Godgrown » Mark

You Meant Evil, God Meant Good

Mark — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:14:10 +0000

Israel has just died – a pinnacle and tragic moment for the story of God’s people. God has brought them into safety, but not without some torment. Specifically, Joseph – Israel’s favorite son, was beaten by his brothers and thrown into a pit. His life as the favorite son was absolutely trounced and upended all in one moment. But he was spared his life. He found his way to the highest place in all Egypt! What a comeback! And then his brothers and father, during a severe famine, made their way to Egypt to seek safety from starvation, where Israel is laid to rest.

Of course, the brothers are now scared that Joseph will punish them for their abuse and torture of him as a child. But Joseph is not like most younger brothers. He is not like most PEOPLE. Here’s why:

All of us have trauma from our past, just like Joseph. And we live it out in our present. I am no different – I react, and recoil from the triggers that go off whenever I am reminded of some painful memory (even if I don’t consciously remember what originally caused the pain.)

We may know that what we’re doing in reaction to today’s event is disproportionately elevating the importance of today’s event (“You left the socks on the floor AGAIN!!???!?”) We tell ourselves lies about ourselves, (“No one cares about me, just look at those socks on the floor!”) about God, (“What kind of God would create a world where socks are left on the floor!?”) and about those we close to us.

All of it is drawing on early life experiences, where demons have crept into our fragile, innocent hearts and replaced the truth with lies, clarity with deception.

But somehow – Joseph was able to overcome all that. It was certainly a trauma for him to be thrown by his own brothers into that pit, but as he faces his brothers in Genesis 50:20 he declares,

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

This is supernatural healing! This is the return from darkness, and into light! Some people in Joseph’s place might have made it out of that pit physically, but mentally and spiritually they allow themselves to remain stuck in that pit for the rest of their lives. To make matters worse, they won’t rest until everyone is in that pit with them!

My question is: “Are traumas and the resulting “triggers” permanent, or can we overcome them?”

I have to rely on God’s Word here, and throughout the Bible – we can return from darkness, trauma, pain, and move to light, freedom, and salvation. This is the “working out of our salvation,” the “binding up the strong man,” the Satan speaking lies in our hearts. And yet, if we try to do this salvation work on our own, if we set out to “bind the strong man” we will lose! We will end in frustration (others had to help Joseph out of his pit, and beyond human intervention, and God was there guiding Joseph forward).

But maybe the most important part of Joseph’s tale is how he views his own story. He knows that it wasn’t his doing that got him to where he is today, it was “God who meant it for good…” Out of this new narrative, Joseph is able to “speak kindly” to his brothers, the very ones who had plotted his destruction many years ago. Joseph was able to see clearly, while his brothers were still trapped in fear of their brother’s punishment. Joseph saw that God had used a horrific situation and used it to bring hope and healing to many people during a drastic famine.

Take stock of your memories. Mark my words, they are taking stock of you.

Take your painful experiences to the LORD, and ask him to give you new lenses through which to view your story!

It’s the difference of giving hope and life to many others, or sitting stuck in your own pit.

Rotting Food is Okay

Mark — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:03:34 +0000

Reading from John 6:27: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you…

Yesterday as with most weeks, we picked up our produce box, and upon bringing it home, we began putting the fresh produce away into the fridge. As usual, there were one or two old, limpy-looking goods from the previous week we had to take out of the fridge to throw away. I always get frustrated when this happens – I watch as money we’ve worked hard to earn gets put in the trash as merely rotting food. What a waste, what futility! What is the point of such hard work and toil!? This passage above says that there is a food that perishes, and an eternal food. How do I work for this better, eternal food? How will the Son of Man give it to me?

“What must we do, to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

It is WORK to believe. To believe is to WORK. How profound – I take this to mean that we are fighting and striving…not to reach salvation, not to win over converts and have the best apologetic argument…but to simply believe. It is a struggle, like all work it can wear you out. But this is the paradigm-altering, mind-bending, heart-wrenching work of belief. The belief that there is a God. That this God is conscious and aware of the plight of a tiny blue planet. That this God is benevolent and infinitely interested in the welfare of the human race. That this God attempts for thousands of years to regain an intimacy first intended and experienced between Creator and created, to only meet resistance and failure at every step. Finally, this is the work of believing that this God sends his very self into the finite man, Jesus Christ, offering a pathway back to intimacy.

This has ramifications for my day job by the way. It changes how I work out my beliefs in the marketplace. My work for eternal food affects my work for temporal food. Now I’m not so bothered by food when it perishes, I’m not undone when I see markets tumble or housing prices collapse. My life’s worth is no longer wrapped up in my job, and if I lose my job, I am not without identity and intimacy…I am not without belief.

Work to believe. Work to trust. Seek first the Kingdom and his Righteousness, and all these things will be added to you!

The Strands in Your Web

Mark — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:27:03 +0000

We’ve all been there.

Look back over your life and remember the last time you fully experienced passion - something that caught your heart by surprise, gave you purpose – a sense of mission and higher calling. Put that feeling of conviction and excitement in your mind? Okay – good, read on…

Now, if you can, think back to the moment when that passion was first doubted. When did you go from pure certitude to…maybe an unmet expectation, or conflicting evidence of how you understood how things should work? When, after receiving that divine sense of calling, did you run up against someone of importance in your life who disagreed with you or even sought to stop you in your tracks? Maybe it was a parent subtly but condescendingly pushing you away from your intended college major and into something they wanted for you. Maybe it was a boss dismissing your dreams for the future of your business as misguided.

How did you respond to that first bite of doubt? That sting of original uneasiness with your own beliefs?

Hebrews 11:24 –

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 27†By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

What happens to a person who has seen “him who is invisible?” For Moses, it was after 40 years of shame and isolation, away from his Israelite family, exiled from Egypt — an exiled prince! — he had every right to be in the royal family, but he has a passion - he had a reason to buck the trend…

…and it cost him all the status quo due him in life, but that made all the difference.

He was not focused on the anger of the king, on the doubt of his Egyptian subordinates, or his Israelite brothers, sisters, cousins… He was fixed on the passion, the original passion that found him in the wilderness – he had such a sense of his own calling, of his own intimacy with that calling, that nothing and no one would stir his fear or doubt.

We all go through life with a web of convictions – some stronger than others. As we learn more about the world and how it works, certain strands in the web are broken, new ones are formed (i.e. as a child, we learn that we cannot fly when we jump off the stairs in a cape). This process continues all throughout life, and its an important part of building a cohesive sense of TRUTH in the world.

But what strands CAN’T be broken? Are they all susceptible to pressures from the outside – from the wind and debris that inevitably blows through our fragile webs? I feel that I want to be stronger than that – on certain things – I am learning what those things are – and resolving myself to those certain strands help me allow less important strands to be let go of – opening my heart and mind further to the truth of things.

Its all about becoming passionate about the right strands in your web – choose wisely, and you’ll have passion your whole life long.