Painful is not joyless

Hey, a quick life update followed by a quick thought about Pastor John’s sermon from Sunday.

My visit to Minneapolis was successful. We’re going to be living in Fridley, a suburb north of Minneapolis’ downtown. I spent a lot of time traveling all around Minneapolis, and I can tell you: I’ve never felt the hand of God so evidently upon my going out and coming in. It was difficult, but I grew a great deal during this trip in terms of recognizing what I want and reaching out my arm to take it, instead of waiting for it to be handed to me. I visited the downtown and north campuses of Bethlehem Baptist Church and introduced myself to Pastor John Piper. He’d like to meet Rosanna. :o) I’ve never felt so much at home in a church, it really was a beautiful experience. To be in the company of so many people who treasure the Christ you’ve come to know and love… it was hardcore.

On to the subject. “Painful is not joyless” comes from a statement Pastor John made in his Sunday sermon entitled, Where I Am There Will My Servant Be: A Call to Treasure Christ Together, which is from the new Desiring God website. You really ought to check it out, they’ve got lots of resources including almost all of his sermons downloadable for free with no registration whatsoever. In my link you can read, listen, or watch the sermon. What a gift to get free access to this type of teaching from around the world!

I was so struck by this series of statements as it tapped into my heart deeply.

[Our] destination is joyful and the pathway [to the destination of joy] is painful. But don’t hear “painful” as “joyless.” You all got that? Don’t hear “painful” as “joyless.” The Calvary Road behind Jesus is painful. There is no getting around it. “Through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of heaven.” There is no shortcut. The Calvary Road is the only road that leads to glory. It is painful… and filled with joy. It’s a very different kind of joy than many people have tasted. “Sorrowful yet always rejoicing” is the banner that flies over the emotional ethos of this church.

We’re always talking, I’m always pushing on the leaders and on the worship leaders: “We are sorrowful yet always rejoicing” because I want people who come to this church who are broken in half by life not to feel like we are chipper. We don’t like that word here. That’s my bad word. We are happy… with tears on our faces. We’ve tasted the pain. We’ve been broken. We’ve been shamed. We’ve known pain. We’ve known loss.

And we know unshakable joy!

That is true, I know it is true. I remember how, when I started working at Target, I would go out to my car on my breaks and lunches and cry until my eyes burnt because of the afflictions God was bringing me through; yet, I remember being asked by several people during that time, “Robert, why are you so happy all the time?” I hope that it may be said of my career at T-1398 (the Edmond Super Target) that I was a sorrowful yet always rejoicing team member because of the great grace of God that provides me, and still provides me today, with a joy that can endure difficulties.

Rosanna doesn’t feel the least bit undervalued (in fact, quite the opposite) when I say: It wasn’t Rosanna that turned me around. She was not the basis of my joy, though she does make me very, very happy! But during those months of my first coming to Target and then Rosanna and I getting together (a total of four months), God removed everything I had been leaning on so that only He remained. Piper has put it this way in his fourth narrative poem about the book of Job:

The Lord has made me drink
The cup of his severity
That he might kindly show to me
What I would be when only he
Remains in my calamity.
Unkindly has he kindly shown
That he was not my hope alone.

Though I will say I have never hurt so deeply in all of my life during that time, I was actually… happier then than in all my life. Why? Because the Gospel was preached to me through an exposition of Micah 6:7-8, which I wrote about in my entry Looking At Redemption back in early 2005, just days before Rosanna and I resumed our relationship with romantic intentions. It gave me a rock-solid joy when everything about me seemed like it should be burnt up. It may be hard to believe, but Rosanna also knows what I’m talking about when I say that this time was more precious to me than the day I asked her to marry me, which is a huuuuuge statement.

I could try to explain it but it would take too long. There is a kind of happiness and wonder that comes through the intense afflictions of your darkest days that surpasses the highest joy you experience in a day of sunshine. You feel alive even though it feels like you’re being killed at the same time. Part of your desires are being denied, but it opens up new desires you never knew you had, new joys you never knew were there. Rosanna has tasted this through the glorious Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and she too counts it her happiest day. There is joy unspeakable in the midst of pain unbearable.

Praise God for His immense mercy and His lavish grace on Rosanna and I. Oh that you would take hold of it, too! Rest in the finished work of Jesus. Read how Pastor John describes Justification By Faith and marvel.

I can’t wait to marry this woman, but I can’t wait even more ‘till we see Jesus together more and more in our relationship and after we’ve both died and have passed out of this life into the next. It is a painful road, but it is not without joy.