Friday's Recap (110909)

Dear Cell, let’s complete our last discussion on toxic belief taken from the book, Toxic Faith: Experiencing Healing from Painful Spiritual Abuse. In the last letter, we recognized three toxic faith; namely, God uses only spiritual giants, Having true faith means waiting for God to help me and doing nothing until he does, and God will find me a perfect mate. Here is one last toxic belief that should be debunked from our system.

Everything that happens to me is good. Let’s start with what Joseph told his brothers when they came to him for help, “what you meant for evil, God meant it for good.” So, in some ways, this toxic faith statement has some truth to it. But only in the long run. Joseph’s life, as we know it in the Bible, is full of challenges, trials and temptations. His is definitely a rag-to-riches story. To start with, Joseph’s trials were countless but he took them all in his stride. He was rejected and abandoned by his brothers. He was sold like a common chattel and labored as a slave. He was falsely accused for his loyalty. And he was also locked up in prison and suffered great injustice for standing up to Godly principles. In all these, he persevered and trusted in God’s hand of deliverance. In short, the life of Joseph was one of great wisdom, brotherly love, filial devotion and utter submission to God. Some commentator even wrote that he was the Jesus of the Old Testament. Joseph’s parting words before he died says it all about his faith and trust in God and it bears repeating, “But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now, therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” (Genesis 50:20-21)

So, it seems like everything that happened to Joseph was good to the extent that he did not have any delusions about them. In other words, he was down-to-earth about his plight. He did not over-spiritualize his ordeal. The danger of over-spiritualizing is that we run the risk of denying our pain and sufferings. We may even treat it as non-existent, thereby sabotaging the grieving process. The plain fact about this fallen world that we live in is that not everything that happens to us is good. And good here means “good fortune”, “blessing” or “lucky break”. This is where we need a reality check. Honestly, there is much to grief and fear about bankruptcy, cancer and death. The lost of a loved one is one of the greatest and deepest pains one can ever suffer. I know as a Christian, we have reasons not to fear adversity in the form of terminal sickness or death, but God doesn’t want us to deny our natural emotions when faced with such calamities. Beloved, do not let anyone tell you that you should give thanks for cancer, for financial ruins or for death of a loved one. Intuitively, there is something perverse in such an advice. Of course, the scripture tells us to “not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds.” But still, one has to question another’s faith and, even sanity, if he or she does nothing all day but praise and thank God for all of life’s misfortunes that he or she experiences. There is more to thanksgiving when faced with adversity. There are the active steps of prayer and petition before the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds. We should therefore call trouble and blessing by its name. Jesus made this very clear when he said, “In this world, you will have trouble. Behold, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Likewise, when trouble knocks, and it inevitably will, we call it by its name. We recognize it as something bad, awful and even terrible. We allow our emotions to flow, instead of restraining them. To say that we feel nothing when something bad happens, or to rationalize it as sometime positive when it is clearly not, is to deny our God-endowed capacity to recover and heal from our pain and sufferings. We heal by opening our wounds to God and allowing God to minister to our pain. By concealing our wounds or life’s scars, we deny God the opportunity to work through our ordeal and deliver us from them. Beloved, do not short-cut the grieving process because you will invariably sabotage your healing process in the end. On this, the late Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist, humanitarian, teacher and author, puts it best by prescribing the 5 stages of grief. All of us have to let go and allow ourselves to experience all 5 stages in order to recover from the hurt and pain. Here’s the prescription.

a) Denial – Dr Kubler-Ross defined denial as a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, reality, etc. This is a natural defence mechanism. Our refusal to accept reality, however painful it is, helps us to breakdown bad news into emotionally and mentally digestible bites so that we will not be smothered or paralyzed by the pain. Denial is like a buffer to keep the storms of life from smashing us in. But denial is no solution. It is just the start of the grieving process. We need to advance to the next stage to draw closer to full recovery.

b) Anger – Inevitably, we will get angry. This is another natural response. Do not bottle anger up. Do not pretend its all good chilling. The irony is that you cannot keep a cool head without first “boiling” it up. So, go ahead and get angry but don’t let the sun go down on your anger (Ephesians 4:26). Remember that being angry is an art of personal discipline. Aristotle once said, “Anybody can become angry that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way…that’s not easy.” I know there’s a lot of “right” in that advice but it is good advice and is biblical too. The Bible warns us against bitterness, rage, slander, malice and revenge. These runaway emotions are close cousins of anger when the latter is out of control. So, keep a rein on your anger by balancing perspectives. I find that the easiest way to arrest our anger is through empathy. I know it is easy to feel the intensity of our hurt and pain when someone has done us wrong. But empathizing is a process of suspending our own hurt and pain (not denying them) and putting ourselves in the perpetrator’s shoes. Every offender, I believe, has a story to tell. If we take the time to listen and understand why they did what they did, the pain and anger we feel will usually be assuaged. In the end, our anger will run out of steam when we take the time and effort to listen and understand the other’s perspective.

c) Bargaining – This is the place where we put God on the “witness stand” and question or interrogate Him for an explanation. Moses had done it. All the prophets of old had done it. Even Jesus had done it. You are therefore not exempted from it. God expects us to question Him. For some Christians, ironically, this is the only time in their life that they really have an open, frank and intimate dialogue with God. We are created in God’s image. We are driven by reason, passion and good senses. This is how God made us and He would expect us to use them even if it means coming to a point of doubting or questioning Him. On this point, Galileo Galilei says it well, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” It is my sincerest hope that, through our bargaining with Him during our hard times, God would bargain back with us like what He did with Job. The Bible records that Job came out of the bargaining process more mature, enlightened and console than how he felt when he was discussing his plight with three close friends.

d) Depression – This is the dreaded stage. This is when sadness, fear, regrets and uncertainty make their appearances. This is also a stage of acceptance with emotional attachments. Although this is the second last stage, this is not the final stage for the main reason that if our depression remains unresolved, we can plunge into the abyss of no-return. We have to take control of our life at this point. Some take pills to ease the pain. Some recline on the couch to be psycho-analysed. Some go on a holiday. But the best way to alleviate depression is to hold on to hope like our life depends on it. Eventually, our help comes from the Lord who is the maker of heaven and earth. For it is written, “Why so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.” I know at times these seem like just mere words which lack the medicinal power of Prozac. But once internalized, these mere words can build up a raging reservoir of faith and hope that can carry us through life’s unceasing turmoil. Let these words of Spurgeon comfort you in times of crisis, “Have your heart right with Christ, and He will visit you often, and so turn weekdays into Sundays, meals into sacraments, homes into temples, and earth into heaven.”

e) Finally, comes acceptance, or surrendering – By now, we should come to accept that life is not going to go our way all the time, everytime. There must be a quality of serenity and resiliency in our spirit to accept things as they are and not beat ourselves crazy when something bad happens to us. Acceptance here has a broad meaning. It means accepting that life can be rewarding and frustrating. That where there is love, there is also hurt. That pain is part of growing and growing is part of pain. That not all our prayers will be answered the way we want them to be answered, even prayers from a righteous man of God. That living means dying sooner or later – our wish is that it comes later, much later. That every success we hear about is accompanied by hundreds of failures that we don’t hear about. That sometimes sickness or terminal illness is no respecter of race, language or religion. When it strikes, it strikes the rich, the poor and the middle class alike. And finally, that no one owes us a living and there is no such thing as a free lunch. We are each accountable and responsible for our own life. And with every choice we make, we will have to bear its consequences. I think in a nutshell, this is the philosophy of acceptance. A philosopher once said, “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.” I guess how we really live will depend on how much we come to accept life and all the good and bad things that invariably come with it with a good measure of serenity, hope and faith.