Anticipatory Memory

All life is experienced as memory.

Event X occurs; your senses perceive the event and nerves transmit information to your brain; your brain processes the information into meaningful signals and symbols; you act on the processed information. By the time you act on this processed information Event X is ancient history, milliseconds or more in the past. All of life is “past” by the time you acknowledge its reality.

You think you are reading these words now, but you’re not really; you’re a few nanoseconds away from the actual words: Your eyes had to see the screen; your mind distinguished between the contrast of the background and the letters, then put the letters together into words and sentences, and then translate all of that symbology into some sort of meaning.

One thing which seems to differentiate a mentally healthy person from someone with schizophrenia is the ability to distinguish between the memories of days long past and the memories our brains are just now processing. The schizophrenic “sees” and “hears” people from their memory and experiences them as present in the “now” moment. We don’t share their unique memory (and even if we did our minds would distinguish between “past” and “not-quite-so-past”) so we don’t see or hear the same people.

Or think of a professional baseball player. When he swings, the player is anticipating the place where he thinks the thrown baseball is going to be. At the moment of physical contact between bat and ball his mind has not yet registered it as happening; he’s still a few nanoseconds away from that memory. When he realizes he’s made contact, the contact was long-ago made and he actually perceives the memory of making contact. This may explain why it takes so much practice (10,000+ hours) to become an expert at anything: We have to build up a strong memory of our talent so that we can execute “without thinking”, which really means, “without stopping to try to remember”.

This also explains why I can’t teach you something you don’t already know, that is to say, that which you don’t consciously remember. If you cannot consciously remember knowing something, you say you don’t “know” it. The first time you learn something there is no record in your memory of the lesson, so your brain files it away as something “new”. You only know you “know” upon reflection of this newly-formed memory. And of course, your “knowing”, your memory, often does not align perfectly with the physical reality of the universe, as anyone who’s ever argued with a spouse knows all too well.

What does this mean, then, that all life is experienced as memory?

First, I think it means most of our life is lived as anticipatory memory. Every moment is perceived as “now”, but is actually “past”, so that as I reach for my coffee mug I am anticipating where I remember the coffee mug to “be”, “now”. There’s an element of quantum physics there, I’m sure.

Second, I suppose it means you can’t take anything that happens too seriously. If everything you experience is experienced as memory, it’s already happened; there’s nothing you can do about it. Even the moment you consider “now” is not really “now”.  Furthermore, if you consider the fallibility of your memory, you’ve got to allow that the way you are remembering the “present moment” may not be entirely accurate. Maybe the way you remember it is, is not the way it really is. You’re just remembering the moment through your particularly flawed lens.

Third, this helps explain ideas of grace and forgiveness. God herself chooses “not to remember” our sins any longer. Well, if the present moment is anticipatory memory, then God chooses not to remember even the sins now…and now…and now… As Jesus said, “You must become like little children” to enter the kingdom of heaven. And what is it that children haven’t got? Memory, especially anticipatory memory. They don’t remember that they sinned, or that you sinned against them, and they don’t anticipate the memory of sin “now” or in the “future”.

Fourth, this helps me understand the Eastern philosophy of losing your ego to obtain enlightenment. What is ego but the collection of memories you think are “you”? Even as you read this post and decide whether you like the ideas or not, whether or not you agree with me, whether you think you could’ve written it better; these are all functions of memory. To lose your memory of “yourself” is to lose your ego. To lose the anticipatory memory of your participation of what you perceive to be “now” allows “now” to be what it is without your memory obscuring or altering what IS.

Fifth and finally, I’m wrestling with the implications of this idea as it relates to the idea of death. When a person dies, their physical body ceases functioning; the heart stops beating; the brain stops processing information; cells break down and decay, including the cells holding memory. When you die you don’t physically cease to exist because the energy and matter of your body is converted into new forms. Instead, your brain stops processing information, stops anticipating and recording memories; the memory of your “self” stops. So what “dies” is not your physical body but the memory processes associated with it. You experience death as a cessation of memory accumulation. If you placed the current moment and your moment of death on a timeline, the two points would (hopefully!) be many years apart. But all that really means is that you have not yet “remembered” that you died; you have not anticipated that particular memory yet. However, we’ve all had the dream where we “die” and suddenly wake up in a terrified, cold sweat. How could we dream of dying if we’ve not experienced it, unless we are remembering our dying?

This is quite frustrating. I feel as though I’m right on the edge of something significant, but I can’t remember what it is…

You Chose This Life

There’s an idea floating around that each of us ‘chose’ this life before we were born. Just because we don’t remember choosing it is irrelevant; our presence in our bodies and our psycho-social mess is proof we are here because we wanted to be here, wherever it is we are.

You might say, “That’s a bit hard to swallow.” Or maybe it doesn’t comport to your Judeo-Christian worldview, or your Atheistic worldview, or whatever. That’s ok, because there’s another way to say the same thing.

Think about your life for a moment: Your physical existence, with whatever physical pain and health issues you have; your psycho-social situation, with your complexes and neuroses. While you may have lots in common with others with regard to certain aspects of your life, the combination of all of these factors is unique to you, like a fingerprint. So your blessings and troubles are yours.

You agree up to this point, then you say, “But I didn’t choose to have this life, to experience bigotry, to have these health problems, to have the parents I had. I didn’t choose any of that; it just happened to me.

I know it seems that way.

Stop now, deeply consider your life, and ask yourself the following question: Would I trade my life with anyone?

I mean really, trade your whole life situation with someone else? If it’s a person who’s “better off” than you in some way (which it must be, or else why trade with them?), what you’re telling me is that you’d force someone to accept a life you deem inferior so you can steal their goodies. Is that what you really want to do? Let’s say you were abused as a child; are you saying you’d rather your neighbor was abused so you could escape the pain? Or let’s say you lost a child to miscarriage; would you rather the happy, glowing new mommy in line with you at the grocery store would have lost her baby so you could have kept yours?

If so, I’d say you have some real soul-searching to do, because you’re probably not a very nice person.

Or maybe you want to deny the existence of suffering in the world and say, “I don’t like things the way they are, no-one should suffer, everything should be bliss.” Well, I know some Christians are waiting for that day, but I have a feeling they’re in it for the long haul. This is it.

I think this is why Victor Frankl prayed, “God, make me worthy of my suffering.” Your suffering is yours, whether you chose it for yourself before you were born or whether you choose it now by agreeing that trading your life with someone else’s is immoral. Either way, your suffering is still uniquely yours! You have chosen it, one way or another, before the fact or after.

I pray God will surround you with people to help you bear your suffering; that He would shape you into an instrument of love through it.

4 New Symbols To Replace The Cross

Believe it or not, a cross used to be something other than a polished wood “hood ornament” for churches or a piece of jewelry worn by everyone from your little old grandma to a “G” straight out of Compton.

Yes indeed my friend, crosses used to look more like a capital “T” than a lower-case “t”, and the Roman Empire (and others before them) used to hang people from them so that they’d slowly suffocate to death!

Crosses were symbols of murder and oppression by the occupying Roman force in the Near East, meant to act as a deterrent to those who might challenge the authority of Rome. Crosses were re-used, of course, because wood was more scarce than the humans that needed oppressing and murdering.

Thankfully you don’t see crosses being used for their original purpose too often these days, but because of that blessing the symbol of the Cross has probably lost some of its potency. I mean, Christians choosing the Cross as their identifying symbol is akin to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s family acquiring the gun that killed him and mounting it above the mantle.

To bring back the sense of oppression, strife, and suffering alongside their fellow human beings that the Cross was initially meant to induce, I’d like to suggest the following five replacement symbols:

 Police Weapons: Whether your local law enforcement officer carries a Glock semi-automatic, a Smith and Wesson revolver, or an automatic weapon of some sort, there’s no doubt armed police forces and occupying armies have been misusing their power to repress humans since the invention of the club and spear. Imagine getting a tattoo that has the verse “John 3:16” twining around the letters “H&K”. South Carolina knows what I’m talking about.

Electric Chair/Lethal Injection Table/Hangman’s Noose: Does anyone else find it odd that some Christians are vehemently opposed to abortion but in favor of capital punishment? I guess they missed the verse about God causing His sun to shine and rain to fall on the good and evil alike….Oh well! No biggie!  Innocent men may get murdered once in a while, you argue? That’s alright, as long as we keep the peace…After all, as Pontius Pilate might say, you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet!

The Almighty Dollar: In case it’s been a few years since you’ve dusted off your King James Version, you might be interested to learn that the only group to earn more scorn and dressings-down from Jesus than the religious leadership of His time was the rich! What with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, the Dollar becomes just another tool for those with money to oppress those without it. Zig Ziglar once said, “Money isn’t everything, but it’s right up there with breathing.” Well, there’s a whole lot of poor people in the world who are suffocating to death, just like Jesus did on His cross.

The Cross: Ok, ok, I admit it’s a bit odd, suggesting the replacement of the cross with another cross. Maybe this cross is a picture of a guy wearing a cross…I haven’t quite nailed this one down (get it?)…but let’s face it: For a group of people who are supposed to love their enemies and lay down their lives, people who wear crosses to signify their system of belonging don’t have a great track record of following the guy they claim is God. Religious oppression, while not always violent in this country, is extremely oppressive and has hurt millions of people. So maybe we call a spade a spade and replace our churches’ wooden crosses with gold or silver ones to get the point across.

Have you got a suggestion I haven’t thought of? Please let me know! I’d love to read your thoughts. What other symbols of ruling-class-induced suffering and oppression could we use in place of the cross?

My Friend Leo, Or: How To Not Take Yourself So Seriously

I have a friend who was once named Leo. He was so named for a period of about two months while employed at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. The reason he was Leo for two months was because he’d lost his name badge and, not wanting to request a new one for some reason or other, decided to use one he found lying around. This new nametag said “Leo” on it, and such is the nature of Disneyworld that once my friend started wearing this new name, no one noticed. Everyone thought he was really Leo (more on this in a moment).

So my friend lived and worked at Disneyworld for two months as Leo, and he loved it! Whenever someone got upset (which happens far more often than you’d think at the happiest place on earth) they would get upset at Leo. They complained loudly; sometimes they yelled or used profanity. And all the while Leo had to take it, because that’s what he got paid to do. But the thing is, Leo wasn’t really Leo. Leo was just a name, just a label. So when people would take umbrage with Leo and say things like, “Leo, I can’t believe such-and-such has happened!”, Leo wouldn’t take much notice. He knew he wasn’t Leo, so what did he care if these people got mad at Leo?

Sadly my friend was eventually found out and fell into the trap that all of us fall into at one time or another. After two months of unknowingly working towards enlightenment, someone noticed what a good job Leo was doing…but they couldn’t find “Leo” on the department’s roster. And so, lured by attachment to positive rewards, my friend stopped being Leo and re-identified with his “real” name, which of course eventually meant that people now yelled at him, not at Leo.

Here’s what I’m saying: The mistake my friend made, the mistake all of us make, is identifying with who we “are”.  We get attached to our identities. For example, I’m a Caucasian male, 5’9″ tall, about 175 pounds. I’ve got blue eyes, brown hair, and a red beard. I’ve got loads of freckles, more of which are born the instant I catch more than an hour of sun. I was born in Hawaii, I speak English as my first language, and I lived with a middle class family, including both my parents and two brothers. All this stuff is not ME. But I often (99.99997% of the time) pretend that it is me. If someone bad-mouths my family, I take offense. If someone disagrees with my socio-political views, I think they must be idiots. If someone doesn’t like my flavor of spirituality, I assume they are wrong, or at least not as “enlightened” as I am.

I see myself as a collection of all of these things, these roles, rather than as the actor playing the roles. I don’t see myself as Leo.

If I lost my limbs to leprosy or war, would I not still be me? If I’d been born in the slums of Rio di Janeiro, wouldn’t I still be me? Or would I get trapped in identifying with a new set of physical traits and psycho-social roles?

This is where I find myself today: Can I see myself as Leo, while at the same time not be trapped into identifying with nothing? For attachment to no-thing is just as deadly as attachment to things.

Three Taverns 2.0: Reasons People Go To “Church”

Why do people go to church, or temple, or synagogue, or any other house of worship? This is the first question I need to answer in my efforts to re-launch Three Taverns Church; below is the process I’m trying to follow:

1. Determine the Reasons people go to “church”
2. List the vast number of ways people throughout history have demonstrated these Reasons
3. Define the minimum set of beliefs or dogma necessary to Christianity
4. Compare the list of Reasons to the minimum Christian dogma and see what sticks

I polled my friends on Facebook in a completely unscientific study and got great feedback from a broad spectrum of faithful including Mormons, Evangelical Christians, Muslims, and others. After synthesizing their comments with my own observations I came up with the list below. You’ll notice some overlap between each primary Reason, particularly with regard to social roles.

Please take a moment and read through these short lists. Am I missing anything? Do you see your own reasons for going to “church” reflected here? Which bullet points relate most to you? What do you think that means?

Reason #1: To Connect With Other Believers

• Be reassured of validity of belief system
• Social roles confirmed*
• Experiential — Feel “energy” of others’ faith
• Display & experience love and friendship

Reason #2: To Worship God/Gods

• Religious obligation/duty
• Experiential — Feel God’s “presence”
• Social bonding with other believers*
• Reconfirm belief system
• Fun or enjoyment of the process

Reason #3: To Learn

• From a leader/pastor/priest/Imam/etc.
• From other believers through sharing and storytelling
• Through modeled behavior of other members*
• Through reading of sacred texts
• Reconfirm belief system

Reason #4: To Serve

• Service to God(s) and people, usually other believers
• May be obligatory*
• Live out tenets of faith
• Fulfill social roles*
• Reinforce egoic values, “prove” faith

Reason #5: To Fulfill Social Roles & Obligations

• See *starred* bullets above
• To advance personal agenda
• For some, “church” may be primarily social event, religious/spiritual event secondary

Everyday Ecclesiastes: Chasing After The Wind

“I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.”
Ecclesiastes 1:14, NRSV

You know these words are true, but you pretend otherwise. Why do you believe the lie which you know is a lie?

You are not your body; your physical form will one day die. If you are over 18 your body has already begun to wither, and yet you toil and slave to maintain it. You say you do it to be healthy; you feign joy in the process, but you know that’s not true. It’s all about your ego and your belief that you are your body.

You are not your psycho-social roles. Your being cannot be summed up in words like Mother, Brother, Employee, Christian, or Friend. These are only small parts of who you are, barely real, constantly changing. Within a generation or two, no one will remember you or your accomplishments. What is remembered, if anything, will be more legend than fact. Yet you live as if these roles and deeds were real, were really you, and you invest tremendous time, energy, and resources to maintain that which you know is false.

If you can, turn off your radio, television, laptop, tablet and phone long enough to think about what I’m saying. Go sit in a public place and watch people. Not for entertainment, but to be present and witness their hurrying, scurrying lives. You’ll see your own pointless, frenetic activity reflected in them. This time of year is perfect for this sort of thing: Go to a mall and watch people trying to make themselves happy through forced consumerism.

Am I saying that you shouldn’t work, or raise a family? Am I saying ‘do nothing’? No.

I’m saying you need to constantly remind yourself of the vanity of your life; continually acknowledge the fact that your life and your deeds will one day vanish like the fog in a breeze. See this fact, sit with it, and let go of your psychological hold on those things which are not real. Stop identifying with form. Stop pretending to be the role you are playing. Play the role, but know that you are playing a role.

“Everything that confronts (you) is vanity, since the same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice.”
Ecclesiastes 9:1-2, NRSV

Mind…(wait for it)…Blown!

This will be quick, but please take the time to read this and watch the linked video. I would love to hear if anyone else has experienced this as well.

First, please re-read this excerpt from my post “The Day God Changed My Life“:

“You see Him when you connect with another soul. This is why Jesus said, “When two or more are gathered in my name, I am there…” So that each can look into the eyes of God.”

Now please click here to watch a short video of guru Ram Dass. If you want to cut to the chase, watch from about 4:15 – 7:50. The critical moments are at about 6:10 and 7:30 when Ram Dass talks about “Channel 4” and the “next channel”, respectively. This is exactly what I was describing above. Here is a man I hadn’t met nor heard of at the time. I’ve never used the drugs he’d used, or listed to his talks, or read his books. And yet here he is, in this video, describing the exact thing that I experienced. Mind –> blown.

And so I wonder: Who else has experienced this?

5 Ways To “Live Like You Were Dying”….Sort Of…

I assume you’ve heard the song “Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw. If you haven’t, click here to watch the video, then come on back…

Did you like the song? So did I! Well, the first 240 or so times I heard it. It is an awfully catchy song, and the lyrics are oh so motivating. But they’re also kind of selfish, don’t you think? Like life is all about you and gratifying your bucket list? And who else besides multi-millionaires like Mr. McGraw can afford to live the way he describes in that song? I mean, skydiving, climbing in the Rockies, and bull riding? Who’s got the time or the budget for all that fun? I can barely afford my monthly Netflix subscription!

I’m going somewhere with this, I promise.

I was on a training call the other day with the woman I’m replacing. She started telling me about one of the IT personnel I support…

“Yeah, it’s very sad. I guess she has some sort of kidney disease. She gets dialysis three times a week. If she doesn’t get a new kidney in the next year or so, she’ll probably die. She knows she’s on borrowed time, so I try to be extra-nice to her and treat her with kid gloves…”

…which brought the question to mind, Why don’t you always treat her that way? And also, Why aren’t I treating people that way?

What if we changed the lyrics of the song to “Live Like They Were Dying”….’They’ being everyone you interact with on a daily basis. Because let’s face it, all of us are living on borrowed time. And when you consider how nicely you treat really sick people, doesn’t it strike you as odd that we reserve that ‘special’ treatment for folks about to leave this world? What the heck are we waiting for?

So without further ado, and with no disrespect intended to Tim, here’s my own list of ways you can “Live Like They Were Dying”:

1. Be Present With Them: More than anything else, people in the final stages of life feel afraid and alone. Of course, the only difference between them and the rest of us is that they have nothing left to distract them from their fate. They can’t deny it any longer. Here’s what I’m saying: Just about every person you know is, to some extent, feeling afraid and alone. So be with them. Really. Like Will Smith says in Hitch, “When you’re in the room, be in the room.“
2. Their Bucket List: Whether or not they call it this, everyone’s got one. Everyone has a list of things they want to do in/with/during their lifetimes. Too bad most of us wait until we’re retired or terminal before we get serious about it. So: Ask your friends, family, and associates what’s on their bucket list. Then do what you can to help those things happen, even if it just means forwarding an interesting article you read online.
3. Money Concerns: Another major concern of the dying is whether there will be enough money for their funeral and their family after they are gone. And just like #1, everyone suffers from this worry. Live like those around you are dying by being generous. Buy a cup of coffee for someone. Pick up someone’s grocery tab (assuming you’re in the 20-items-or-less line). Buy someone’s gas. Take care of people the way you would if you knew they wouldn’t be around for another Christmas.
4. Get Past The Body: Did you tell Grandma how awful she looked in the hospital gown she had to wear? Well, maybe you did to break the tension, but seriously…When you know someone is dying, you really don’t care anymore about their physical appearance. So why care now? Stop evaluating people based on their appearance; simply appreciate them for being in your life.
5. Get Past The Mind: Alzheimer’s Disease is the worst. I’m not being flippant. It really is just about the worst thing that can happen to a person and their family. The loving, wonderful parent and grandparent you used to know disappears, and is sometimes replaced by a monster. Inside their mind, somewhere, you know that same person exists, but you don’t get to see them anymore. In exceedingly trying times like this, you love the person as best you can, and you reminisce about the “good old days”. Why not give everyone in your life this kind of treatment? When someone wrongs you, love them anyway for the wonderful person you’re sure is lurking in there somewhere. Be forgiving of people’s erratic and out-of-character behavior. The mind is a tricky, temporary thing. Don’t take yours, or anyone else’s, too seriously.

Good Or God?

Is “good” good because it’s inherently good, or because God says it’s good?

It’s a question C.S. Lewis raises in his book “Reflections On The Psalms”, and I think our answer to this question has significant implications towards the way we see the world and the way we live our lives.

If “good” is only good because God declared it so, it’s possible that what we consider “evil” might instead have been named “good” by God. Instead of extolling the virtues of faith, hope and love, Christians today might laud hate, anger, and selfishness. Perhaps the “holiest” among us would be sociopaths and psychopaths. It’s really not a far stretch to imagine a world like this, if God is the one who declares and defines “good”. This leads to relativistic world views where what is “good” is defined by what we believe “good” to be. It means each system of belief can define for itself what is “good”. It means you can justify hurting people who don’t follow your system of belief because they are against what is “good” according to your worldview (think: ISIS).

On the other hand, if “good” is good because it’s inherently good, then it is good independent (if such a thing were possible) from God. This means that even if there were no God (if such a thing were possible) then those things we consider “good” would still be good. It also means that any “god” or system of belief which espouses anything other than what is inherently “good” must be wrong, but we are not released to attack those who follow such beliefs lest we risk contradicting what is “good” ourselves. If “good” is good regardless of God, then it never changes; it is eternal. Who I believe God to be today will not influence what is “good” if “good” is independent from God.

I think this is why the Bible says things like, “God is love.” It is not possible to separate the Creator from the Created, but if it were, love would be the preeminent virtue of what is “good” in this world. And because love is inherently “good” regardless of which faith system I fall into, God must be love because love is inherently good, and God cannot be “evil”.

If I follow this thought down the rabbit hole a bit further, I see that by affirming the inherent “goodness” of certain things I must simultaneously relinquish my monopoly on God. If “good” is good independent of God, then those people who fall outside my belief system, even those who don’t follow my God (or should we say ‘MY god’), may still be “good”.

“Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?”

When people ask this question, what I think they mean is: “Why is this bad thing happening to me?”

We don’t stress much when bad things happen to “bad people”, or when good things happen to “good people”. It’s the sense that a bad thing has happened to us (and of course we always “good”) that bothers us so much.

Below are a handful of theories we have on why bad things happen to good people:

• It gives us a chance to love one another: This isn’t really a reason why bad things happen to good people; it’s really more of a result of the tragedy. God, or the Universe, or whoever doesn’t cause bad things to happen just so we can love one another. But we do get the chance to love one another in the midst of tragedy, and that is a tremendous gift.
• There are really no “good” people: This theory seeks to strike at the heart of our dilemma by arguing that because there are no “good” people (consistent with Scripture), bad things only ever happen to “bad people”. That may be true, but it sure as hell doesn’t make us feel any better! Even if we agree with Jesus that “no one is good, but God alone”, we still want to know why we have to endure pain and suffering.
• Everything belongs to God, so we don’t get a say: Another theological argument that fails to address real human pain and suffering (and you wonder why I don’t care about theology!), this theory tries to argue that because God created Creation, everything in Creation is His. Thus the clay (that’s us) has no right to say to the Potter, “What makest thou?” This argument would work great except for a few minor flaws: 1) I’m an American and I always get a say in my self-determination; 2) God created me with free will, so He must want me to have a say; 3) If God didn’t care about human pain and suffering why did He bother to send His Son for us?
• There is no God: Getting angry at God for the tragedies of life, and denying He exists as a response, is about as mature and thoughtful as my toddler falling and scraping his knee, then popping up and denying the existence of gravity.
• God isn’t loving, so I don’t want anything to do with Him: This theory is at least more honest than the previous one. People who reject God because of human suffering don’t deny His existence; they just don’t want to be in a relationship with a Being they perceive to be a Tyrant.

I actually love that last theory because it gives me the perfect segue to what I think is the real answer to our question. People shouldn’t want to be in any kind of relationship with the Tyrant who’s responsible for human suffering. The only problem is, his name isn’t Yahweh. It’s Satan.

I believe that bad things happen to good people because of Satan’s treachery in the Garden of Eden and the resulting Fall of Man. Bad things happen to good people because that’s just the way the world is.

What seems to be the Biblical truth: Even though bad things happen to good people because of The Fall, God can and will be glorified in the aftermath.

Whenever I encounter tough questions like the one we’re discussing today, I’m always reassured when I find stories in the Bible of people who struggled with the same question. It makes me feel less of a fool (or at least a unique fool) and it gives me hope that there is hope to be found. In the case of today’s question, one need look no further than the story of Lazarus.

I’m going to zoom right in to John 11:32-44 because I think that’s where the answer to our question lies:

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

Pause here, because we’re about to hear our “question of the day” from Jesus’ contemporaries. That’s right! We’re going to hear 1st century Palestinian Jews ask each other, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

Bam! There it is! When we ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” we already know the answer is, “Because that’s the way the world is.” We’re not kids. We understand natural consequences, life and death, etc. When we ask our question, we’re really asking why God lets bad things happen. Right? If God is really all-knowing and all-powerful and all-present, why doesn’t He stop bad things from happening to good people? And that’s what the Jews surrounding Jesus were asking as well: “This Jesus fellow supposedly opened the eyes of a blind guy. If he’s so great and powerful, why didn’t he stop his friend from dying? Maybe he’s not who we thought he was after all…”

And so our crisis of faith begins.

But the story isn’t over yet, and God isn’t done explaining His side of the story.

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”  So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Bam! Again! There it is. Beautiful.

When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”  The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Bad things happen to good people because that’s the way the world is. But despite the brokenness of our world God comes to the rescue and repeatedly uses the terrible things that happen as opportunities to heal us so that we can come to know Him and love Him.

Is this easy for us to accept? No. Do we like this answer? Not really. We’d much rather the world be about rainbows and lollipops than rape and murder. But does this answer give us hope? Yes, definitely. The answer, and our only real source of hope, is Jesus.

In the midst of suffering we can have hope because God can use our pain, if we let Him.

What is one thing amazing thing that could come out of your current struggles?