How Are You?

 Who knew that an honest answer could elicit a tongue lashing? One that leaves the recipient stunned?

Attending an event to which church leaders were invited, I met a number of pastors and ministers from around the region. Some I only knew by 'face', and others whose name I knew but not the face. I like meeting new people - especially persons who attend churches different from mine (as well as those God brings me to). Yet, that day, I was introduced to a minister I had seen various times and was encouraged to know that she had received 'clergy' status and was the lead minister of a church of the denomination to which I belonged. 

She asked me, "How are you?" I responded with my usual concise, "I'm well enough! And you?" Instead of sharing her present state of being, she lashed out at me because I said I'm well enough. She expressed that such an answer was a slur on God, who has given me life, who has been my God and Father, and on and on and on. To be honest, my first thought was that she missed an important class in seminary on listening to the heart and not just the words. But then I felt bad for her for she was clearly holding on to something deep inside. As she self-righteously stomped off after 'putting me in my place' and has kind of snubbed or treated me as if I were less than or semi-antichrist or something whenever we pass each other at events, I have not been able to actually get a moment with her to help her understand why I answered as I did. She is in a hurry. She's never asked me for an explanation. Hmmm. So I pray for her.

But, if she had, or if she could stop long enough for me to share with her, she might comprehend why I responded to her "How are you?" as I did. I was not slurring God nor misrepresenting Him. In truth, I was without her realizing it, giving God the glory. To the indiscernible my simple "well enough" apparently requires some further explanation. Apparently.

I have lived through many episodes and years where I was not well physically in a number of ways (that is still the case), one-half inch close to a full-on nervous breakdown. I was in a place where I harbored murderous thoughts (before Jesus called me), in a time when I was spiritually in a coma, and many other awful things that would shock in their revelation. Following the world as I was, I thought I could deliver myself through the latest panaceas going around. 

Until, like Balaam, the donkey stopped. 

Despite my own self-deception, I could not save myself from those situations, and many a day I did not even want to try. But God! In His time and Providence, He called me from the ashes, He lifted me up and raised me to life in Christ! Even after living more than half my life in a spiritually deeply comatose condition, God called me in the dawn of my senior years. He claimed me. I was made anew spiritually and will probably still endure that struggle with the agony of the flesh as long as I live in this earthly body. I know from whence my help comes. Even when my G.I. and/or neural disorders are at their peak and I want to scream in pain or writhe in agony, I know He walks with me. I am well enough because I know this is not forever, but each day God makes me well enough to serve Him in some way, and to do His will even in a broken body and scarred heart, mind and psyche. He makes me well enough so that even in searing pain, and weak moments of sliding into self-pity, He gives me grace to 'stand' and do His will. He makes me well enough to have His joy and love in my life. He makes me well enough to walk and move - even if it is a struggle. He makes me well enough so that I can thank Him in all things because I know this is not my future. He makes me well enough to remember how Jesus brutally suffered so that He could bring me to His Father. So, I am well enough because my God gives me power and the strength of His grace while I live with the thorn 'embedded in my side.' I can do all things because God lives in me. I am well enough because He has given me more love, more mercy, and more grace than I ever deserved. I have never forgotten when 'well', let alone 'well enough' would not have been the truth about who I was and what I was and where I was. And, yes, like with Paul and with David, God will allow those whom He loves to experience times, maybe even seasons, of pain and fear. Not because He hates us or is oblivious, but because He knows us better than we know ourselves. He allows the pain because with each prick, jab, and lightning bolt, I draw closer to Him and praise Him with words and song because He inhabits the praise of His people and I keep praising Him, and ask for forgiveness when I feel myself starting to open my mouth in complaint. Paul calls it a "temporary affliction" and rightly so. And I immediately impress those words on myself over and over again - especially when the Excedrin or other pain killer will not work, nor the anointed oil. God just wants me as I am in my rawness so that He can comfort me, He can ease the pain, He can put the smile on my face while the tears roll down my cheeks. So that He can give me glimpses of heaven as He holds me close. 

I am well enough because of Him! Only because of Him.

Because He loves me beyond what I can hope, think or imagine, I am well enough. No longer condemned. No longer ashamed. No longer a captive to the effects of sin in and on my body. I am well enough by His grace. Someday, when I transition to the glorious body that awaits me, I will transition to the promise of a perfect body and perfect heart. O what a Savior who holds me in my brokenness, and will someday soon (comparatively) hold my hand and lead me to the perfect place He has planned for me from before the foundation of the world! Lord, I have seen thy salvation!  

So, when I answer with a politely concise, "I am well enough," please stop long enough and ask me what do I mean. I will then share the Gospel with you as I explain why I am now well enough. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health - Dr. Donald S. Whitney Study, Question 5

 

“Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health,” Donald S. Whitney. 2001. NavPress
Question 5:  Do You Have a Growing Concern for the Spiritual and Temporal Needs of Others? (Notes, Excerpts and Highlights from Chapter 5)

Some may ask “what does this have to do with being spiritually healthy? Besides, isn’t having growing concern for the spiritual needs of others what priests and elders are supposed to do?” 

Although at one time it was not the case, in the last decade or two, some persons who are members of denominations that are more conservative find that financially supporting Christian charities is the answer to Question 5. And they need it. Recent reports show that financial contributions to charities are down – when so much help is needed most – due to the changes emanating from the U.S. 2017 tax law, which significantly impacted lower and middle class taxpayers by essentially eliminating charity deductions. The deductions allowed for a better return on taxes, which money became a donation vehicle to continue supporting multiple charities. It always has, but now more than before, it requires more faith and reliance on God’s provision to maintain or at least approach the levels of giving in light of the diminishing returns that previously helped to supplement sacrificial giving.  

But, even so, is financial giving the end all and be all of meeting temporal needs? One theologian opined that this is where our gospel practice falls short, and actually wrote a book on this topic entitled, “The Hole in Our Gospel.” There are parts of Christendom for whom direct engagement with the community is less popular than providing funds or supplies to the charities within the communities and parishes of their church building. Yet, how else will we show visibly who we are and whose we are?  

The Church – the universal body of Christ – during its earlier days was distinctive in doing just that. Even though it was dangerous in some places to openly worship and be identified with Christ, nevertheless, note this observation by Greek philosopher Aristides, who became Christian, when defending the Christian faith: “They love one another. The widow’s needs are not ignored, and they rescue the orphan from the person who does him violence. He who has gives to him who has not, ungrudgingly and without boasting.” In the early Church, members of local assemblies or congregations or local churches made as a part of how they worshiped God and imitated Christ the ministry of sharing to meet the needs of others as seen in Acts 4:32-35. The increasing size of The Church in those earliest years would require a more structured assurance of care and charity to be instituted per Acts 6:1-7, to ensure that meeting the temporal needs of others was to be the norm. In that earliest time, a cadre of believers, under the direction of the apostles, formed the first formal group of the Church’s social ministry overseen by faithful and ardent believers who would come to be recognized as deacons; this motif would be replicated in other local churches as the gospel continued to reach others. But that approach did not rule out anyone else – even preachers and elders – from showing the same concern. (see Paul’s report at Galatians 2:9-10) James, noted leader of the first century Church and brother of the Lord, would be inspired to write in his letter at chapter 1, verses 22 and 27: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” For some centuries after the apostles went on to be with Jesus, The Church was the primary source of organized hands-on charitable programs within their communities – including supporting the establishment of or establishing its own hospitals and medical societies, widows and orphan charities and homes, and programs to address the needs of the poor.   

Within the last century or so (per my preliminary research), some of the societies became independent of the Church either due to lack of funding or lack of consistent assistance and hands-on support from members and worship communities for whatever reason. Yet, there are still denominations whose members provide either financially, hands-on (or both) support to the charitable work in the communities through organizations like Daughters of the King, Catholic Charities, United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), Islamic Relief and Jewish Coalition for Relief (JCR), National Episcopal Church Women, Episcopal Development, the Protestant Church’s Salvation Army, Baptist Charities, to name a few. Smaller churches in smaller communities may also cooperate in ecumenical or interfaith activities for the purpose of providing hands-on charitable help and disaster relief. Recent studies show, per the author that, nevertheless, evangelicals as a whole typically tend to put more time, money, and prayers into labors of missions and evangelism than in social ministries. Sometimes, he notes, just the opposite happens – more concern is shown for physical and material needs, while the gospel goes unshared. James, again, writing to the Jewish people in the Diaspora as brothers and sisters: “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?” In other words, sharing the gospel -- written or oral -- without meeting an urgent physical need profits no one, especially the one on the receiving end. Preaching to persons who haven’t eaten much of anything for days and expecting from them a focused response to your sermon, or even worse, telling them that if they sit still for a sermon or become a member of that church then you will be rewarded with a meal or help, is a form of extortion and does not match up with how Jesus served those who came to Him.  

The author of “Ten Questions” states: “Christianity is a religion of concern for others.” When this book was published, it was said that, of all the religions of the world, Christianity has no parallel when it comes to demonstrating concern for people and for their needs.[i] When we look at the accounts of Jesus’ ministry to the crowds, we read stories like the one at Mark 6:34-44. His preaching was feeding their souls and His grace fed their bellies. Look also at how Jesus responds to others who were not necessarily committed to Him, but who were created by Him: Luke 7:1-15.  

Followers of Christ know the words of Jesus in describing His greater mission in the Incarnation: “I have come that they may have life.” His primary concern was the permanent healing and restoration that could only be accomplished through Him providing Himself as a perfect sacrifice to redeem the lives of those lost due to the “sin estate” inherited from Adam. And we, His followers, are to have the same concern for those enslaved by sin, whether they know they are or not, by sharing compassion and kindness through the gospel transformation of our own hearts and soul. There is hurt in every heart and home (a saying is that if we live long enough, we’ll see or experience several hurts, and even grief).  

Putting on the “gospel lenses” of Christ, notes Mr. Whitney, we have the opportunity to look around us – in our neighborhoods, workplace, our classrooms, our church, our families, with the filter of “What are his/her/their spiritual needs?” Then, “What are his/her/their temporal needs?” By looking with these filters, we may be able to see the needs with sharper focus, and which – by God’s grace and our willingness – we may be able to address or meet. We must individually and corporately ask God, “What can we do?” Sometimes the needs are very obvious – people who need yard work done, transportation to doctor’s appointments and shopping, snow removal, meals, and who would benefit from a call where you may share Bible readings with one another, or when it is safe, to bring communion to shut-ins, or – like in our worship community – to take the communion sets to shut-ins so that they may participate in Holy Communion during the remote service. Or the needs may be “invisible”; as we continue to offer ourselves to God to be Christ for others, God will direct us to those who need to hear from or be helped by us. Do not sit passively waiting for someone to ask us to help in a ministry or to support efforts to help others within the greater community of the church’s building. As we grow more like Jesus, we will see ministry to temporal needs not as competing with but as complementing, the meeting of spiritual needs! No one indwelt by the Holy Spirit can remain unfeeling towards either the temporal or spiritual needs of others. Therefore, as persons indwelt by God’s Spirit, desire deeply to be more Christ-like in this area of our lives. One of the things we will experience is an incomparable soul joy and assurance that we have been Christ to someone. As is recorded at Matthew 25:31-46, with our gospel lenses, let us look for Christ in others and ask God to direct us to help others through His enabling power in us. 

*The foregoing represents my personal reflections on a study by Dr. Donald S. Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. (2001. By Donald S. Whitney. NAVPRESS. ISBN 978-1-61747-187-2) Quotations and excerpts are from that source, unless otherwise identified. For the 2023 Lenten season I provided these thoughts to my local congregation's Bible study group. The questions are not, however, constrained by a particular liturgical season, holiday, or age group: these are questions every Christian may find useful in fulfilling God's command at 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test!" The church at Corinth looked a lot like many of our churches today. 

 

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[i] The author, Mr. Whitney, includes in this chapter examples of “need-meeters” that included the Swiss reformer Huldreich (Ulrich) Zwingli who worked to turn monasteries into orphanages in the 16^th century; George Whitefield, who in the 18^th century devoted much of his income to the development of an orphanage in colonial Georgia, and William Wilberforce in the late 18^th to early 19^th century who persevered for decades in the British Parliament to begin the modern movement to end slavery. William Carey, an English missionary in the late 18^th to early 19^th centuries, was responsible for outlawing the centuries-old practices of child sacrifice and widow burning in India. George Muller in the 19^th century, who was a great champion of prayer and faith, recorded more than 50,000 specific answers to prayer in his journals, which focused on glorifying God by providing the means to feed, clothe, house, and educate up to 2,000 orphans in Bristol, England. “The Lord was pleased to channel tens of millions of dollars through Muller’s hands, though he never made known his own needs to anyone but God. Charles H. Spurgeon, also 19^th century, built more than 17 homes for elderly widows and an orphanage for hundreds of children of all races and backgrounds, and eventually started and/or presided over 66 ministry organizations which served the poorer parts of London – many of which were funded directly by Spurgeon. 

Mr. Whitney states that the missionary work by Christians will most often include not only teaching the gospel but also living the gospel by establishing medical, educational and relief for the poor.

Well-known organizations of today that benefit from the models set through the persons mentioned above include: World Vision, Food For The Poor, Doctors Without Borders and Mercy Ships, Compassion International, Catholic Relief Services, the United Methodist Comm. On Relief, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Samaritan’s Purse, and locally, Central Union Mission.