Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering

Humanity Isn’t Fixing This

God-isn't-fixing-this“God isn’t Fixing This” was perhaps one the most shocking headline of yesterday’s news cycle.  Instead of twitter platitudes, the powers-that-be at the Daily News want real action. They want a real response to the San Bernardino shooting. They want to end these tragedies once and for all by pulling every gun off the shelf.

And to some degree the Daily News is right to focus on humanity. God didn’t create this mess. We did. For decades, America has championed Darwinism, postmodern ethics, and the beauty of egotism. The result of this narcissistic cocktail has been despair, poverty, and corruption. When life is deemed to be meaningless, people start live that way. We shouldn’t be shocked.

But, no one enjoys despair. Quite naturally, people long for significance in the midst of an insignificant universe. And since Camus taught that postmodern significance is awarded by the historical record, people often pursue meaning through tragedy. It’s easy, quick, and terribly effective.  And though the shooters’ names slowly disappear from public consciousness, the families hurt by the shooters will never forget them. In short, the mass murders get something most never see: notoriety. They get meaning, recognition, that transcends their lifespan.

While the problem is a human problem, the solution is not. Humanity cannot save itself. The people of this earth can’t even go a year without a war. Since the days of Plato, we’ve been trying to educate ourselves into peace and happiness. We have yet to get there. If we do pass legislation, if do we take away the guns, we will not have fixed our problem. People will just use knives or turn to even more deadly explosives. We need real meaning; we need intrinsic value; we need true hope. No political personality can give us these things.

They can only be found in God. In the creation account, we learn that the world is not pointless and that men and women have value. Yet, that purpose comes with righteous demands. God prescribes morality. He shows us holiness and perfection. He shows us how to be happy.  If we embrace Jesus as our Lord and savior, we can have significance.

But we don’t;  we reject God; and, we suppress the truth (Rom. 1:18). And so God abandons us. He leaves us to suffer apart from Him.

And now, we endure mass murders, high prison rates, and racial tension, because we think we are smarter than the creator of the universe. God isn’t fixing our problems because we don’t want him to. We don’t want to submit to his rules that call us to put the needs of others before our own. We don’t want to praise God instead of man. We don’t want to stop sinning. We don’t want to change. We don’t want to conform to his word. We are desperate for him to conform to our words.

If we want God to fix our problem, we must embrace him. And I don’t mean that we need to restart school prayer or outlaw gay marriage. Though those things aren’t bad, we must embrace him on a personal level. We must repent of our sins. Yes, you and I must repent of our sexual immorality, of our prideful comments, and of our self-worship. You and I must “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” You and I must, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled” (Psalm 2:11). Yes, worshiping Jesus will challenge the very way we think, the very essence of who we are. But obedience to God brings true life, joy, and happiness. The creator of the world knows how people find true significance. And invites us to come have significance by believing the Jesus redeems the world through his death on the cross.  It’s it really a sacrifice to exchange misery for joy. And when we do embrace Christ, He will begin to fix our problems. He will begin to make us loving. As the Psalmist writes: “Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:12).

Are we ready for God to start fixing our problems?

Peter Witkowski Christmas, Pain & Suffering

When Thanksgiving is Depressing

When thanksgiving is depressingMy heart was pained.  Ironically enough, the cause of my anxiousness was an event devoted to the theme of thanksgiving. As I sat through three cycles of videos, testimonies, and songs, my heart sank deeper and deeper into despair.

I heard various Christians talk about the Jesus who gave grandparents great families, who gave widowers new spouses, and who made sick children new. But the Jesus who wept over his friend’s death, who suffered on the cross, and who ordained for the apostle Paul to be tortured, robbed, and shipwrecked was nowhere to be found during this holiday.

Moreover, the God who comforts the daughter who buries her father and her mother within a blink of each other was not mentioned. The God who promises to vindicate the abused child was overlooked. And the God who sustains parents as they place their newborn under a tombstone was omitted. In his place, I was offered a Jesus who looked remarkably like the genie from Aladdin (minus the blue skin and red sash). Rub the bottle; say the magic prayer; and poof, your best life now.

I was grieved because this shrunken view of God does injustice to both the gospel and our savior that I have come to love. If our boasts about God are always linked to material gains and physical health, we’ve missed out on the greatest benefits of the gospel. The beauty of the gospel is best seen when health, wealth, and physical happiness our ripped from our arms.The awesomeness of the gospel is having nothing and discovering joyful reality that God is everything. As Christians, we don’t have to brush our suffering under the rug, assuming we lack the faith of the super spiritual and hoping that our next year will be magically better. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:  

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

As we slide out from the Thanksgiving table into the Christmas season, we should thank God for our families, our health, and for everything and cross_jesus_wood_236183anything that contributes to our happiness. All good gifts come from above! But we also must realize that the beauty of the Jesus does not end with the safe and serene pictures of the Christ child lying in a designer manger surrounded by non-smelly animals. Our savior went onto the bloody agony of the cross. And as he did, Jesus both experienced our pain and then defeated its source. Through his life, death, and resurrection, Christ offers hope, joy, and peace to the grieving daughter, the hurt child, and the heartbroken parents. Jesus offers us an eternal life that transcends our earthly trappings whether good or bad. Our greatest gain is not a great family portrait placed on fireplace mantel. It’s Christ! Him, we can never lose!

As we prepare to celebrate the holidays listed on our calendars, we should not assume that our churches exist to demonstrate the end of suffering. We exist to show world that Jesus triumphs over suffering through the cross! And when the unfathomably huge God of the Bible is proclaimed, I cannot help but be thankful!   

Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering, Parenting

Going Home After The Terrible, Horrible, no Good, Very Bad Day

very horrible bad day blog It was as the children’s book by Judith Viorst says, “A Terrible, Horrible, no Good, Very Bad Day.” My correctional unit which typically only restrained a child three to five times a year had just finished disarming its fifth kid. After deescalating the grounded Axel, the attending physician ordered the staff to restrain the youth for his own safety. Exhausted, I sat down in the faded plastic chair that was the cinderblock room only furnishing.  As I sat watched Alex, he broke the silence.

Straining against the gurney’s straps, the youth tosses out a few choice phrases and then triumphantly said, “I bet you wish you were me!”

Intrigued by the insanity of the question, I engaged the conversation and asked him “Why do you say that?”

He then provided a rather honest assessment of how all of the staff had suffered through the day. 

“True,” I responded. “Today, has been a really bad day. But here is what you don’t understand. This is your life. It is not mine. I’m going home at 5 PM.”

very bady dayWe don’t have to be a ward of the state or named Alexander or to have a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” We simply have to live. Every day, most of us wrestle with sleep deprivation, sickness, busy schedules, relationship struggles, bad work environments or unruly children. We also wonder if we’ve ruined or our kids by being too attached to our schedules or if we warped them by being too relaxed. And then we move from the hypothetical sorrows to the real grief when we learn that a loved one has died.  At times, the life is terrible.

But regardless of how many terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days we have had, we are going home! This is why as Christian, we can continue to love our children when they wake up at 3:00 AM. This is why we can still care our children when they abandon the church and say hateful things. And this is why we can get up the morning after we bury a loved one.

If we have embraced Christ, we have a home laid up for us in heaven (Col 1:5). We have a promise of hope and joy that surpasses all earthly suffering. When we cling to this hope, we can look at our bad days and say with Paul, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”(Rom. 8:18). Until then, we can love both the loveable and unlovable because we have been loved by our heavenly father who promises us eternity. He will get us through the day. If you are having a very terrible horrible, no good, very bad day, remember, “You are going home!” Five o’clock is coming!