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jdgo51 · 1 year

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How to Handle and Express Our Disappointment with God

Today's inspiration comes from:

Finding Quiet

by J.P. Moreland

"It is rightly said that God wants an honest, authentic, sincere relationship with us."

"'Paul goes so far as to say that this is one of the major, if not the major, goals of his discipleship ministry and teaching:

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. — 1 Timothy 1:5, emphasis mine

And the author of Hebrews reminds us that when we approach God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart. — Hebrews 10:22

This only makes sense because we can’t fake God out. After all, the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. — 1 Chronicles 28:9

This means that if we are angry or disappointed with God, we should tell Him. Such prayers from the Old Testament have come to be called “laments,” which are passionate expressions of grief, sorrow, regret, or disappointment.

To lament is to wail, moan, cry, or sob; to offer a complaint (a statement that a situation is unsatisfactory or unacceptable, often expressed in anger or confusion). Here is an example of a lament from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk:

How long, Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out to You, “Violence!” but You do not save. Why do You make me look at injustice? Why do You tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. — Habakkuk 1:2-4 (cf. Lamentations 3:1-18)

Out of 150 psalms, 48 are individual laments, and 16 are corporate laments (for a total of 64). There are 15 psalms of trust, 20 of praise, and 13 of wisdom. Remember, the book of Psalms was the hymnbook for ancient Israel, and 43 percent of their congregational singing proved to be complaints and expressions of sadness and disappointment with God!1

Why is this true? The Jewish worshipers wanted to approach God with sincere hearts, and they experienced a fundamental problem: God does not seem to keep His covenant (Psalm 44:17-26; cf. 89:34) or His promises (Psalm 9:9-10: “The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know Your name trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You”; see also Psalm 89).

God saved in the past but seems not to in the present, so perhaps He is arbitrary, fickle, and unfair (see Psalm 44), or maybe He is absent, indifferent, aloof, and far away (see Psalm 10:1; Psalm 77:7-9). He does not always answer when we call out to Him (see Psalm 22:3-6; Psalm 39:12; note that Psalms 39 and Psalm 88 are two of the saddest psalms in the Psalter because they end with no response from God, no hope, no resolution).

Many times God does not say how long the psalmist’s suffering will last (see Psalm 13:1-4; Psalm 35:17). Sometimes the psalmist claims that God has become an enemy (see Psalm 88:8-9; cf. Lamentations 3:1-18, esp. Lamentations 3:10: “like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding”). These apparent features of God often become more of a struggle than our original source of pain. If we can’t go to God and get help, we are in far deeper trouble than from our original suffering. Our problems raise crucial life-and-death questions:

Why should I trust God in the first place, and if I do, what does it actually mean to trust God? What can I expect from Him? How can I claim His explicit promises that He Himself seems to contradict and on which He has reneged? To get a feel for the various kinds of issues that provoked God’s children to cry out to (or against!) Him in lament, I urge you to take your time and read carefully the different psalms below. You may want to mark the ones that especially touch you, and if relevant, use them as beginning points for your own times of expressing lament to God.

Laments are the shadow side of faith. It is precisely because we take God seriously and desire to grow in faith and in our relationship with Him that we engage in honest lament.

Types of Lament Prayers

A cry of pain (Psalm 80:4-7)

A cry of anger (Psalm 44:11-13, Psalm 44:17-26)

A cry of complaint (Psalm 6 and Psalm 13)

A cry of argument — sometimes with and sometimes against God (Psalm 22; Psalm 35; Psalm 39; Psalm 42; Psalm 43; Psalm 74; Psalm 88; Psalm 90; Psalm 102)

Look at the mocking tone of Psalm 74:11:

Why do You [Lord] hold back Your hand, Your right hand? Take it from the folds of Your garment and destroy [our enemy].

Psalm 90:13 (NASB) even enjoins God to repent:

Do return, O Lord; how long will it be? And be sorry for [the NASB footnote reads, “Or repent in regard to] Your servants.

These psalms present what Old Testament scholars call a “rîb-pattern” — a legal-type brief consisting of a carefully thought-out, reasoned case against God.

This sort of prayer finds precedent in various places in the Old Testament. For example, before Jeremiah offers a reasoned argument in prayer to persuade God to act on his behalf, he begins,

You are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case [rîb] before you. — Jeremiah 12:1

Elsewhere, Jeremiah does the same thing:

To you I have committed my cause [rîb]. — Jeremiah 20:12

Indeed, God actually invited his people to do this:

‘Present your case [rîb],’ says the Lord says. ‘Set forth your arguments’.

— Isaiah 41:21

Terms related to rîb are mishpat (“I would state my case [mishpat] before Him and fill my mouth with arguments” [Job 23:4]) and yakakh (“‘Come now, and let us reason (yakakh — reason, argue, adjudicate) together,’ says the Lord” [Isaiah 1:18 NASB]).

Lament’s Theological Convictions

We can feel the raw emotions dripping off each of these passages of lament. Now, obviously, when we are angry at God and express disappointment to Him for appearing to fail us in one way or another, the hope is that a time will come when we realize that God is not the fickle culprit we thought He was. But the best way to get to that point is to be honest and start with where we really are, even if it’s the place expressed in these psalms.

Expressing to God our honest feelings and beliefs is a good way to get things off our chest, stop stuffing our feelings, release anxiety, and begin a path toward a more intimate relationship with God. Clearly, the fact that God’s people felt the freedom to express things to God like the ones we’ve just examined is based on foundational theological convictions. Here are some of them:

At the end of the day, God is indeed faithful, trustworthy, and caring, and He is a God who honors His promises (see Psalm 9:9-10). God wants us to speak honestly with Him and not pretend we’re at a place that He knows we’re really not at (see Jeremiah 12:1; Jeremiah 20:12). God listens to and responds to reasonable points we make. He can be reasoned with (see Genesis 18:20–33; Isaiah 1:18). God can and sometimes is willing to change (see Psalm 6:4-5; Psalm 80:14; Psalm 90:13; cf. Genesis 6:6; Jeremiah 18:7-10). I’d add a few New Testament considerations:

(1) Our question is Peter’s question: Lord, to whom shall we go? — John 6:68

(2) God will not allow us to suffer more or longer than we can bear, so when we ask God “How much longer?” we are on solid ground.

(3) God sees and has a bigger purpose than we do (see Acts 4:23-30).

Laments are the shadow side of faith. It is precisely because we take God seriously and desire to grow in faith and in our relationship with him that we engage in honest lament. If we were indifferent to God, we wouldn’t waste our time with lament.

All these convictions raise some final questions:

How can we deal with disappointment with God?

If we seek to retain high faith expectations regarding God, won’t that just make us vulnerable to further disappointment and disillusionment?

If we lower our faith expectations, doesn’t something die inside us?

And is there a difference between hope and expectation?

If so, what is that difference, and is it desirable to concentrate on retaining one and letting the other go when faced with disappointment with God?

Maintaining a biblically based worldview, a larger perspective on life as to its meaning and purpose, can place our struggle with anxiety or depression in a larger, hopeful perspective. And while God doesn’t want us to be mentally ill, He often does not answer our prayers for relief and healing in the way we desire. Thus, it is important to learn how to express honestly and authentically our feelings and attitudes toward God in these times. There is biblical precedent for this, so we can go ahead and be honest.''

1.For helpful resources on lament prayers in the Bible, see Dan B. Allender and Tremper Longman III, The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions about God (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994); Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today (New York: United Methodist Church, 1970); Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984); Walter Bruggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002); Ingvar Fløysvik, When God Becomes My Enemy: The Theology of the Complaint Psalms (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1997); Tremper Longman III, How to Read the Psalms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988).

Excerpted with permission from Finding Quiet by J. P. Moreland, copyright J. P. Moreland.

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vipromania · 1 year

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J.P. Moreland - Are There Things Not Material?

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 6 years

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You can't get something from nothing...It's as simple as that. If there were no God, then the history of the entire universe, up until the appearance of living creatures, would be a history of dead matter with no consciousness. You would not have any thoughts, beliefs, feelings, sensations, free actions, choices, or purposes. There would be simply one physical event after another physical event, behaving according to the laws of physics and chemistry...How then, do you get something totally different- conscious, living, thinking, feeling, believing creatures- from materials that don't have that? That's getting something from nothing! And that's the main problem... However...if you begin with an infinite mind, then you can explain how finite minds could come into existence. That makes sense. What doesn't make sense- and which many atheistic evolutionists are conceding -is the idea of getting a mind to squirt into existence by starting with brute, dead, mindless matter.

J.P. Moreland

#evolution #intelligent design #existence of God #life #history #thoughts #beliefs #J.P. Moreland #christian quotes

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maturemenoftvandfilms · 4 years

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Wagons East (1994) - Gailard Sartain as J.P. Moreland (uncredited)

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#Gailard Sartain #american actor #handsome daddy #husky daddy #actor #CILF #suit & tie #Wagons East #movie #screenshots #daddy

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wisdomfish · 9 months

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Real Answers to Tough Questions | J. P. Moreland

#jessup university #j.p. moreland #christian thought #christianity #mark 12:30

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graceandpeacejoanne · 3 years

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Hebrews: Components of Belief

Every now and then I read a book that reorients the way I think about pretty much everything. “Love God with All Your Mind” by J.P. Moreland was just such a book. #JPMoreland #ComponentsofBelief #LoveGodwithallyourMind

Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.Hebrews 2:1 (NRSV) This comes as the first of five warnings given in Hebrews: “Pay careful attention to the message of salvation through Christ” But how can such a drift occur? How do we square the security of salvation with a warning about drifting from the faith? Love God With All Your…

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#centrality #Content #Five components of belief #Hebrews 2:1-4 #J.P. Moreland #Jewish Christians #Love God With All Your Mind #plausibility #strength

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focr · 3 years

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Arguments for God's existence and for Jesus' deity and resurrection, answers to objections to Christian theism, and discussions of four key issues.

#focr #focr edition 22 #intellectual babble #j.p. moreland #resource

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jdgo51 · 2 years

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Get in the Groove of Prayer

Today's inspiration comes from:

Finding Quiet

by J.P. Moreland

"Those of us who suffer from anxiety and depression want to get rid of these enemies. They rob us of so much life and productivity. And that is not just my opinion. The Scriptures — especially the book of Proverbs — contain several sober acknowledgments about the contrasting results in one’s life from having a cheerful, peaceful heart versus a defeated, anxious, depressed heart."

Proverbs 17:22 reads,

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones [i.e., saps a person’s strength].

Those of us who have had our fair share of anxiety know how true this statement is. Anxiety “dries up the bones” faster than a marathon run in August through Death Valley! If you try to fight anxiety head-on, it can drain you of energy and make you listless. And perhaps the worst thing about anxiety is being anxious about getting anxious and losing hope that things will ever be different. I’ve been there, and I never want to go back.

But therein lies the rub. What, exactly, can you do to make it unlikely that significant anxiety returns? Look at the first part of Proverbs 17:22 again:

A cheerful heart is good medicine.

We all know that. And it is widely known that a heart full of joy, peace, and happiness is extremely valuable when it comes to good physical (and mental) health. But are these just words, perhaps words to incorporate into a worship song? Our problem is not with believing the truth of this statement.

Indeed, when we read these words, they spark a longing, a hunger in our hearts to have this for ourselves. But how do we get this?

Is it really possible for our lives to be steadily characterized by a joyful heart? Can peace and joy be our default setting emotionally?

A cheerful heart is good medicine The Daily Habit-Forming Practice of Contemplative Prayer

My discovery of Contemplative Prayer

Regarding contemplative prayer, Dr. Susan Muto has observed, “It attunes me to the presence of God in a space out of which flows God’s participation in my daily life and from which I avoid distractions and sins. It is foundational to Christian character formation as it stills the heart; guards my soul; liberates from evil thoughts, words, and actions; focuses on divine grace; and evokes the power of the life of Jesus in me, which bears the fruit of virtues and overcomes vices that provoke my soul.”1

I have found Muto’s reflections to be true in my own life. I have practiced contemplative prayer for two hours a day (one hour early in the morning and one hour in bed before my normal time to drop off to sleep) for two and a half to three years.2 I mention this to say two things: (1) I was desperate to get rid of anxiety once and for all if possible, and contemplative prayer was one of the ways I sought to do that; and (2) practicing this sort of prayer each day proved to be absolutely central in my quest to replace anxiety with the peace and joy that contemplative prayer can achieve for many practitioners. One does not need to practice contemplative prayer anywhere near two hours a day to benefit greatly from it.

I love to pray, and I suspect you do too. Shortly after I became a Jesus follower in 1968, my mentor Bob Farnsley taught me the widely used acronym for prayer called ACTS — Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication — which is a wonderful tool for recalling and performing various aspects of prayer. Indeed, ACTS constituted my understanding of prayer for the next few decades of my Christian life. However, as I began to grow in Christ, I longed for more, and I started reading spiritual formation literature for help. In that literature, I found a gold mine of teaching, practices, and resources for drawing near to God and being transformed in a healthy, Christ-honoring way.

As I continued to read, I learned about a different form and purpose for prayer than the ones captured by ACTS. That form was contemplative prayer, so about two and a half years ago or so, I added it to my use of ACTS and thus both broadened and deepened my prayer life. There are two purposes for contemplative prayer as a spiritual discipline: (1) to attach emotionally and intimately to our loving God — to love God with all our hearts, to seek God for His own sake, even if we do not experience something; and (2) to transform our character by learning to center and calm ourselves, to focus without distraction on a member of the Trinity or on God in general (whichever approach helps you the most), and to see anxiety depart and be replaced by peace and joy.

Regarding the second purpose, I have some good news! According to journalist and author Rob Moll, twelve minutes of this sort of attentive, focused prayer each day for eight weeks can change the bad grooves in the brain (e.g., the anxiety-triggering grooves) enough for the change to be detected on a brain scan.3 Prayer that changes our brains and replaces anxiety with peace and joy requires deep, fully focused openness to and concentration on God."

Personal conversation with William Roth and Susan Muto, The Epiphany Association, Pittsburgh, PA, 2014. See Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart (New York: Continuum, 2008). Some distinguish between centering prayer and contemplative prayer, but the distinction is not important for our purposes. I will use the term contemplative prayer in what follows. Also, some experts in spiritual formation claim that Keating’s earlier writings are solid (including the one just cited), but later in his journey he became more and more Buddhist in his orientation. Thus, some urge readers to be very discerning if they choose to read one of Keating’s later books. Rob Moll, What Your Body Knows about God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014), 15.

Excerpted with permission from Finding Quiet by J. P. Moreland, copyright J. P. Moreland.

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fantasticebookpdf · 3 years

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(DOWNLOAD E.B.O.O.K.^) Finding Quiet My Story of Overcoming Anxiety and the Practices that Brought Peace [R.A.R]

Finding Quiet: My Story of Overcoming Anxiety and the Practices that Brought Peace

[PDF] Download Finding Quiet: My Story of Overcoming Anxiety and the Practices that Brought Peace Ebook | READ ONLINE

Author : J.P. Moreland Publisher : Zondervan ISBN : 031059720X Publication Date : 2019-5-7 Language : Pages : 224

To Download or Read this book, click link below:

http://read.ebookcollection.space/?book=031059720X

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Synopsis : Bracing and honest, Finding Quiet will validate the experiences of believers with mental illness, remind them they are not alone, and provide reassurance that they can not only survive but thrive again.In May 2003 prominent philosopher, author, and professor J. P. Moreland awoke in the middle of the night to a severe panic attack. Though often anxious by temperament and upbringing, Moreland had never experienced such an incident before. Thus began an extended battle with debilitating anxiety and depression.More than a decade later, Moreland continues to manage mental illness. Yet along the way he's moved from shame and despair to vulnerability and hope. In Finding Quiet Moreland comes alongside fellow sufferers with encouragement and practical, hard-won advice. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, nearly 20 percent of Americans suffer from mental illness, and people in the pews are not immune. Moreland explores the spiritual and physical aspects of mental illness, pointing readers toward sound sources of information, treatment, and recovery.

#pdffile

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 6 years

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The current understanding of happiness identifies it as a pleasurable feeling. Pleasant feelings are surely better than unpleasant ones, but the problem today is that people are obsessively concerned with feeling happiness; people are slaves to their feelings. Feelings are wonderful servants but terrible masters.

J.P. Moreland

#understanding #happiness #pleasure #feelings #emotions #slaves #J.P. Moreland #christian quotes

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rdrd-123-blog · 3 years

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Knowing Oneself; Christian Self Denial

NSTP Week 3: Understanding Self and Others

Knowing oneself is valuable, but to know oneself solely by oneself is shortsighted and irresponsible. Truly knowing oneself is only possible in the context of a community that one is engaged in and the bigger society which that community is part of.

Knowing oneself means to know oneself’s upbringing: habits and values learned in the household, family dynamics, friendships in school and in the neighborhood, media consumed, etc.. Every one of these aspects involves relationships. Relationships, interactions with others, whether subtle or persistent, mold us. Indeed, as it is said, “it takes a village to raise a child”.

Knowing oneself means to acknowledge one’s responsibilities to the community and the society. J.P. Moreland, in his book, Love Your God with All Your Mind, says that viewing political issues must be reframed from the perspective “what do I have the right to do” to the perspective “what is it that I, a citizen committed to moral virtue and love for others, ought to do” (These are my paraphrases, but these ideas can be found in Part One Chapter One of the book.).

Next to acknowledging that one has responsibilities, one has to assess how he can best contribute to the community and to society. It is important to know one’s strengths and weaknesses; these are best known by relating to others, working with others, and discussing with others what they think one’s strengths and weaknesses are. Knowing these strengths and weaknesses allows us to know the type of work we can best commit to the community (strengths) and the tasks we can let others work on instead (weaknesses). For ease of remembrance — focus on one’s strengths and work on one’s weaknesses.

Knowing ”oneself”, though seemingly focused on the “self”, sounds like a lot of thinking, relating with others, and self giving. How does this align to our happiness and fulfillment? — this question is hinged on the premise that one’s happiness and fulfillment is the ultimate goal in life. For the sake of discussion, I wouldn’t challenge this premise, instead I would agree with it and yet show that living in harmony with others is essential to the ultimate happiness and fulfillment of an individual.

In Mark 8:34-37, Jesus lays down one of the most difficult truths a follower of His would have to wrestle with — self denial. In verse 35 Jesus says

“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

Anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus shall live by this unintuitive, seemingly contradictory truth. “Saving one’s life” refers to living narcissistically, in a self-centered, self-absorbed, self-seeking way. As Jesus says, living this way would unintuitively lead to self destruction!

In contrast, one who lives for Jesus (and like Jesus) and for the gospel will save one’s life and experience True life. And what is this gospel? The gospel is the message of the good news in the context of the bad news.

The bad news is that our desires as humans are selfish and hurtful to God, others, and surprise — even ourselves! Self destructive selfish natures; this is called sin and this leads to death.

The good news is that Jesus lived the life we should have lived, died the death we should have died, and resurrected. The good news is that Jesus offers true life for those who would humbly acknowledge their selfish, self destructive selves, repent of this, believe that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were necessary and sufficient for one to be free from sin (e.g. selfishness) and death (e.g. self destruction) and experience true life.

Only when we deny ourselves (Mark 8:34-37), love God and love others (Mark 12:30-31) will we experience true life. Only when we give ourselves for God, and therefore, for others (just as Jesus did and commanded), will we truly be happy.

According to Jesus Himself, knowing oneself by reflecting on our God-given identity, relating to others, and living for God and others is well in line with the pursuit of one’s ultimate happiness and fulfillment.

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