hughbiquitous

I’ve been discouraged a lot lately.

Here’s the latest link in my dark chain: yesterday, I was mildly irritated to wake up and discover one of my kids in the bed. Not a big deal by any means, but still, it was one of those “that’s not right” moments that gets your day off on the wrong foot.

A few hours later, I got a prayer request for a family whose only child—a sixth-grader—died. Her grieving mom wrote, “i held my precious baby today as she drew her last breath… to know that my precious girl is not sleeping in her bed, won’t be coming down this morning to jump in my lap, kiss me good morning, tell me she loves me, is killing me. i am rocked to my very core.”

While this poor mother will never again wake up to her daughter’s greeting, I’m getting annoyed at mine for being there when I woke up. Stupid, blind, ungrateful, proud, selfish fool! I hold myself in contempt… I repent… God have mercy on me, a sinner!

It’s not supposed to work that way… parents shouldn’t have to bury their children. It’s not supposed to be this way! Death is entirely alien, unnatural, and unwelcome. We have eternity in our hearts, but mortality in our flesh. The tension is unbearable. Chalk it up to sin, folks, and it’s a far bigger problem than any of us realizes. “The wages of sin is death,” and there’s a grieving mother and father paying up this week.

But John Piper—God bless him—gives me a handhold at times like these. He’s offered the following advice on how to fight for joy, advice which closely mirrors the content of his excellent book, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy…

1. Realize that authentic joy in God is a gift.

2. Realize that joy must be fought for relentlessly.

3. Resolve to attack all known sin in your life.

4. Learn the secret of gutsy guilt - how to fight like a justified sinner.

5. Realize that the battle is primarily a fight to see God for who he is.

6. Meditate on the Word of God day and night.

7. Pray earnestly and continually for open heart-eyes and an inclination for God.

8. Learn to preach to yourself rather than listen to yourself.

9. Spend time with God-saturated people who help you see God and fight the fight.

10. Be patient in the night of God’s seeming absence.

11. Get the rest, exercise, and proper diet that your body was designed by God to have.

12. Make a proper use of God’s revelation in nature.

13. Read great books about God and biographies of great saints.

14. Do the hard and loving thing for the sake of others (witness and mercy).

15. Get a global vision for the cause of Christ and pour yourself out for the unreached.

But for now I think it’s sufficient to quote another line of Piper’s… “Hug and cry first, give God-centered explanations later.“