Embrace the Suffering

I was born and raised in a large Roman Catholic family. As Jim Gaffigan says, we were “Shi’ite Catholic” to the extent we never missed church on Sundays, never ate meat on Fridays in Lent, were quiet on the three hours between noon and 3:00 PM on Good Friday, and went through rigorous religious training growing up. As far as I can remember, until I left home when I was 19 years old, we only missed church twice while growing up. Both times I think we were camping somewhere and the car was broken down.

Camping was one of my dad’s favorite hobbies. He learned about it from the Boy Scouts and really enjoyed it so he thought it would be a great adventure, and an inexpensive one to boot, for our family of eight kids. In the summer time, it was nothing for my dad to come home on Friday afternoon and shout out to us kids, “Load up the trailer”. Another camping trip was about to begin.

Our vacations were always camping trips. And we always found a church to attend on Sundays. Some of my best memories are of an outdoor church at Canyon Dam National Park in Texas, where church service was in an outdoor amphitheater with the birds chirping and the squirrels chattering while the priest said the mass.

I attribute my own relationship with God to the fact that my parents made sure we were always in church on Sunday. When I first went into the US Air Force, I slept in on Sundays, but something always gnawed at me telling me that there was someplace I was supposed to be.

When I started my journey to become a devoted follower of Christ, I was in Austin, Texas. I remember finding an announcement for a Baptist Church and thought, “It’s time to go back to church”. The only thing that was certain was that it would no longer be a Catholic Church.

I finally bowed my knee and asked for forgiveness in September, 1982, at RAF Mildenhall in England and I never let go. I attended at least two church services a week, and later three, for the 3 ½ years I was stationed at RAF Mildenhall. When I left the Air Force in December, 1985, to attend college at East Coast Bible College in North Carolina, that number went to around five services a week. I was hearing the Bible preached continually, including lectures from my professors every day. Suffice it to say that since I asked Christ into my Life, I’ve heard literally hundreds, if not thousands, of sermons on every topic under the sun.

In all that time, I heard some inspiring sermons, some funny sermons, some downright boring sermons (better than Levitra), and some sermons that made me think, “That’s 45 minutes I’ll never get back”. I only remember about two of them over the years. I don’t really remember what the topic of most of them was. But I do remember what the topic was NOT about. No sermon I have ever heard ever talked about embracing the suffering. I heard about ENDURING the suffering. I heard about AVOIDING the suffering. I even heard about what our attitude about the suffering should be.

Unless I read a book by one of the “mystic” writers, embracing the suffering was never a topic of discussion. And that only happened after I became a devoted follower of Christ to the extent that nothing else mattered except what God wanted. The most difficult words that ever came out of my mouth were, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” I would rather eat a thousand pounds of crow (and I’ve eaten my share) than to say those words.

Embracing the suffering is, however, a topic that is throughout the New Testament. Paul speaks of knowing Christ and knowing the “fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3-10, 11) This is a difficult thing to understand. It is a longing for what God want in your life the Way He wants it to happen. James says to consider it Pure Joy when you face trials of many kinds.

Embracing the suffering is more than that. It is allowing that God did NOT make a mistake when He took Jody from me. It was not a slip when He allowed me to have my stroke in 2005. That was no accident when He allowed me to lose my ability to play music or my ability to fly for a living. Losing my house because I could no longer keep up the payments and losing all my dreams and ambitions was NOT a mistake on His part. Embracing the suffering means that God DELIBERATELY took those things from me and it is a good thing.

When God takes one thing from you, it means He has something much better for you somewhere down the road. Maybe not right away. Maybe not for a long time. But somewhere down the road, His plan will work better. Someone once said, “To God, Good is the enemy of the Best.” It means that you’re finally trying to get on the same page with Him, not the other way around.

I wish I could say that if you do this once, it’s a settled deal. Sorry. Think of any trial you’ve only gone through once. Not very often, huh? This one is worse. Why? Because we as human beings are so prone to seek the comfort zone. And the Cross was not a place of comfort. Yet Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”This was such an important part of His message that he stated in Luke 14:27, “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

For some people who are a little older, there was a television show called “Father Knows Best”. In real life, there is a Father in Heaven and he really does know best. This is just the beginning of what Embracing the Suffering means.

Dont Ask Dont Tell

This is the year that will go down in history, people have said. They don’t know the half of it. In a lame duck session of Congress, after a brutal beating at the polls in November, the United States overturned “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the military ban on allowing gays to serve openly in the military. With much fanfare, and taking a “victory lap”, President Obama quickly signed the bill into law to the applause and acclaim of most of the liberal left, claiming that this nation is not one “that says ‘don't ask, don't tell,’ we are a nation that says, "out of many, we are one,”.

For the first time in the history of the United States, gays and lesbians will be allowed to serve openly in the military. The last bastion of real world common sense has been finally overrun by the liberals and activist gay agenda. DADT was bad enough, but this is a horrendous decision. Two decisions by arguably the two worst presidents in the history of the entire United States. Both decisions made and signed into law by evidently heterosexual men for the benefit of a very minute minority.

Since the gay population of the United States is approximately 8.8 million people (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) or 2.5% to 3%, this is catering to a very vocal minority with a real political presence that intimidates most politicians. The big problem, one writer states, is not the gay population. It is the people that compare homosexual rights to civil rights, which is an affront to everyone who lived under the old segregation laws. Yet, some of these same people sing along with this horrible chorus just to be included in the party. It’s a tough thing to destroy every last vestige of your dignity just to be liked. How pathetic is that?

Firstly, my concern is not with the feelings of those homosexual men and women that are unable to serve because they cannot “live a lie” and serve in the military without acting on their physical impulses. This is not about being “against” anything, although I am not personally attracted to that lifestyle. Not because I am homophobic. Homophobic implies that I am afraid of homosexuals. I am not afraid of homosexuals. As I said, I am not against anything. But I am “for” God’s righteousness. And allowing gays in the military might be the tipping point for God in His patience with this country.

We have been blessed by God in this country in that we have never been under the rule of another nation. Ask the French or Polish what it was like to have foreign soldiers patrolling their streets at night to enforce curfews they did not choose. We’ve been attacked twice on our own soil (December 7th, 1941, and September 11th, 2001) and that caused all kinds of problems. Think about what it would be like to have to fight a war in your own back yard. The last time that happened was the Civil War over 100 years ago. We’ve been fortunate to always fight on someone else’s soil. Watch the movie “Red Dawn” if you want to get a small taste from Hollywood’s view (though very distorted and with handsome actors and pretty female actresses). Real life never looks quite the way Hollywood makes it out to be.

For those choosing to serve, they will have to endure long briefings on how the homosexual life is now an acceptable lifestyle. Anyone who differs will be shown the door, whether they want to leave or not. How will chaplains be able to preach the “full gospel” if all references to such “sexual sin” have to be removed. Most people don’t know that when DADT was formalized, numerous general officers (ranks 0-7 through 0-10; the generals, admirals, etc) immediately put in their retirement paperwork and got out rather that serve under such a bad ruling. They were forced to stretch out their retirements so it did not look like the entire general corps was abandoning Bill Clinton after his fateful decision.

Allowing gays to serve openly will cause a plundering of our military to a level we‘ve yet to see. And once our military has been destroyed (from within), it will be an easy thing for our country to be destroyed from without.

Gays who have served honorably but were “outed” and then forced to leave the military speak of “suffering in silence”. I’ve seen numerous news stories about how a gay serviceman was continually persecuted because of his “secret lifestyle” and the emotional damage he suffered because of it. It reminds me of Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student who was killed near Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998, due to his sexual orientation. Although I in no way condone what happened to that young man, you get the feeling that we haven’t heard the whole story about this instance that initiated hate crime laws on both state and federal levels. And I don’t think that we’ve heard the whole story about most of these other stories.

Suffice it to say that a gay person serving in the military does not suffer any more than any other person suffers who is not free to do anything they want. It’s a matter of choice and personal responsibility. Since there is no draft, no one forces anyone to serve. In fact, it is considered a privilege to serve in the United States Armed Forces. Most of the current jobs in the military have a civilian counterpart (with the exception maybe driving a tank, flying a fighter jet or attack helicopter) that pays more and allows you to choose where you live.

Is this the last straw for God? It took a lot for God to finally bring judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. And those places had been at the height of rebellion for years. Can America get back on track with God and restore herself as a country that has God as its basis for existence? Has America gone too far in its excess? Only God knows. But remember this: God handed Israel over to captivity for 400 years (where they suffered, not in silence, but openly, under the hands of cruel nations) to teach them a lesson before He restored her to her former place in this world.

Let’s hope, for everyone’s sake, that this is not the case. One thing is certain. God is patient. But only just until we cross that line in the sand. Let us pray that we have not gone that far.