Reflections on Hardship 2

In my last post I reflected on what God's purposes are in the hardships faced by His children. We are running the race of life, the purpose of which is to share in God's holiness. The writer to the Hebrews tells us to "endure hardship as discipline" (Hebrews 12:7). God is disciplining us to run the race with perseverance, to keep on running.

I referred to a helpful hymn by John Newton, which soulfully acknowledges that God often answers our prayers for a deeper relationship with Him in ways that are often confusing and painful. It's worth repeating the last verse of the hymn, in which Newton shows what he believes is God's reply to his complaints about his temptation and inner suffering:

"These inward trials I employ,

From self, and pride, to set thee free;

And break thy schemes of earthly joy,

That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

But there is a deeper purpose. If we find our all in God, through Christ, then we glorify God. When we draw from Him everything we need, and when we realise that everything that we really need is in God, we magnify the Creator, we magnify His grace and His love and His power. As John Piper, of Desiring God Ministries, has often said, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." And God's deepest concern is that His glory be seen and appreciated.

So I have a further reflection. A few days after I posted the previous article, sharing my long unemployment and the hardships I was feeling, I managed to secure some work that could keep me occupied full-time for up to a year. I may say more about that job in the future. Suffice to say for the moment, it is located such that it involves a huge amount of commuting and staying away from home, so I am feeling as if one kind of hardship has been graciously replaced by another! It's as if I've graduated from one kind of exercise, under God's training, to another!

Does that sound ungrateful?

Well, consider this: When I communicated my new job to my friends and family, there was an overflow of joy. The comments of my Christian friends were all variations of "Praise the Lord!" or "Hallelujah!" Not many of my status updates on facebook draw much comment. But when I posted my news, the amount of praise for God for His goodness that was posted as comments was overwhelming.

It made me think, if I had moved straight from my last job into a new job without an 8 month gap, would it have prompted so much praise? I don't think so. Therefore, that difficult time of unemployment has resulted in more praise to God! And more praise to God is pleasing to God.

Now, at times I confess that I have complained to God that He does not seem to answer my prayers. I read Jesus' promise that, "If you ask for anything in my name, it will be given to you." And - forgive me, Lord - quite often I have laughed! "I have prayed for months for a job, in order to feed my family, and you say that you care about me and will answer my prayers!"

But I guess I conveniently forgot the times I have prayed, "Hallowed be your Name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done!" I have asked the Lord on many occasions to glorify Himself through me.

So my sin is shown up yet again, because what I'm really praying is, "Glorify yourself in me, but in my way!" Without knowing it, our prayers are often out of line with our underlying good desire to glorify God. We think so simplistically!

So I have learned (until I need to learn it again) to praise God for finding me paid employment, but also to praise Him for unemployment because He has graciously used me to bring Him more praise. And therefore I will not be ungrateful for a job that brings other hardships, because I know that He has a good purpose in that too, and that He will again bring praise to Himself through it - and that is good. I may not always show that gratitude in everything I say and do, any more than a record breaking athlete looks like he is enjoying his training! But deep down I have to learn every day to trust the Lord, knowing that because He cares about His own glory He also cares for me. He not only gives us everything we need to live and serve Him, but He gives us more than that - He gives us Himself.

"… I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil 4:11ff)

Reflections on Hardship

I have been reflecting on hardship quite a bit recently.

My own particular hardship has been unemployment, having had only three days of paid work in the last seven months or more. When I think about it, unemployment has followed me ever since I left university in the midst of the last recession in 1991. Back then it took me 14 months after graduating with an honours degree in Maths and Accounting to eventually start my training in an accountancy practice. Since then I have been made redundant three times. The last time was at the end of 2007, and my jobs since then have been temporary assignments. The last one finished seven and a half months ago.

Let me tell you, in case you were in any doubt - unemployment sucks! You can easily get bored and lazy. There is only so much time you can spend rewriting your CV and responding to job adverts without going crazy. There are also only so many DIY jobs you can do without feeling you are turning into an unpaid handyman. After a while your confidence starts to wane and there is a grave risk of giving up your career, no matter how successful you may have thought you were before. Money worries creep in, and can take over, especially if you didn't get (much of) a settlement. And when the money worries creep in you start falling out with your spouse over how you spend your time and what is right to spend money on. It is not pleasant at all.

And yet I've been struck by what the Bible has to say about suffering and hardship for believers. I'll outline just a few of my many thoughts on this in a moment, but first I want to deal with something that I have seen crop up a few times recently among fellow-believers who have been going through hardship and suffering.

Is suffering and hardship God's way of punishing us (even as believers) for not living the way he wants us to? I have heard at least one dear friend say this after suffering a series of crushing emotional blows. And I have to admit that over the past ten years or so I have had a tendency to think the same way about my own hardships.

And yet this is such an incredibly wrong way of thinking, and this dawned on me only this year after reading Stand by John Piper and You Can Change by Tim Chester. It's not that I didn't know the Bible teaching - I have been a Christian more than 25 years, read the Bible cover to cover several times, listened to hundreds of sermons, read many great Christian books. And yet I had not let the truth sink into my thinking.

The truth is this: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.…."

"… What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
'For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8)

God does punish our sin. He did it when the Son of God was hanging on the cross with nails through His hands and feet and God's wrath was poured out on Him for the sins of His people. The awful truth is that God does punish sin, and those who refuse to put their faith in Jesus Christ still face that punishment now and at the Judgment Day. But for those who repent and believe in Jesus, our punishment has fallen on Jesus already and we stand forgiven.

Our sins have been dealt with by Jesus, so there is no punishment left for us to face. That is the point of what Jesus did on the cross. So we ought not to think, as believers, that our hardships are God's way of punishing our sins. If I think that, what exactly was it that I believe Christ did on the cross?

So God is for us, nothing can separate us from his love in Chris Jesus our Lord. He is no longer standing over us in judgment with punishment and the threat of eternal punishment. Punishment for us has finished, it has been removed for ever through Jesus' amazing work.

So if our hardships are not God's punishment, what are they? What do they mean? That is where Hebrews 12 helps us.

Hebrews 12:7ff says, "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

I'd say we have to think about this discipline on two levels, because notice that the writer to the Hebrews does not say "endure hardship as punishment"! Discipline is something different.

Actually that's not strictly true. In the preceding verses the writer to the Hebrews says, "And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
'My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.'

Actually the Greek word for "punishes" used here can also mean "whips". So God whips those he accepts as a son!

However, there is a valid point, since the word "punish" is used once, but the word "discipline" is used nine times or more in the passage. So this punishment is part of the way God disciplines us as sons. It's not a judicial punishment, such as we would get from God as our Judge. And it's not the full picture of the discipline we undergo.

First, as a parent I know that when I punish my children when they do something wrong - when I give them time-out or take away their pocket money or make them do chores or give them a smack or whatever - I am not giving them a full judicial punishment. I am expressing the fact that wrong deeds and words have bad consequences, and they should avoid them not only to please me but to please their Heavenly Father. I am creating consequences to lovingly teach them how to follow the Lord, so that they avoid worse consequences. All this has to be in a context of forgiveness for true repentance, and a gracious commitment to their good. As the writer to the Hebrews says, "a father disciplines the son whom he loves."

Secondly, the word "discipline" (I hope this is borne out by the Greek original, because I am no Greek scholar and I don't want to be misled by the English translation) has other connotations. The beginning of Hebrews 12 is talking about a race, throwing off every hindrance so that we can run freely. And the end of verse 11 speaks of being "trained" by the discipline he's been talking about.

Every athlete knows about discipline in training. So the other way to understand our hardships is as training, not necessarily in response to anything wrong we have done.

One of my sons wants to play for Arsenal one day, and I've told him that if that's what he wants then he will have to be disciplined. He has to get the right amount of sleep, eat the right food, do exercises to improve his fitness, speed, strength and stamina, and such like. Fine, he thinks, until I tell him he has to do press ups at seven o'clock in the morning, or until I tell him he can't stay up late the night before a match, or tell him to cut down on eating junk food. These things are hard, they don't feel pleasant at the time, but the disciplines will help him in the long run to be a better footballer and maybe achieve his dream. (I'm exaggerating, by the way, for effect - I don't really tell him to do press ups at 7am every day!)

So it's like this with our hardships. God gives them to us both to teach us what things are right and wrong, to correct our behaviour, and to train and instruct us and make us fit to run the race better. And the goal of the race is God Himself, His glory and holiness (v10). He strips away, through hardships, everything that hinders us from running the race with perseverance.

So for the writer to the Hebrews our hardships actually prove God's love for us, rather than allowing us to question God's love for us. Persevering in the faith can seem hard and sometimes we do, for many reasons, "grow weary and lose heart" (v3). But through this hardship God is actually helping us and strengthening us to run the race and get to the finish line.

And that, in a nutshell, is why if you do a word study in the Bible, or specifically the New Testament, and look for words like "hardship" or "suffering" or "trials" you will find words like "joy" or "glory" very close in the context. The Bible writers, speaking God's Words, see suffering and hardship as something to find joy in, because these things show God's love for us. They help us to strip away the sinful and extraneous things (even if not in themselves sinful) that slow us down in the race that really matters.

There is so much more to say here, but I will leave you to do that word search/study yourself, and profit from it.

I want to share with you the words of John Newton's little known hymn/poem. When I saw it I thought that it exactly reflected I feel at times. I prayed for humility and a closer walk with God, and all I seemed to get was trials, temptations and hardships. It always brings a tear to my eye, as I realize how far I am from truly understanding and appreciating what is important to God, and as I wonder how much more discipline I'll need before I really get the final line.

"I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
“’Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

John Newton, 1725-1807

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:1-3)

I know I must run the race with perseverance, so I pray, "Lord, please help me to run with race with perseverance." And so then he says, "OK, Andrew, I love you very much, so here are some hardships to help you to get better at running that race." Be careful what you pray for!

But finally I just want everyone to know that knowing these truths does not completely take away the emotional turmoil. I still have times where my confidence is gone, and I have no belief that I am ever going to earn any money ever again. I start to believe that I am unemployable. I lose sleep. But then I remember Paul saying, in Philippians 4:6-7, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

And you know what? The more I have to remind myself of verses like these, the more I have to go in search of them to find comfort, the more I have to plead with God in prayer… the closer I get to God because I am communicating with Him more. "These inwards trials I employ, from self, and pride, to set thee free; And break thy schemes of earthly joy, that thou may'st find thy all in Me."

Reflections on hard work and natural talent

There are two things that strike me:

A naturally gifted or talented person is a mesmerizing sight, whether it be a young footballer who could do amazing tricks with the ball from the moment they first kicked it, or the young musician who is a virtuoso at a very young age. These are the people who make your jaw drop in amazement.

On the other hand, I am also struck by the amount that can be achieved through sheer hard work and determination.

Sometimes natural talent can make you lazy, and hard work can compensate for a shortage of raw talent.

I hope my brother does not mind me saying this, but I have always reflected on our similarities in interests, but our differences in character. He is 16 months younger than me and in our teens I was the one who pioneered, while Ben followed. I taught myself the guitar and the piano, so a couple of years later so did Ben. I started to write songs, so a couple of years later so did Ben. I started to do primitive recordings of my songs, and then Ben followed. By the time I was 18 and he was 16 we both wanted to do something in the field of music.

However, we were different in two respects, in my view. I believe I started with a bit more raw talent in music, so I found the initial stages of learning instruments easier. Ben, on the other hand, took longer to master the skills. I remember when he first started the guitar that I was amazed that he couldn’t hear when his guitar was slightly out of tune, and he couldn’t keep a good rhythm all the time.

On the other hand, Ben had more determination and perseverance than me. When I tried to do A Level Music, I found that I hated it and found it really really difficult – more difficult than I had ever found Music in the previous years. I hated the 20th Century Atonal and NeoClassical stuff we had to study, and for some reason I just could not master harmonizing Bach chorales! So I failed the A Level… and ended up as an accountant!

Two years later Ben passed A Level Music, and is now a professor of music in a university. But I remember how he used to study and practice until he was exhausted – many many sessions into the wee small hours. Whereas I was always the one for “balance” – rest when you need rest and work when you have to.

So my learning was that raw talent (which is rather exaggerating my musical gifts – but my point is relativity) is never the whole story in any sphere. What is it they say? “Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

The naturally talented people who capitalize on their gifts amaze us because we could never match their skill. But they can discourage us unintentionally.

The grafters, those who succeed through determination, impress us because they show what we could all achieve if only we could be bothered! They are the ones who can inspire us.

If those grafters can become successful through hard work and determination then so can we. Anyone can be determined. Anyone can work hard and try hard and persevere.

That’s why I am not discouraging my 12-year old from wanting a career as a soccer player. But I am continually telling him that whatever you want to do in life you have to be determined and never give up, no matter what the set back and no matter how slow the progress. He may not end up as a premiership footballer, but hopefully he will learn the lessons of determination and perseverance (I think one also needs faith and humility, but perhaps that is for another article!).

“Reach for the stars, and you may catch the moon!”

Why blog?

One of the things I had to ask myself before I set up my two blogs (this one, Reflections, and the Creative Finance & Management blog) - and will have to keep reminding myself of - is why do I want to publish material in blogs? Having seen some really great blogs, with useful and helpful material, I admit to feeling a little nervous – can I do as good a job?. On the other hand, the other thing that makes me wonder a bit is the prospect of wasting hours writing articles that no-one will ever read! The internet is full of blogs and I don’t know who reads them all!

I don’t really consider myself an expert in any sphere. I’m a qualified accountant, yes. I’ve had a fair bit of experience in doing Finance jobs, sure. But compared to the guys that write in the journals I read, my Finance is not quite that tied down. I’ve also studied the Bible quite a bit, but I’ve never been to theological college and so any articles on theology might not carry so much weight. I’m also a musician and song-writer, but I’m not someone anyone would look to for tips or advice!

So why am I writing two blogs, and about to start a third (Big Questions)?

Well, each of them has a slightly different purpose:

The Creative Finance & Management blog is for my reflections on my professional experiences. Even though I may not be a guru, and I don’t have my own toolbox of self-developed techniques and solutions to sell, I have had a pretty wide and varied career so far. And my learnings through the years, reflecting on my experiences, may be of value to people. Shared experiences often cement the learning from the text books, so my articles should in theory be complementary to those published in the Finance journals. And publishing the thoughts can demonstrate to potential clients that my experience is relevant, and that I have the intellect and positive energy to learn and improve. So I feel that publishing some thoughts on these subjects will be helpful, both to those seeking help in those areas and also a help to my business.

The Reflections blog (where we are now!) is really me sharing my wider life experiences. Reflections is really a good word. I do tend to think deeply about the things I experience, the trials I go through, the things I see and hear and read. And perhaps the product of that thinking may either help somebody somewhere to think through their own life experiences, or maybe I may just have hit on an insight or idea that will help somebody. I suppose also that it will show to anyone doing any research on me a bit more of the real me – my faith, my interests, my deep thinking, my personality and approach to challenges.

The Big Questions blog (when I get around to setting it up again) will fill a gap, I feel. I spent a lot of time, on train journeys between Basingstoke and London a few years ago, listening to MP3 seminars in Christian Apologetics by Prof Greg Bahnsen. And I felt that the approach he took to debating the truth of Christianity with unbelievers was quite refreshing. I know it was based on the earlier work of Cornelius Van Til, but Van Til’s writings were very much aimed at seminary students and philosophers (and are therefore a little mind boggling!). Bahnsen seemed to be the one making “Presuppositional Apologetics” accessible to all Christians. His burden was that all Christians should be able to defend the truths of Christianity. So my thought was to start a blog that discusses the truth of Christianity using the principles I had learned, in the hope that it may both help my Christian brothers and sisters talk about their faith, and that my unbelieving friends and blog-visitors would get some food for thought in considering what I think are life’s biggest questions.

Overall, I hope it becomes clear that I am trying to do something useful by blogging. Not only will it help friends, colleagues, clients, and others who know me, to keep track of what I am about and what I am thinking. It will also allow me to “give something back”. I know that sounds like a cliché, and perhaps that’s why I put it in quotation marks, but I guess it is somewhat true. I’ll finish off this article by explaining what I mean:

I’ve been having something of a mid-life crisis over the last few years – seriously! I haven’t bought myself a Porsche or a Ducati or run off with a young blond or anything like that. That’s the caricature. But my redundancies (3 of them in 7 years) and periods of unemployment have given me cause for a lot of navel gazing. And that has led to frustration, depression and uncertainty at times. Job hunting involves thinking and planning about what I want to work at, what sort of companies I want to work for, where I want to work, etc etc. After some lack of success I would start to question whether I was aiming at the right thing, and eventually I realized that after all that questioning I was starting to lose my moorings. I was questioning what I was living for. Why am I here? And perhaps I’ll expand on this in another article. But to cut a long story short, and get to the point, I realized I was trying to be something of some significance, and my depression was partly caused by the realization that I am half way through my life (God willing - if I don’t die suddenly) and I am not making a significant contribution to anything.

My next thought is the reason for the blogging. I then realized that famous people, those who do make a significant personal contribution to some area of life – the preachers, the world leaders, the entrepreneurs, the rock stars, the sports stars, etc – often cited quite simple, small influences that made a big impact on them and inspired them to do what they do. And I also realized how many people have thanked me for my influence on them, and how many people I can have a positive influence on in some sphere or other. If my children ever say when they grow up, “I remember my dad used to say…”, that will be great (as long as it’s something good!). But it’s not just my children. I have worked with hundreds of people, dealt with loads of recruitment consultants, managed teams of people, and have friends and family all around the world.

Perhaps my purpose in life is not to be personally significant. Perhaps my purpose in life is 100,000 small encouragements to my children, my family, my friends, my colleagues and clients, people I meet. And so I recall that the second way of summing up our human responsibility before God is, “love your neighbour as yourself.” My experiences, my personality, my brain, my personal reflections, my learning – they have all been given to me for a reason. And so, having accumulated all that over 39 years, it’s probably time to try and consciously give something back by passing on little insights and tips, and simply by sharing some experiences.

So I pray, as I start all these blogs, that all my thoughts, reflections, advice and insights may be glorifying to God, and will be helpful in some way to you, the reader.

Welcome

Welcome to my first ever blog! Please be patient while I get used to this. It's all a bit new to me. :-)