Love, Anxiety and Headache

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. Luk 10:41  

Fears or Obsessions?

I’ve had a persistent headache for a week now. But we also have been without power for a week! Probably the darkness touched a raw nerve somewhere in my mind.

Yet just across the road - at our neighbours’ houses - the lights glimmer like stars the whole night. And it has felt eerie sometimes, with our darkened house standing out like a phantom.

So it’s been an anxious week. And I thought (in those long, long dark nights) about anxiety. And I wondered - why is worrying – to some people – almost like second nature – but to others it hardly leaves a scratch?

But since childhood I have ‘known’ anxiety. At school (I remember) I used to worry about missing school, about my reports, and about my compositions. I was sad a lot too. But to the rest of the students school was like a prison, a sore punishment. They burned their books to ashes after school, and then they went home laughing. I kept mine. To me school was like heaven.

So I have learned (and accepted) that certain people – and of a certain disposition – are much more susceptible to these anxiety bouts than others – the sickly lot, the contemplative lot (introvert), the book lot, and the perfectionist -

Of course in extroverts it is the fear of silence that can drive them to start seeing things. Peter the disciple was such a one extrovert. He was highly driven, seeing things others didn’t see, and attempting things others wouldn’t dare. It was anxiety that made Peter to begin to sink…and for anxiety Peter forgot Jesus completely (denied him).

‘But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not’. If it wasn’t for Jesus praying for Peter he should’ve lost it – and us too who believe.

But I have prayed for you, and that neither will love sift you.

When Anxiety and Love can Result in Disaster

I have known guys who wouldn’t touch a woman for fear of blowing it, and, unconsciously, they have gone ahead and blown it even before it started… and yes such anxieties can qualify as clinical (remember biologist Andrew Steyn in God’s Must Be Crazy 1, and where he attempts to explain to Kate his tendency to be uncoordinated in her presence, but accidentally and repeatedly knocks over a number of objects in the process?). Of course that is psychological!

But should a believer also believe that – or accept that?

No. Check Boaz, and check his calm demeanor, which is a believer’s dream, ‘Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the LORD liveth: lie down until the morning’ (Rth 3:13).  

Yet Boaz seemed perfectly at peace, as if finding a handmaiden sleeping at his feet was a normal every night occurrence!

So it is different how you believe as a believer.

Jesus Disciples too were Given to their Anxious Moments

But there is a sense in which to be a believer is also to be subject to anxiety.

·      And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. Mar 8:16 

·      Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest. Luk 9:46  

·      And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean. Mar 9:10  

·      Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? Mar 13:4  

And that might sound like a recipe for anxiety. Probably their worry was about displeasing their master, perhaps their worry was whether he would still love them the following day. Plus the fear of rebukes can make a person to be perennially anxious. It is why some find themselves apologizing for no purpose or wrong… except the one existing in their imagination. And always it is an exaggeration -

But they don’t know it. Anxiety has made a bondage of them. And that is not the Lord’s doing but of the evil one. One is a healthy anxiety, while the other is not.

What is the Cure for Anxiety?

First, living in sin will aggravate the sense of anxiety, as we can see in David, ‘When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long’ (Psa 32:34). ‘For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned…?’ (Psa 51:3-4). But he felt different after he had repented, ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile’ (Psa 32:1-2).  

So to be on God’s side is to always have a helper and a friend, especially in those ‘evil day’ moments. Also to have God’s promises at your fingertips is to know joy and peace at all times, even at night.

·      He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Psa 107:29-30 

·      From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psa 61:2  

·      Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Rom 8:35  

·      Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Php 4:6-7   

And that is the peace which you can begin to enjoy even right now – if only you can call on his name without shame or fear.

(Oh the electricity has come, thanks be to God! And the headache is gone too!)

 The Responsibility of Hearing

Take heed what ye hear. Mar 4:24

Take heed therefore how ye hear. Luk 8:18 

Everyone can be misunderstood, and everyone can be biased

It is always a risky affair to interpret the work of a serious writer at first reading. Most demand a second or even a third reading, or longer, as Kafka and James Joyce.

Only the Bible demands a lifetime of reading or ‘hearing’.

But an even greater risk is the work of interpreting people. For we can only know them outwardly, and only partially, even though they be a complete enigma.

You are ‘a text’ the Lit teacher said.  And the Apostle wrote, ‘Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men.’ 

And conjoined to this work of reading is the work of hearing. The twentieth century Scottish preacher and writer George Morrison has written a wonderful devotional on this topic, and it is in this regard that I am greatly indebted to him for this blog…“It is not really by the eye we see. It is really by the soul we see. And it is not by the ear we hear. It is indeed by the character we hear. By all we love, by all we have made ourselves, by all we have striven for or lusted after, do we take the words which fall on every ear and color them with heaven or with hell. Take heed what you hear. It is a revelation of your personality. It is in the verdicts which you are always passing that your responsibility begins.

“The same thing is always happening in the hearing of the Gospel message. A hearer's judgment of a Gospel sermon is really the judgment of himself. With patient and with prayerful diligence a minister prepares his message. He has his ideals of what preaching is, and from those ideals nothing will make him swerve. And then, often in fear and trembling, and sometimes with a joyous sense of liberty, he gives his message to his beloved people. It is the same message which falls on every ear, and yet how varying is the reception! All that is living in the hearer's breast rises up to meet a living message, and rises in welcome or defiance. Men hear with all that they have made themselves. They hear with every sin that they are clinging to. Every ambition, every joy or sorrow, comes to the hearing of a Gospel sermon. And that is why to one it shall be weariness, and to another a thing to be disproved, and to a third, in hungriness of heart, the message shall be the very bread of angels. It is a great responsibility to preach. It is a great responsibility to hear. I know no teacher except Jesus Christ who has laid such tremendous emphasis on hearing. For Him there is nothing mechanical in hearing. It is the response of what a man has made himself. It is the swift reaction of the character, and character is destiny.”

On the use of parables and why people ‘stop their ears.’

When the disciples asked Jesus why he spoke in parables, he gave them an interesting answer, ‘because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand… For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them’ (Mat 13:13,15). 

“A parable is a shell that keeps good fruit for the diligent, but keeps it from the slothful” so expounds Matthew Henry, “There are many that see the gospel light, and hear the gospel sound, but it never reaches their hearts, nor has it any place in them [2.] It is just with God to take away the light from those who shut their eyes against it; that such as will be ignorant, may be so; and God’s dealing thus with them magnifies his distinguishing grace to his disciples. The evangelical prophet that spoke most plainly of gospel grace [Isa 6:9-10], foretold the contempt of it, and the consequences of that contempt…And because they are resolved to be ignorant, they shut both the learning senses; for their eyes also they have closed, resolved that they would not see light come into the world.”

‘And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil’ (Joh 3:19). 

“Let us therefore fear, lest by sinning against the divine grace, we sin it away.”

‘But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear’ (Mat 13:16).  Isaiah writes (32:3) ‘And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.’

“They who have the truth of grace, shall have the increase of grace, even to an abundance in glory.”

Let us pray that God would count us all among the blessed ones today and forever more!

 

Why it is Hard for Believers to Escape the Tag of being Crazy

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2Ti 3:1  

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1 and 2) is a hilarious movie shot in South Africa. But it is not a religious movie. And it is a clever gimmick because the subject of gods will always elicit laughter, anytime and anywhere. For apart from the ‘believers’ who regard them as revelation, to the rest of the world they are usually fodder for the crassest of jokes. That is why we look at someone with a wry smile when they announce that they have seen the Lord.

Nobility, Professors, Religion and Craziness

I read in a devotional, how a woman of nobility was once scandalized by the preaching of George Whitefield, so much so that she approached him and raved, ‘How can you preach to me as if I am one of the common people? Underlying her fears was the thought of being considered crazy.

And that is always the curse of nobility and higher education… that a professor will feel out of place in a church where people are clapping wildly and raising their voices… And so why should he be thought crazy?

And it is for that reason that Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night.

But is there a Ground for such Fears?

At Pentecost the believers were thought to have taken one too many – and Felix advised Paul to go easy on his books… ‘And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.’  So Jesus too did not escape the tag of craziness, and ‘It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master.’

Certainly religion has had its share of excesses (and it cannot be legislated, or denied). But likewise the world has had its excesses too in tyrants - and Trump.

It is possible many who would be believers are not because they fear to be counted with the insane (or they would prefer to go to Jesus at night). Might that be the reason why you do not believe - or show?

But did not the OT Prophets act Crazy?

Granted, in the OT, the prophets acted, by today’s standards, real crazy! Else how would people react to a prophet building a ship in a dry land as Noah did? Or Ezekiel acting out his bizarre visions, or Hosea marrying a prostitute… Can God act the same way today?

‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds’ (Heb 1:1-2). So today we have Christ. We have the Bible. And we have his word and the teachings of his apostles…

So Today should we Still fear to be thought Crazy?

No. To announce one’s faith is a matter of principal. It is to be decisive and not to be a rolling stone. To abandon the world belief will naturally attract hatred. As it is written, ‘If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you’ (Joh 15:18-19).  

It will attract ridicule, certainly, but that is not the same as being crazy. To proclaim a different belief might even attract death, it is to be lonely, and to open oneself to being misunderstood. And as nature abhors a vacuum, and where people cannot explain something, so they will naturally dismiss one as being crazy!

Yes Truth will at Times Sound Crazy

And the question of Isaiah is still as relevant today as it was then, ‘Who hath believed our report?’

Only the latter day prophets have become most popular, rich and jet set… and multitudes have believed their report. But it is easy to see why. Any gospel which preaches nothing but money will draw in crowds. But the word of God cannot be broken. And that is why it is written, ‘Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven’ (Mat 7:21). 

And you shall know them by their fruits. 

There are True Prophets (read crazy) and False Ones

Paul died a lonely man, while most of his friends deserted him, like Demas, as he wrote, ‘Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears’ (Act 20:30-31).  

Apparently Paul’s preaching refused to move with the times, ‘Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle’ (2Th 2:15).  

And in the same note, and by today’s standards, the prophet Jeremiah (and his famous mood swings) would not only be regarded as crazy but sick. He would be a clinical case. And like the painter Van Gogh he would be thrown out of church for interpreting the Bible too literally (the scar of that rejection seems to have stuck with the artist until his death).

But even today the highly educated and believing Christians are caught in a fix. They believe in Jesus Christ yes but they gloss over those aspects of him which insult their intelligence. So they have thrown out his miracles, and they have dignified them with the word myth.

But the Apostle Paul writes again, ‘For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God… For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe… For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are’ (1Co 1:18,21,26-28 ).    

And so How will the Last Days look like?

And ‘as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be,’ Jesus said. Perhaps this is the time to engage in a serious discussion about life and the signs of the time… as the prophet Joel cried to the people of Judah, ‘Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?’ 

O Lord, grant that I might see ‘these things’! 

Prophets and their Reluctance: and How the effect of Moses’ past Might’ve made him Afraid   

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Heb 10:38 

The Travail of the Ideal

My thoughts have been dwelling on the prophets of the Bible who were reluctant to be used. I believe with the exception of Isaiah who readily jumped at the offer, others like Moses and Jeremiah protested. Only Jonah’s reaction was extreme. He tried, unsuccessfully, ‘to flee from the presence of the LORD’.

And my first thoughts dwelled on Moses. The seed of idealism seems to have been planted in him from childhood. After all ‘he was a goodly child’, and that means that he was not only a peculiar child, but that there was a ‘wealth’ about him, a precocity and a life that seemed ready to explode inside him.

Normally there is always a whiff of resentment which occurs in the mind when we (as children) first come into contact with a sense of injustice, but to a precocious child it can take the effect of an upheaval or a cataclysm. And Moses was such a ‘goodly’ child.

And with the Coming of Age the Resentment of such Children only Grows

He grew up in a king’s palace but from very early on he was aware that he wasn’t really one of that place. The Pharaoh’s daughter wasn’t his real mother, and her people were not really his people. His own people did not live in a palace like he did. They lived outside, as slaves, and where they performed bone breaking labour. He was young, but that matter distressed Moses.

But a Certain Event Accelerated his Epiphany

‘And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand’ (Exo 2:11-12). 

But he had been seen. His own people saw him. And instead of praising him they condemned him! ‘And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known’ (Exo 2:13-14). 

‘And Moses feared.’ He had become a murderer. And the punishment was death. And Moses fled.

This is how the Hebrews writer viewed it:  ‘By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season… By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible’ (Heb 11:24-25,27). 

The Sting of Failure can Last a Lifetime

The first test of his fiery idealism had failed. The event can unnerve anyone, but to a precocious child, it can feel like the sky had fallen. Something inside him froze. And the contradictions which his life had taken stared blankly at him. He had grown up in a king’s palace, acquired the best learning money can buy, and he might even have married one of the royal princesses there, but now he found himself among a desert folk, with their simple lives, keeping their flock, and keeping him!

In that sprawling desert, and in the midst of seven very beautiful sisters drawing water by a well, filling their troughs, and watering their father’s flock, and offering him some to drink, Moses felt like he was among his own people.

But the years dragged on. And probably the effect of monotony began to take a toll on him. His great Egyptian learning was going to rust. He had never heard again from his people or from his God. No one would ever remember him. He would die in oblivion. What had his life been for? It is the curse (or blessing) of idealism that it may wane, but it never dies. There was much on his mind. And no wonder he couldn’t even remember his Jewish everlasting covenant with their God about circumcising boys!

But God is Never Late but is Always on Time!

And God visited Moses. And God came to him (symbolically) in a bush which burned with fire but wasn’t consumed. And God gave Moses his instructions. ‘Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.’ 

But God had touched a chord deep in the subterranean of Moses’ mind. And his heart froze.

‘Who am I?’

‘But, behold, they will not believe me’!

‘O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send’!

And that marked only the first of instances where ‘the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses.’

And isn’t that always the effect of fear up to this day? It paralyzes. It shuts out the joy of music. It causes anger. It causes irritability. And its pathos can resonate with a Shakespearean tragedy. And Moses did not want anything to do with such a thing.

'But without faith it is impossible to please God'!

Are there any fears which are still frozen deep inside your heart? What is it that you feel called to, but the memory of your first failure still stalks you? ‘But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him’ (Heb 11:6). 

To attempt anything new will always arouse fear. And in these modern times we live with a peculiar sensitivity about sounding eccentric, absurd, or old-fashioned.

But take heart, you are in good company! You too are a ‘goodly child’. ‘Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone’ (Eph 2:19-20). 

Yes, you too are a peculiar child, and of the royal household. And now I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. And he is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. And God is not man that he should lie.

Take heart therefore. Be not dismayed. And try again! Yes, rub the dust from that old manuscript. And write your story again!

Let us pray: Lord, you came so that you may proclaim liberty to the captives, now help me Lord so that I may begin to live an abundant life as you have promised. Amen.