Meltdowns will abound

I feel like everybody's feeling the upcoming nightmare in our country (not to mention other parts of the world) on some level.

There was a real meltdown of sorts for me and my mom (who 'celebrates' her 87th birthday day after tomorrow) tonight at my brother's house, so bad that neither one of us got through the salad part of the dinner and neither one of us want to think of eating at all.

My mom gave my brother a beautiful card for Father's Day, writing inside what a wonderful person he was; a great, loving, godly person and father filled with good in his heart and being a great role model for his children, etc. This was in addition to slippers, a car wash kit and a fancy baking pan.

My sister-in-law asked a question about my father soon after I arrived after work and she answered honestly. My sister-in-law asked further questions about him which led my mother to explain some things about her former husband (she remarried after divorcing my father 36 years into their marriage!)

My brother, suddenly out of nowhere, got very loud and irate-sounding, telling my mother that what he wished for on this Father's Day was that my mother would stop saying anything negative regarding his father, but would only remember the good things. He was quite loud when he said this and had a very annoyed, authoritarian tone. He then ran off to take care of something downstairs, leaving me and my mom all alone for a good 20 minutes.

Soon after my mom made a big salad (she brought all the ingredients with her) including organic mixed lettuce, raw peppers, avocado chunks, fresh cherry tomatoes, candied walnuts, etc., etc., and we said prayer, my mother said quietly that she had no appetite and that she thought she better go home. 

Well, things went downhill after that and I didn't even finish my salad as a result. My brother said that both of us were negative and that we needed to quote-unquote "get a life."

Meanwhile, the only reason my mom moved to this town 7 years ago (where she knew no one and was all the way on the other end of Ohio) was to be close to her son, but he has never done anything to help her or myself (who moved here from Chicago because of Covid conditions) meet the people he knows, which is vast!

My mother attends his church (United Methodist) but has made no real connections there. For myself, I am required to work weekends at my job in exchange for my cushy 9-5 job schedule that allows me to cater to my mom as her sole caretaker day to day. I guess, by my brother's conclusion, we are losers.

*****

If God’s goal was to have us be happy then suffering wouldn’t have any real purpose in our life. In fact, it would be completely counter-productive.

“Real joy is about meeting God’s expectations, not yours, and having done God’s will," says Richard Jordan. "That’s how somebody like Paul could be beaten and shipwrecked over and over and over again, locked away in prison, and still talking about joy and fulfilling his course/ministry with joy.

"God’s purpose is to use me to bring glory to His name, and in every circumstance of my life that’s my purpose, my privilege. I don’t need to look at circumstances and evaluate whether this is a place I can rejoice or not . . .

“I can imagine Paul’s life didn’t turn out the way he expected when he started out. It’s a sobering thing to know brothers and sisters are suffering.

"There's real, intense persecution in our day. And yet by God’s standards, those who suffer are living the good life. They’re living life to the maximum. We can rejoice because that’s a walk of faith; faith in who God’s made us . . .

“Glory is an outward expression. Rejoicing is an inner attitude. So the inner attitude of joy results in me being able to express that outward demonstration of that joy in times of trouble, difficulty and pressure, or persecution.

*****

“It isn’t enough just to say ‘tribulation works patience’; it’s the KNOWING that it does that enables us to have the glory—that outward expression of this joy in the midst of trouble.

“All of your joy is eventually going to have to be based in who God has made you and what He’s going to do with you in Christ.

"Every time in Paul’s epistles when you see the issue of hope, it’s always looking toward the future. It’s a Rapture-resurrection kind of a look.

"Always talking to God about what His Word says about the circumstances I’m in gives me the ability to continually endure through the trouble because I’ve got a hope out there in the end that fills my heart with rejoicing.

*****

“Trouble is a circumstance in which I’ve been equipped by God to grow. What gave Paul the ability to live in whatever circumstances and have joy? It was not to evaluate life the way human viewpoint evaluates it, on the basis of simple happiness.

“Our strength, power is made perfect/complete in weakness. You see, grace requires you to do nothing. My joy is going to come from the sufficiency of His grace.

“You've got to have the divine viewpoint of tribulations to be BOLD in tribulation. When the problems come, you look at them and, by relying on God’s Word and a clear understanding of what we are because of who we are in Christ Jesus, we can endure and go through the problems with peace under whatever the pressure is.

"What that does is give you skill; ability in handling bigger problems—even greater problems. And that results in hope and confidence in the Lord’s working.

“Of course, people realize, ‘Well, wait a minute, if it results in me being able to handle bigger problems . . . ?’ Yes, a bigger problem comes.

“I’ve seen saints of God handle problems and I look at them and I say, ‘You know, if that thing was on my shoulders it would kill me.’ You know how they got so they can handle those kind of problems? Handling littler ones.

“Listen, people, talk’s cheap. It's not going to be easy. It hurts sometime and it’s inconvenient, but we don’t work by feelings, do we?
“Romans 5:5 says, ‘And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.’

"Now that’s the whole gist of the thing. Verses 3-4 ('And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope') bring you to the place where all of a sudden you can appreciate the love God has for us in a way you never could appreciate it before. You see, all those things demonstrate God’s love. And you say, ‘Are you sure about that, Charlie?’

“If I ask you on a test what does ‘agape’ mean, the answer is it’s a 'mental-attitude love of value and esteem.' That definition is by W.E. Vines. By ‘knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed,’ we’re learning how much God loves us; how highly it is that He values and esteems us. 

*****

“Basic information Paul assumes you understand is we're possessors of God the Holy Spirit and  He has a purpose. He sheds the love of God abroad in our heart. That ‘shed abroad’ is like a great river coursing and flowing over our soul. It just comes in and courses in and flows in over us.

“It’s just the love of God completely flowing over you and refreshing you. It’s the Holy Spirit that takes all of these things as they happen to us; takes the Word of God and builds up in our soul strength. We’re 'strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man.'

“People, it’s the Word of God that energizes us. God’s Spirit works through His Word, and He takes what we know about these things, and as He takes that Word and builds up in our soul what’s going on, there’s strengthening. Keep relying on the Book; it’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

“You and I have a hope that the world doesn’t have. If the world has tribulation, they can’t boast in the trouble. That’s just what comes.

“But we’re able to boast in the trouble. So He leaves us here and we suffer the common lot of the world, but whereas the world wrings its hands and says, ‘Oh, me, oh my,’ we look at it and say, ‘Oh, gee, it’s wonderful.’ We know these things work; they have a purpose in our life. We know what’s going on. We know where we’re going and we know who we are."