MISERY LOVES COMPANY?

 

They say, “Misery loves company,” but I don’t know about that. 

The idea is we tend to spread our pain to others as if by division we can diminish our share of anguish.  I’ve been sad enough to be bitter and make my company miserable, too.  It didn’t help.  For each companion infected with despair, the inverse occurred, and my share of misery multiplied.   My misery does not love present company. 

But PAST company is welcome. 

There is surprising comfort in realizing that my particular distress isn’t particular to me.  Someone else has scars in the same place.  Others have fought the same battle, lost it like me, survived the loss, fought it again, and survived to share the story.

 This is why I love the Bible’s record of failures.  

 Jacob “wrestling” with insomnia because he’s convinced himself that his brother is going to massacre his entire family (Genesis 32).  David starving himself in seemingly suicidal desperation because he can’t fix the consequences his stupid choices have caused for his child (2 Samuel 12).  Elijah in a state of bi-polar depression running away from his greatest success, isolating himself from loyal company, mentally self-abusing, and wanting to just die. “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” (1 Kings 19: 4).  

None of those miserable examples of humanity survived that moment unscathed, but each of them survived.  They got up --- limping, grieving, chastised and still angry; but they got up and went on to succeed.   

 It comforts me to be in the company of such a great cloud of miserable witnesses.  

It should comfort our community to open the Bible and read that that we are not  the first community of faith to experience this particular combination of anxiety, anger, hope?, resignation, and cynicism about the possibilities of justice. 

The Korahites had been slaves, leaders, rebels, outcasts, and worship leaders.   One of their songs declares the misery of being citizens of a country defined by sin, led by lies, governed unjustly, and oppressed with impunity. 

Vindicate me, O God,

And plead my cause against an ungodly nation;

Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!

For You are the God of my strength;

Why do You cast me off?

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?  (Psalm 43: 1-2)

 

The sons of Korah pleaded for a sign, for a Word from the Lord that would make all their praise and worship seem relevant in the midst of national misery.

 Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!

Let them lead me;

Let them bring me to Your holy hill

And to Your tabernacle.

Then I will go to the altar of God,

To God my exceeding joy;

And on the harp I will praise You,

O God, my God. (Psalm 43: 3-4)

We don’t know what were the specific issues which inspired the 43^rd psalm. What were the alternative facts delivered by the deceitful and unjust man?  Whose lives didn’t matter to the ungodly nation they nevertheless loved?  What were the systemic tools used for oppression?  We don’t know how or if the complaints in the psalm were justly resolved? 

 

All we know is their misery. 

And we know how they survived, got up, and kept going. 

 Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God. (Psalm 43:  5)     

 

The Korahites worked on themselves internally. 

Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me? 

They concluded that they could not survive depending on circumstances as the source of their mental health.  They recalled that they, like the miserable saints before could endure and progress if they placed their hope in God. 

Hope in God 

The Sons of Korah decided to reinvest in their praise and worship.  To simply DECIDE that their praise and worship was relevant. 

For I shall yet praise Him

They decided to remember, to believe, to KNOW that God had brought them through every past battle; and, therefore, He would bring them through the next battles, including the battles with their own misery. 

The help of my countenance and my God.  

 These all foreshadowed the greatest story of misery and success. 

JESUS had no form or comeliness . . . no beauty that we should desire Him. . .  He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  He was lonely because we hid, as it were, our faces from Him.  He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.   (Isaiah 53: 2, 3)

Jesus triumphed over death, the grave, Hell, sin, and human betrayal.  This is our God in whose eternal company we have our most precious hope. 

This is the company that misery can love.   

Over and over, the Bible affirms:  You may not feel alright right now, but you will be alright in the long run. 

You will lose sometimes, but you will ultimately win.

God’s people hurt, too.  But God heals His people.   Every time.

May our present anxiety find relief in the great cloud of witnesses who have suffered and triumphed before us.       

 AND GO VOTE ON TUESDAY. 

-  Anderson T. Graves II, is a writer, community organizer, consultant and the pastor of Bailey Tabernacle CME Church 

Email: BaileyTabernacleChurch@comcast.net

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ASHES OR EMBERS

For the record, the events referenced in this post happened before any relevant ban on backyard burning. 

I’ve been setting a lot of fires lately.    No, I haven’t finally snapped and decided to burn it all down.

I had some boxes of old office papers taking up space in my garage.  There was the off-chance that something in there had an old credit card number on it so I couldn’t send it all to the landfill, but it was too much for our little home paper shredder.  I (with my country tail) had the AWESOME idea of dumping the folders into a metal trash can and lighting it all up all Hollywood

alleyway style. 

In the movies when someone tosses a lighter onto a pile of classified papers, the whole stack goes up in a column of flames and a few minutes later all that remains is a pile of ashes.   This may come as a shock, but ---- Hollywood lied.  Paper burns quickly.  Well, A paper burns quickly.  A folder stuffed with 5 years of sign-in sheets does not.  After an hour spraying lighter fluid and  stirring the folders I had a 1 inch layer of ash covering 4 feet of smoky, ashy, and thoroughly un-burned office papers.

All day.  That’s how long it took for fire to consume a few boxes of files.  All.  Frickin’. Day.  Two hours after sunset I gave up.  I sprayed the contents of the trash can with water from the hose.  Set the metal lid in place, took a looong shower and went to bed.  That was a Monday.

Friday, 4 days later I thought, “What the crap do I do with a trashcan full of ashes?”  I could have bagged it all up and put it in the dumpster; but then I thought, “Ashes.  Carbon.  Biodegraded.  The soil will absorb it,” so I turned the trash can over at the edge of the woods behind my house.  

A few minutes later, I saw smoke, FRESH smoke, coming out of the woods at the edge of my yard.  I got the hose and the shovel and carefully doused the tiny new fire I’d started.  And THAT was when I began reflecting on the difference between ASHES and EMBERS.

Ashes and embers are both the remains of a fire, and they look the same: grayed black, blackened gray, charred, powdered, withered, empty, fit for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden underfoot.  That’s what ashes are, but when the wind blows, you realize that embers are something different. 

A few minutes in the spring breeze and some of the dead-looking remains of my trash fire started glowing.  Some of the ashen pieces turned fire red.  They weren’t ashes.  They were EMBERS. 

Embers are the ashes that refused to die.   they were just waiting for a gust of oxygen on the breeze to ignite.    And they did not ignite gradually.  From cold and seemingly dead, at the touch of wind, the embers changed suddenly into red hot coals.  And the coals turned the pile of ashes into a fire.

WE all go through the fire.  People, systems, circumstances, sometimes just the ubiquitous entropy of a fallen world pile on intending to consume you, to make you into a withered, empty, used up nothing, to throw you down and trod you underfoot.  Ashes.

The weekend after Jesus was crucified, the disciples were all ashes: scattered, withered, defeated.  By Sunday afternoon they were already blowing in the wind, scattering to Emaus and wherever.  But when they encountered Jesus risen from the dead, and He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), they were re-ignited.  The light in them shone again and it wasn’t long before  there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them (Acts 2: 3).  

You don’t get to decide if or when you go through the fire, but you do get to choose what happens when the smoke clears.  You can accept the imposed role and lie in the dust until you’re swept away ---- like ashes. 

Or, you can inhale the breath of life and let your little light glow fire red.  You can receive the Holy Spirit and ignite.  With the Holy Spirit dwelling in you like fire shut up in your bones, you can rise from the ashes.

We all go through the fires of life, but those fires don’t have the last word.  We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body (2 Corinthians 4: 8-10). 

If you have Jesus you will get burned, but you will not be ashes.  With Jesus, you are ---- an EMBER. 

So, relax.  Pray.  Feel the breath of God moving over you and in you.  Breathe.  Now get up out of those ashes and go set the world on fire. 

 --Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Bailey Tabernacle CME Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He writes the popular blog: A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email: BaileyTabernacleChurch@comcast.net

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar. 

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Bailey Tabernacle CME Church

1117 23rd Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401

 or 

THE CALLING TO FAIL (lessons from Exodus 6)

Blogging Exodus 6:1-13, 28-29

Moses had asked, and Pharaoh had said, “No.”  

Not only “No,” but “No AND I’m going to make life even harder for the hundreds of thousands of your people who are already slaves.”

So of course, Moses’ people turned on him. 

And the officers of the children of Israel . . ., as they came out from Pharaoh, they met Moses and Aaron who stood there to meet them. And they said to them, “Let the Lord look on you and judge, because you have made us abhorrent in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us.” (Exodus 5: 19-21).

 

Keep in mind that Moses wasn’t “Moses” yet.  He hadn’t parted any seas or called water out of any rocks.  Moses hadn’t seen manna or the glory of God passing in front of him.  Moses hadn’t sung a song or preached a powerful sermon.  He hadn’t even built up the courage to speak directly to pharaoh.  At this point, Moses was a newly appointed preacher thrown into high stakes negotiations with the most powerful and racially hostile world leader in his world, negotiations at which Moses had clear and magnificently FAILED.

So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Why is it You have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people; neither have You delivered Your people at all” (Exodus 6: 22-23).

Clearly this whole called-to-prophetic-ministry-and-social-justice-liberation thing was a huge mistake.  And he didn’t even want to be a prophet.  He’d had to leave his wife, his sons, the only healthy father figure he’d ever known.  He’d already almost died once. 

Moses was --- DONE!

But the Lord told Moses to go BACK to Pharaoh and make the exact same demands.  Now, God has already told Moses: But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand (Exodus 3: 19).  But the same God was saying:  “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land” (Exodus 6: 1).   

God was simultaneously promising failure AND victory.

  

In Exodus 6:2-8, the Lord gave Moses a powerful sermon laying an historical and theological foundation for the promises of liberation and prosperity.  Moses received an anointed Word about God’s redemptive plan, a mightily motivational message encouraging the people to trust in the Lord!

That didn’t work either.

So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did NOT heed Moses because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage (Exodus 6:9).

”Because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage” means that sometimes your people are in too much pain to process good theology.

You still have to tell them, but more importantly, you have to  SHOW THEM God working on their behalf.   

Sometimes serving God means advocating for people who ought to advocate for themselves but are too broken and disheartened to stand with you.  Sometimes you go alone to fight battles you cannot win alone on behalf of people who will not fight alongside you.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the children of Israel go out of his land.” (Exodus 3:10 -11)

Moses responded just as frustrated preachers have been responding ever since, “If my congregation won’t listen to me, why should anybody else listen to me?  Clearly, Lord, I’m not as good at this as You think I am.” 

 "The children of Israel have not heeded me. How then shall Pharaoh heed me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?” (Exodus 3:12) 

 

God frequently calls us into situations where failure is certain but it isn’t to be cruel.  It is to be strategic.  Sometimes momentary failures are necessary for ultimate victory.  And, God is teaching us not to define ourselves and our worth by our last battle.   At any given moment you can be hard-pressed on every side, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) but not be crushed by the pressure, not despair at the confusion, not destroyed by the attacks, and never forsaken by your God.  

You can lose and still be victorious.

God doesn’t guarantee victory to the Christian who is always stronger than his/her opponent. 

God guarantees victory to the Christian who is faithful to the calling to face those opponents, even when facing them leads to failure.

And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved (Mark 13:13).

God told Moses to go back to Pharaoh and fail again because God was going to use that failure to deepen Moses’ spiritual power, to mature Moses’ relationships with the Lord, and to set the ministry up for such a spectacular victory that we’re still writing blogs about it 3,000+ years later. 

So the Lord said to Moses: “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.  You shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall tell Pharaoh to send the children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.   But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay My hand on Egypt and bring My armies and My people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.  And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them.” Exodus 7:1-5).

If you’ve been called into ministry (and every believer has in some way been called into ministry), and you’re afraid that you’re going to fail, don’t worry.  You will. 

When it happens, get up.  Pray.  Refocus.  And go fail again.  Because if you’re truly obeying God, those initial and intermittent failures are Divinely strategized set-ups for a victory of Biblical proportions.

 

 --Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Bailey Tabernacle CME Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He writes the popular blog: A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email: BaileyTabernacleChurch@comcast.net

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar. 

Visit the ministry’s website at baileytabernaclecme.org

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Bailey Tabernacle CME Church

1117 23rd Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401

THE REPENTANCE CLAUSE

Saul and David were the kings of united Israel.  They were alike in many ways.  Yet, one of them died a tragic failure at the end of his royal dynasty while the other concluded his life in triumph and peace.  What made the difference?

The answer isn’t what you might think.  Discover how to recover from an epic fail.  

Learn the lesson of THE REPENTANCE CLAUSE.

Listen well.

If you are unable to get the audio on this page, click here.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064