Hearing the Music

Hope for the Downcast Soul

I was reminded of this again with the CDC's recent release of the results of the 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. This is the most recent data, tracking trends among America's youth with behaviors such as sexual behaviors related to violence, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use, unhealthy dietary behaviors, inadequate physical activity, obesity, etc ... While there is some good news in these statistics, if you look closely, one alarming statistic stood out. Among teenage girls "persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness" rose from 36% in 2011 to 57% in 2021. Correlating to this statistic, suicides attempts have increased 50% in the last decade, with almost 25% of teenage girls attempting suicide at least once in a 12 month period. Let that sink in for a minute. Six out of ten of our teenage girls are struggling with these persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, depression, whatever you want to call it and one in four find it so bad that they want to end their life. Keep in mind these are 2021 findings. My guess is that, if anything, these numbers have only increased in 2023. Despite being the wealthiest nation in the history of the world and having access to whatever we need materially, there is a void in at the core of so many of these beautiful, young image bearers. Why is this? There could be lots of reasons. Does our very materialism contribute to this sadness? What purpose do young people have? Certainly the rise of social media is playing a huge role in this phenomena. How has our treatment of the pandemic contributed? We could proliferate our speculations, and surely it is multi-faceted. But as I alluded to earlier, this highlights some of the urgency of our life together. We need to pray, think, and act in ways that offers hope and support to these girls and their families in the midst of their struggles.

And there is hope! Listen to these words of another who dealt with persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. "My tears have been my food day and night ... Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me ... (Psalm 42:3,5, 10)."  This lament of the Sons of Korah in Psalm 42 and 43 captures so poignantly the current conditions of the teens in our midst. Cast down in the soul, they look around and feel they don't measure up.  All day and night feeding on tears stemming from these feelings of sadness and hopelessness.  But the psalmist does not leave it there: "Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. .... By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me ... (Ps. 42 5, 8, 11)". The psalmist so accurately represents both the malady and the cure. The feelings of sadness and the hope to be found in God.  God, the one whose beautiful song beckons us in the night.  God, the one whose light and truth (Psalm 43: 3) continue to pursue the most desolate of us, inviting us to life. God, the one who in Jesus, bore our sorrows and became acquainted with grief. Who took all this to the cross so that we could be filled with his joy. These truths are what we must make our food and drink. This is what we have to offer the world. This is what we need to urgently hold before the world!

Photo by Hillie Chan on Unsplash

Practical Atheists

Pastor Jack Miller once said about his own church, “Practical atheists abound in conservative churches as well as liberal ones. These folks attend church and honor the Bible, not because they are there to submit everything to the authority of the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, but because of the emotional need that is met by traditional religious order and moral structure. One man put it like this: ‘Even if I didn’t believe God existed, I’d fight for Him all the way. I’d never miss church and would always insist that my family come too. We need religion in our lives. Otherwise the bottom would fall out of everything.’” 

There is a lot of truth in the notion that religion provides structure to life. We can observe that truth by looking around at the various world religions and to some degree affirm its veracity. But we also observe the emptiness that exists for those who only look to religion for structure. In the case of our practical atheist above, there is no relationship, no friendship, no sense of awe or true humility, no forgiveness, no atonement; there is only form, only structure.  

Jesus encountered similar attitudes during his sojourn on earth. We will meet one such person this Sunday when we look at Jesus' encounter with Nicodemus in John 3. While Nicodemus may not be exactly like our practical atheist above, he shares a Venn diagram of form, structure and little relationship. The beautiful thing about this story for all of us that fall into the "religion" trap, is that Jesus knows what is in our hearts just as well as he knew what was in Nicodemus' heart. And just as he invited Nicodemus to a way of life, a way of seeing, that is so much more than religion, so we are invited as well.

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The Prayer of Faith

“Prayer delights God’s ear; it melts His heart.”

– Thomas Watson

What a gift we have in prayer. Prayer speaks to the relationship that we have with God. We do not serve a a god who has simply wound up the universe and is tucked away somewhere in the cosmos. But rather we are invited into relationship with a Father who is intimately involved with his children.

“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”
– Oswald Chambers

Prayer speaks to God's power at work in his creation. Our God is the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He is Jehovah Jireh. He is El Shaddai. He holds the hearts of kings in his hands. We bring to him our global concerns, our geo-political concerns, our desires to see the knowledge of God cover the earth. Prayer is the way this work goes forward; in our homes, from our homes, and throughout the world.

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.  Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.    James 5:13–15

Prayer is the means by which we bring together the heart of God with his power. When we are sick he calls us to prayer. In the moment of our frailty, he invites us to remember his fortitude.  Our Father remembers that we are dust and as the Great Physician calls us to seek his care.

Since we began again with our Wednesday nights January 18th, we have been about the work of prayer. We have had folks gathered to pray for the hard things going on in our world. Folks praying for the ministry that emanates from Christ Church. Especially praying for its effectiveness in reaching into the lives of those most in need. Our kids and young people have been about the business of prayer, learning and leaning into this precious gift.  

The other prayer initiative not mentioned above is that each week we have have folks gathered to intercede on behalf of those needs that touch on the body of Christ Church. We pray for those who are sick. We pray for concerns like family relationships, job loss, etc.. This coming week (and again on March 1st) we are going to invite any in our congregation with ongoing needs, be they physical/emotional needs (illness, injury, depression, anxiety) or things like a particularly entrenched relational difficulty or besetting sin, to come and have the elders of the church anoint and pray with them in accordance with James 5. This is a practice that we have employed when people have specifically sought it out, but since we don't always know the needs that exist we thought we would offer it more generally. Martin Luther once said, "“None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience. It is a great matter when in extreme need to take hold on prayer.” Let us learn this by experience together!

This coming Lord's Day we will be looking at the power of the Kingdom that breaks into the fallenness of the world through the lens of Luke 4:31-44. Once again we will see people flocking to Jesus, both gathering crowds as well individuals who do not come themselves but are found by Jesus. Once again we will have our attention drawn by this one filled with compassion and power!

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash