Friday, January 15, 2021
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:16
Aeschylus, an ancient Greek playwright wrote: “The memory of pain falls drop by drop upon
our heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the
awful grace of God.”[1]
As a young person, if there was one place I never expected to look for
wisdom, it was in the face of pain. But
Aeschylus had it right – unbidden, pain comes to us anyway, and it is our most
dramatic and (sadly) our most profound teacher.
One important gleaning from pain-induced wisdom, however, is the fact
that you will not hear wisdom, or sense it is even in the room when a person is
in the middle of pain. Anguished cries
and incoherent, incomprehensible utterances of those who are overwhelmed by
loss do not display wisdom – they display human agony. Wisdom comes later, upon reflection.
As with Aeschylus, it is the memory of our pain,
long-since subsided, that sparks the light of God’s grace on our souls. I would add that it is the well, and honestly-considered
memory that allows the dawning of wisdom.
When pain is compartmentalized, stuffed-away in a dark corner of our
being, unfaced, and unprocessed, for fear of hurting deeper than our supposed
coping resources, it invites the fragmenting of our soul and spirit. We can become spiritual zombies, only a façade
of the aliveness of resurrection people.
The result of unprocessed or ignored pain is a large map of destinations. Among the most fearsome is the sociopath,
that monster which feels nothing for others, or even himself. The grace of God is the antidote for this
road trip. In an awe-filled way, the
grace of God invites us to face our pain and overcome the monster waiting to be
born in us.
Our country is at that type of crossroads today. In our pain of lost elections, riots,
COVID-19 deaths, and the angst of an uncertain future, we would, frankly,
rather go on vacation, and not deal with the mess. It’s tempting to apply temporary solutions to
such pain. I am a subscriber to the old
standby that there are few problems that will not be better when you take a
break. Things always seem less problematic
after a good nap.
But this is not one of those times.
We are in the midst of national crisis of mega proportion. Many have adopted the simplistic notion that,
if this leader or that one is in charge, our problems will go away. The lines in the sand between parties of
different methodology and ideology have been drawn deeply and (at times)
violently. I think it would be accurate
to compare this time in our country’s history, fresh from last week’s insurrectionist
attack on the Capitol building and Congress by domestic terrorists, to that of the
mid-19th century, the prologue to Civil War.
This is a time to face our problems, and the pain we all would rather
avoid.
Facing those problems is not for the debaters who have all the answers
and want to push their agenda. It is not
for the faint of heart who will just do a lot of hand-wringing and vent their disdain
for what ails us. Facing the problems is
a matter for what history teaches us in the likes of men such as King David,
who, when confronted with his own shortfall of character, confessed, and was
restored.[2] Or men like Nehemiah, who put
his life on the line and offered to go help rebuild Jerusalem.[3] Or women like Esther whose
people were on the verge of annihilation and she accepted the fact that she was
born for such a time.[4]
The Scriptures are filled with those who stood firm in the flames of
opposition and threat. For us it can be
no different. If God’s people will not
pray and be ready for serving as balm for the wounds of mankind’s madness, this
country, or the human species doesn’t stand a chance.
For You Today
Standing firm does not mean turning on anyone. Wisdom borne of pain has taught us by the
awful grace of God just the opposite. It means standing true to what Christ has
taught us about pain; we bear our brother’s burdens like ours was borne at
Calvary.
[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
Calvin and Hobbes (cartoon) by Bill Watterson
For other posts on this topic see Death With Dignity? and Prayers in a Dark Place
[1] Excerpt, Washington Post Article
(Two Sides of Joe Biden) citing Robert F. Kennedy upon the death of the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr.
[3] Read Nehemiah
1-2
[4] Read Esther
chapters 3-4
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