No problem! No sweat! My life is under control. My family is under control. My business is under control. My Nation is under control. My world is under control. No sweat!
How stupid can we get? Help! I need help!
Our world is not coping well. We tremble on the brink of suicide. Self-trust dismisses God’s authority. In some cases entire nations fail the most fundamental test of helping their own citizens cope with materialism run amok. Perhaps the most complete expression of a totally materialistic philosophy in control and in action is Russian Communism. But Russians are a hungry people, searching for more than their government provides. Years ago I was a member of a study group sent to Russia by the Methodist Board of Social Concerns. There were thirty of us in the group: doctors, teachers, agriculturists, pastors, professors. We were seeking the foundations of peace. It was a fascinating experience.
Our guides were brilliant young Communists, working their way up in the party. Born since the Revolution, they knew nothing of Christianity. Yet, they were curious and watched us, a group of Christians, with searching attention. Simultaneously, they lost no opportunity to emphasize the fact that they did not believe in God. A group of children would cross in front of the bus. Our guide would point out, "They are Young Pioneers; they are like your Boy Scouts, but they don’t believe in God - they don’t believe in God."
After having spent three weeks visiting all over Russia, experiencing nearly all areas of Russian life, we found ourselves on our last Sunday in Tashkent, near the border of China. It was a dry, near-desert, country. We told our guides we wanted to go out into the desert to worship. They replied: "This is em-poss-ible." We insisted. They took us.
When one lives three weeks in an officially atheistic culture, faith takes on new meaning. We deeply felt our faith and sensed its reality. One of us, with deep feeling, read from the New Testament. Our guides had never heard it read before. One of us prayed, talking fervently to our Father in heaven. This was probably our guides’ first prayer experience. Then we sang, from memory, some of the old Christian hymns. It was singing from our hearts, speaking of our hunger and our faith. The singing, too, was new to them. Finally, one of us gave a brief meditation on our Christian faith and what it meant to us. There were tears in the eyes of one of our guides.
The next day we took a long trip in a very noisy bus. One of our guides came and sat by me. She began asking questions about Christianity. I thought she wanted to argue; but soon I discovered that, out of her repressed spiritual hunger, she really wanted to know. A child of God, deprived of the reality of faith, wanted answers that only faith can give. She had seen friends and loved ones die. She was told, "There is nothing more: they are dead!" But she wondered about the mystery of death: could there be more? She had made mistakes; she needed some sense of forgiveness. She was told that there was nothing there, no one to forgive. Go try harder! they would urge her. But she wondered. She struggled with these and other basic human questions which were not answered by her dialectical philosophy. She was comforted to discover that Christianity really dealt with these questions of faith and found deep answers in experience.
The old bus reached its destination. The motor was stopped, and in the dangerous silence she could ask no more questions. As she arose to go, she bent over and whispered, "I want to thank you. This has met a deep need in my life." This young woman had found new hope for coping with life, coping which is quite impossible without faith in a universe that has purpose and direction, and without faith in a God who loves us and is able to see us through.
Russia is spiritually sensitive. Russia is spiritually starved. The next great Spiritual Awakening can happen in Russia and may run like wild fire. Not only could this feed and satisfy individual hungers, it could heal dangerous world tensions (if it were also matched by a genuine spiritual awakening in the West).
Recently I read a statement which I believe is a glimpse of basic truth. It declared that the Age of Secularism had come to an end, because this philosophy was not answering life’s ultimate problems. The declaration continued that A New Age of the Spirit had begun. If this is true, and I believe it is, then, in the perspective of faith, we had better look again at our personal lives, our human relationships, and our world tensions. If we are ready, God just might step in again. Then, beyond just focusing on ways of coping, we would discover an ultimate direction and a sustaining strength.
Last autumn, while preaching for two months in Johannesburg, South Africa, I visited in a home in Durban. During the year this couple had lost their only son in a motorbike accident. He had just been graduated from the University and had faced a bright future. We talked until midnight and discovered that they had been able to cope with this tragedy only by a rediscovery of a vital faith. They had been amazingly sustained and were growing into beautiful people who were helping other tragedy-ridden people to find the faith that heals, that sustains, and that points to a future of victory.
Recently I was preaching in St. Austell in South West England. By chance a minister on holiday from another part of England worshiped with us. We felt God present with us in the service. Afterwards this visiting pastor came forward and told me of great tension in his local congregation and community. He said that he was about to break under the load. He confided that it was providential that he had been present, for he was going back to his congregation with new confidence and the power of love renewed. There is power available for life and its demands. "The vast resources of his power open to us who trust him" (Ephesians 1:18).
When God calls us to something, he sustains us in it. You can count on that. Read through the New Testament book of Acts and see how God backs up his promise under impossible odds. There is then, for us a steady inner peace available as we face a needy and broken world, seeking to do God’s will as interpreted by Christ.
One evening at a dialogue dinner of pastors and psychiatrists, the doctor sitting next to me thought to shock me. He said, "Pastor, this morning there was a woman in my office beside herself with guilt. She would not be quieted. I said to her, ‘Forget it! No good God is going to send one of his children to hell.’ "
"You are right, Doctor," I answered. "God is not in the business of sending his children to hell, but of getting them out of hell. For this he sent Christ into the world, for this he allowed the suffering of the Cross. People put themselves in hell; God seeks to save them from their lostness.
"But Doctor," I continued, "this morning you saw a woman in hell, by her own conscious or unconscious decisions, separated from God, separated from love and peace, separated from meaningful life. If she continues in this state of willful separation and dies in it, she is in hell. But God does not want it so. If she can accept the love and forgiveness of Christ, she will be free, and she will know she is free. God will even go the second mile to help her."
My sister taught in one of our United Methodist Colleges. She was a person of love and generosity. She was a means of strength to many students. She gave unselfishly, and alone built a small church in India. But she had intellectual problems and theological uncertainties. She died at age fifty. Just before she died she said to her sister, "I never have been able to understand it all, but I have loved Christ and loved people; and now I see that even though there are things I cannot completely grasp, somehow Christ makes up the difference." She died at peace, her life complete.
A few years ago, I worked very closely with a psychiatrist in our community. I referred patients to him whom I thought needed deeper psychological treatment than I could give. On occasion he would send me a patient whom he felt needed more specific spiritual care. One case I shall never forget. She was a young mother who had completely gone to pieces. I can see her now as she sat across the office from me. Wringing her hands in abject agony, she cried out: "I can’t trust God. I can’t trust God." She had lost hold on life, on her husband, on her children. How do you help a person, so desperate, to come to grips with life? When we are inwardly prayerful, God guides in our counseling. I said, "Well, if you can’t trust God, he is not mad at you. He is concerned about you; he is worried about one of his children who is all mixed up and suffering. He cares." Then another thought was given me. Knowing that she had some Christian background, I asked, "If you had lived in the time of Christ, if you had followed the multitudes of needy, sick people who followed him, if you had heard him speak, if you had seen him heal all kinds of people. if you had seen him forgive people broken in sin, if you had seen him pick up the little children in his arms, would you have trusted him? Would you have said in your heart, ‘This is someone who would not lead anyone into a blind alley. This is one who would not let you down’? Could you have trusted Jesus?"
A little light came into her face. And she said hesitantly, "Yes, I believe I could have trusted Jesus." I replied, "If you could have trusted Jesus, might you not trust the Father in heaven who gave us Jesus, who is back of Jesus, who shows us his love in Jesus?" Again, her reply was hesitantly positive. We had a prayer. She had started back into life. In a few weeks she was once more a normal person. She had found her faith again, and she could cope with the responsibilities that had been crushing her.
One of the great needs in life is being able to resist temptation. The call of the lesser life, the break with reality, can at times get a death hold upon us. Dr. Charles McKay, former President of Princeton Seminary, was, in his younger days, a missionary to Brazil. I heard him tell this story:
A young man in his little mission church on the edge of the Brazilian jungle had a real conversion to Christ. Formerly he had been a member of a rough robber gang. After conversion he totally broke with the old group.
Then one day the old gang showed up in the yard of his little cabin. They wanted him to join them for just one more job, a big one. His frightened wife watched from the little porch. She saw them beg, and John refuse. She saw them threaten, and John stand firm. Then she saw them call him a coward, say that he was yellow. She now saw John clench his fists, she saw the color come to his face, and she saw the veins swell in his neck. In desperation she cried out, "Remember Christ, John. Remember Christ!" Normal color returned to his cheeks, she saw his fists released, and the veins of his neck become relaxed. John took it. Under the sway of Christ, he took it.
We can handle life, when we do not try to handle it alone. It helps to remember that Christ faced everything we have to face. He side-stepped nothing.
With faith there comes a subconscious surge of energy to do the necessary thing. Faith is directed by prayer to specific needs. Through faith, specific prayer channels its energies directly to particular situations.
Our universe has judgment built into it. God made it so. We can depend on its structure. Build a building by the plumb line and it will stand. Fail to do so and it will fall. Build a life on integrity and it will stand. Fail to do so and it crashes about you. Build a business on honesty and it prospers. Fail to do so and it comes apart. Build a home on fidelity and real love and it endures. Fail in this and there is separation and sorrow. Build a nation on righteousness and it can lead the world. Build it on aggression, selfishness, and no moral commitment and it will fall, dragging other nations down with it.
Into such a universe God sent Christ to forgive us for the times we have broken with the structure of reality. Furthermore, God gives us Christ to enable us to move constructively within the limits of reality. Christ forgives our sins, and also sustains us in our struggle with life’s great demands. Faith in Christ releases enabling energy and guidance.
Recently my son, who is a seminary professor in the Midwest, had a young doctor come to him. The doctor said, "Tuttle, I have everything I’ve ever wanted. My practice is excellent. I have all the money I need. I have two cars and a lovely home. I have a wonderful wife and three beautiful children. Why do I want to blow my brains out?"
"It seems that all this has been your God," my son replied, "You’ve achieved all your goals. You’ve lived your life. It’s over. But before you end it all, I want you to try one thing. Turn the whole thing over to God: your practice, your self, your wealth, your home, your family. From now on, work not for yourself but for God. He has something great in mind for you. You will not just be fixing up sick bodies, you will be ministering to sick, frightened people, making them whole in body and spirit, by your medical skills and by the power of God’s love. You will never catch up, because God will lead you into new levels of healing and ministry. You will be thrilled by what you see in your patients’ faces. You will thank God daily for new life and joy. When we risk the whole business on God, it becomes then not merely a matter of coping: there will result a whole new surge of life and purpose."
The young doctor got the message and, in his desperation, took the dare. Now he has entered a glorious new phase of medicine. The Cross became for him a practical life principle.
There is Hope in the Cross - Hope for me!
God’s Agony on a Cross;
God’s Presence in Earth’s Darkness.
There is Hope in the Cross - Hope for me!
God’s Victory beyond the Cross;
God’s Light, God’s Life;
God’s Presence in the Eternal.
There is Hope in the Cross - Hope for me!
God’s head bowed down
God’s arms outstretched
God’s heart accepting me - Even me!
We have a God who knows the meaning of suffering, a God who has borne a cross himself. Here is a portion of a letter I received recently from a former parishioner who is obviously suffering from deep depression:
I am writing this letter to keep from going insane!
Every morning I wake up moaning and groaning!
I want to run away! But I am not even able to dress and pack, and I would never be able to get my belongings together.
But I’d rather die than live out the rest of my life here.
Actually I am dead. I can’t function here! I can’t even hardly wash my hair or take a bath! I dread washing my hair.
It is so quiet here I want to scream.
If only I had some money and somewhere to go.
I am so disorganized and disoriented ... I am so sick!
This person seems to have more than her share of problems, both inner and outer. She has had counseling without great success. I believe that lithium, properly administered, might change the picture for her.
I have recently completed reading a book by Ronald A. Fieve titled Moodswing. It is a very interesting study on depression, its highs and lows. Dr. Fieve quotes a patient:
"My lows started 15 years ago, when I started to be afraid of things in my business that had never bothered me before. I was afraid to give orders, I was afraid to reprimand an employee. I was afraid to be criticized by my superiors. I was afraid to get up in the morning to face my store. I was afraid to go to sleep. I couldn’t sleep nights. I couldn’t taste my food. I would go to work and then turn around and go home...
After being on lithium for five years it was like a new world in front of me. I enjoyed my work so much. I looked forward to the mornings so I could be at my store. I made decisions fast and right."
Dr. Fieve uses the Lithium-Carbonate treatment very effectively. But he warns against its dangers and makes it clear that the lithium level in a patient must be monitored constantly. Some sufferers from depression need to have a vital chemical balance restored; some need to be loved, and to discover a trust that will let their own body systems bring about healing. Christ knew that moodswings were often symptomatic of a deeper need for wholeness. He healed desperate people then, and still does.
All of us have problems. In every generation people do. One of life’s purposes is to solve problems, both personal and social. That is how we grow and become real persons. The Apostle Paul saw this with precise clarity: "I have learned to find resources in myself whatever my circumstances. I know what it is to be brought low, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have very thoroughly been initiated into the human lot with all its ups and downs - fullness and hunger, plenty and want. I have strength for anything through him who gives me power."
If we could share the faith of Paul, most of us would have no problem coping. Christ is an enabling Christ. But persons caught in the pressures of our secularized civilization go on from "burn-out" to "burn-out," and finally collapse. Christ came to change all this. And the Holy Spirit groans with us and for us "with groanings which cannot be uttered."
This power to heal and enable can be put in another way:
It was a naive but impressive tribute ... when Kenny Everett said about the "Peter Pan Christian," Cliff Richard, "I don’t know what he’s on, but it works!" (Derick Greeves, Expository Times)
I know what Paul "was on," and it works!
Behind Paul. we "look at that man on the cross and realize that behind the universe there is not a God who destroys the world but rather One who comes into it to reach out and try to make us healthy, to save us, to give us hope to keep going, who helps calm the storms and floods of our lives" (Dr. Henry Sawatzky).
There is infinite comfort in a verse by Ernesto Cardenal:
When the siren wails the last warning
You will be with me.
You will be my refuge
My strength and deep shelter.
It is strength to know that "every child of God can defeat the world."
A new Army recruit from my church was thrust suddenly into the cold, dark, arctic night in Thule, Greenland. From there he wrote me a letter: "Pastor, last night as I lay on my bunk in the dark, suddenly I saw how good God has been to me, how hard he has worked for me, how much he has done for me. Pastor, how can I pay him back?"
He had begun to answer his own question. He had discovered the source of his origin, his life, his guidance, his strength, his mission, his joy and his peace, and ultimately his destiny. He had glimpsed the Eternal.
The old hymn by John Neale throws out the challenge to all of us who struggle with the limitations of our human-ness.
Art thou weary,
Art thou troubled,
Art thou sore distressed?
"Come to me," saith One,
"And coming, be at rest."
Bruce Larson, in a recent book,[1] says, "Doctors have been telling me for years that ‘You can’t kill a happy man.’ " He continues, "Happy people rarely get sick and tend to recover quickly when they do get sick. The unhappy person is the target for any and every kind of illness." Larson goes on to share the secret of his ability to cope with life: "We Christians, of all people, have a good reason to hope. Hope is a gift of God based on the belief that God created us and is our friend and helper. If I believe in a God who cares about me and enters into my life, then my future is truly unlimited. If I am an accident of creation or a biological mistake, then I have no reason to think that I will be anything other than what I have always been. If I am God’s child, I can get my act together and begin to reverse what up to now may have been an unproductive and unpromising record."
Paul Tournier, who learned to cope with life and has taught thousands of others the secret of coping, writes: "Our attitude to life is always a reflection of our attitude to God. Saying ‘yes’ to God is saying ‘yes’ to life, to all its problems and difficulties." Tournier goes on to say, "God wills the development of all men. When from time to time he makes them hear his call to self-denial, to renunciation and even self-sacrifice, it is not for their impoverishment but for their enrichment."[2]
Leslie D. Weatherhead, the great English preacher of the last generation, describes a difficult incident in the life of a pastor and his secret of coping: He had come home from a difficult meeting, tired and disappointed. He dropped into his chair with deep bitterness in his blood. He wanted to write a letter to crush his opponent. Destructive and mean phrases began to form in his mind. He tried to pray, but didn’t really want to. He then tried an experiment: he relaxed in body and mind, and left the door of his mind swinging open. There was "a vague longing for the coming of the Friend," the Friend who understands, even when we are upset and not ourselves. It happened. The peace that passes understanding flooded his whole being, his mind. His mind was quieted. He didn’t see a Vision or hear a Voice, but the last thing he wanted to do at that moment was to write that destructive letter. To put it in Dr. Weatherhead’s own words, "There is only one explanation of such an experience. God’s greatest gift to man was given and accepted. The Friend came."[3]
Christ is in the garden. The disciples are asleep. He struggles alone. "Let this cup pass. Nevertheless Thy will be done." Will we ever have to face more than he has faced? The Father answered. Christ arose and faced the Roman soldiers. He stood his false trial with grand dignity. He endured the Cross, and completed his journey, whispering, "Father into thy hands I commend my spirit."
With Christ, I can handle anything I have to face; in the strength of Christ, I can cope.
1. Bruce Larson. There’s a Lot More to Health Than Not Being Sick, 1981, Word Books, Waco, Texas.
2. Paul Tournier. Reflections. Harper & Row, 1976, p. 109.
3. Leslie D. Weatherhead. The Transforming Friendship. Abingdon Press, 1931, p. 28.