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!

Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst For Righteousness, For They Will Be Filled

 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Sometimes preachers may use this phrase to support their prosperity gospel, a false teaching that promises material riches once you become a Christian. Or, you may have heard people quote only a portion of it – Blessed are those who hunger and thirst…for they will be filled. They distort Jesus’ words to mean that all poor people will be blessed with an abundance of food and drink because they are poor. Such teaching has misled thousands![i]  I am going to safely assume that the majority of those who read this write-up have known true, deep physical hunger – a kind of physical hunger and thirst that has long hoped for any food and water, and will desperately eat dirt and non-potable water to satisfy the pain of hunger and thirst. Some of the people Jesus spoke to on the Mount were physically hungry and thirsty so, no doubt, their ears perked up when Jesus made that statement. Some of them may have been present when Jesus fed the 5,000. 

As a single mother early into my wage-earning season, I knew a physical hunger that I had never experienced before: my earnings did not go far, and no matter how frugal I was, it was very difficult financially to put nutritious meals on the table everyday after paying rent, and transportation to work. So I chose to not eat dinner many nights so that my children would have leftovers to eat the rest of the week. I would sometimes walk the 3 or 4 miles to get to the city where I could get on the bus to work without paying the additional toll for riding into the city from out of state. It would be more than a year or so before I could get financially steady enough to be able to afford a continued stock pantry and refrigerator. 

But was this the hunger and thirst Jesus was speaking about? No, for Jesus says: “who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Have you ever wanted to go somewhere or do something so much that you could “taste” it? That’s the level of hunger and thirst Jesus is figuratively talking about. What does hungering and thirsting for righteousness mean? In the Bible righteousness refers to God’s justice and His supreme knowledge, standard, and character of what is right; God’s Righteousness is also called Jesus Christ! Jesus’ primary concern for His listeners was spiritual; He was focused on the heart, mind, and soul of His hearers. They had been so oppressed for so long by the legal demands of the teachers of the Old Law that God’s righteousness was muted. And then the Roman authorities were even more oppressive, discriminatory, grossly unfair, and considered the Jewish people to be of less value. The people needed Jesus to tell them about God and His righteousness and justice – His goodness, His love, and so revive in them the stories of their forefathers who were faithful to that God. Having that hunger and thirst stirred up in them would give them a strong desire to know the God Jesus preached, the one King David sang about all the time. 

In the Bible there is a story about a person who had that happen to her: Do you know the story of the Samaritan woman at the well? You’ve got to read it! It is in John 4, verses 1-30, and 39-42. The dialogue is priceless! Jesus intentionally happens to be there when she came to the well to draw water. She was not with the ‘cool group’ – many of the women of the town would not associate with her because of her lifestyle. After Jesus speaks to her and tells her about her life to her face, instead of being insulted, she felt amazed to be in the presence of a prophet like Him! Jesus turned her daily trek to fetch water into an epiphany of sorts for her, for she, along with others in the Samaritan town, were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the foretold Messiah – The One Who is to Come. When Jesus reveals Himself to her, her hunger and thirst for an encounter with the long foretold Messiah is sated; she is in awe that such as He would reveal Himself to such as her! So much so that she runs back to town, leaving her water jar – a valuable piece of property, to tell her friends that she has met The Messiah. Have you ever been that excited to hear Jesus' words? Have you ever been that excited about something that you stopped everything you were doing in order to tell someone what just happened?  She hungered and thirst to see and know God’s righteousness both in the flesh and in deliverance. She got both. She was more than sated, she was filled to overflowing. She would now never need to “thirst” again.


Explore

1.     Asking the question again: Have you ever been as excited as the Samaritan woman about something amazing that caused you to stop everything you were doing in order to tell someone what just happened? What was it and who did you tell?

2.     Do we know what it feels like to deeply hunger and thirst for God and His justice or righteousness (in the Bible the words 'justice' and 'righteousness' are used interchangeably)? Why do you answer that way?

3.     Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that He is the well of Living Water; in the book of Revelation, He provides saving waters (see Revelation 21:6 and Revelation 22:17). Have you ever heard before about Jesus being Living Water and/or providing saving waters? What do you think about that?

4.     Have you ever personally experienced Jesus as Living Water or Water of Life? If so, were you “filled to overflowing”?  

[i] [i]One of the Church's duties is to help others in distress when and where it can. Compare James 1:27.
 

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Bonus - "Jireh" - by Maverick City; "O Come to the Altar," Trey McLaughlin and SOZ