  There’s been little to no cost to claiming Christ here and we’ve grown fat and complacent.  That’s not healthy and I believe God will use what’s coming to change it.  It may be a painful process but it will be worth it.

Everything Christians beleive is under attack in America today.  I believe it won’t be too long before Christians will be actively persecuted in America.  If you think that can’t happen here, ask yourself what things are true today that a few years ago you said couldn’t happen in America.  No friends, it can happen it if we continue on the road we’re on, it will happen.  But remember that the church is strongest where it is persecuted.  That is true the world over.

We are approaching a time where Christians will truly have to “count the cost” and many will decide the cost is too high.  Those who are willing to pay the cost will grow stronger.  That will purify the church and make it stronger.

I’m sure many reading this will take me to be a complete crackpot.  I can live with that.  But one thing I’ve learned over the last few years is that political philosopy, as important as it is, won’t save us.  I’ll be involved in the political process and I’ll work to elect solid conservatives but I will not place my faith in that process.  When I do that I am always disappointed.  Only by keeping my faith in God alone can I stay focused and positive in the face of a deteriorating future.  Because no matter what’s ahead in America, I know that God will be with me and my family and He will provide what we need.  Only then am I no longer bound to circumstances to determine my joy.  I can be joyful regardless of the circumstance.

So I’ll be writing again here but it won’t just be the same old political analysis.  Yes, the analysis will be there but it will be filtered through the lense of God’s power and control over everything.  I hope some will appreciate that perspective.  Many won’t be that’s okay.