The Richland Church of Christ

Blog 8.30.2021

God’s Gifts

“Depression And Anxiety Doubled in Youth, Compared to Pre-Pandemic”

“Mental Health Cases Continue to Increase”

“Mental Health Crises in Developed Countries”

These headlines are so commonplace in our culture today. Few people even bat an eye on the decline of the mental state of our society. It is almost as if this is normal for most of our population; everyone should be battling anxiety and depression. It breaks my heart to think that people silently engage in so many false assumptions that it eventually pulls them into such a dark space that they struggle to see the good in life.

As I was preparing for my lesson this week, I stumbled on a theme that I had not thoroughly investigated before. Finding joy in life was highlighted in four passages within the sermon communicated by the “Preacher,” known as the book of Ecclesiastes. While this book espouses a fatalist view of life, the Preacher wrote some truth within these passages. The book’s writer seems to be fighting their confrontation with depression, and interestingly enough, a common theme emerges throughout the book. Here is the tidbit that I discovered.

Ecclesiastes 2:24 “A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God,”

Ecclesiastes 3:13 “That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil–this is the gift of God.”

Ecclesiastes 5:18 “This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them–for this is their lot.”

Ecclesiastes 8:15 “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.”

If you follow the thread found in this passage, there is a joy to be found in the everyday occurrences of life. However, these passages are not the “cure” for mental health issues. Think of this more as a foray into the cognitive-behavioral exercise of addressing false thinking. There are three things I think we need to consider as we read this passage.

Each aspect of these verses is a gift from God. Every day is a gift from God. Including the food and beverages, we consume. I pause and reflect on how often I take these sources of life for granted. If I become upset because I miss a meal or squabble about where I should eat, doesn’t this reflect a sense of entitlement about the source of my daily sustenance? Have I not appropriated this gift as a ‘right’ and not as a gracious blessing? Instead, let us enjoy every bite and sip as a benevolent offering from a God who loves us dearly.

Find satisfaction in our toil. We have an incredibly skewed concept of work. We view work as drudgery and obligation. When we have such a negative view of work, the work can never appreciate it. The capitalist says, “I work to provide for my way of living.” The socialist comments, “I work to better society.” The Theist states, “I work because it is a gift from God.” If you fall under the two former lines of thinking, you will never have joy, the capitalist will never have enough, and the socialist can never better society by their efforts. Regardless of what you do, from surgeon to sanitation, frame it with this thought, “it is a gift to work,” then you will have satisfaction in your efforts.

My final thought is that if you find yourself “out of sorts,” it is probable that you are out of alignment with one of these areas. For example, perhaps you have become a slave to your stomach (either too much or too little). Your obsession with drink is unhealthy and damaging spiritually. Your work consumes everything about your life (time, energy, thinking). If you find this true in your own life, find the balance and make a change.

If you lack joy in your life, start in these areas and appreciate the gifts from God. Simply reframing how you look at the world can have a tremendous effect on your stress and anxiety levels, and to think the fatalist writer of Ecclesiastes had the answers all along.

Richland Blog 6.28.2021

Not Lacking Anything

I don’t know how anyone does it. I can imagine there is a false assumption that anyone can live life alone. I’ll admit that when I was about 12 years old, I thought life would be simpler spent living as a hermit in the Colorado mountains. In those unrealistic moments, I imagined that all people create problems and that if you eliminate “people” from the equation, life will become less complicated. That is an entirely naïve and crude way to look at life and people. As I have grown older and hopefully wiser, I have realized that people are the only things that benefit our lives. A lot of this wisdom comes from the fact that I now understand Jesus’ sacrifice more fully. Jesus was crucified for people, not a place or an idea; He offered himself up for people. More specifically, He offered up His life for the church.

(Ephesians 5:23-26 ESV)

“For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”

Numerous passages point out why the church is important; namely, it is the manifestation of Christ’s body. In this passage, Paul quickly points out that Jesus is the Savior of His body, the church, and that He “gave Himself up for her” wash and cleanse His people. This passage alone should make us reflect on the importance of those who are members of His body. It should help us realize that we are unique and that Christ’s sacrifice was purposed.

(Romans 12:4-8 ESV)

“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. ⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.”

Each one of us fulfills these different roles within our community of the called out. We have been built and fitted together to give glory to God and take care of each other. Each of these roles is designed to lead us closer to God and Christ and take care of our physical needs.

All of these thoughts take me back to the first sentence, “I don’t know how anyone else does it.” I need the church, the collection of God’s people, working together in unison and carrying each other’s burdens. I have lost track of the kindness that has been given to my family since we moved to the Tri-Cities. People have given us: furniture, meals, helped us move the donated furniture, gifted us lawn equipment, given toys to our boys, invited us over for meals, watched our boys, painted walls, installed flooring, donated tools… and the list goes on and on. And most importantly, people have prayed for us and have cared for us in ways we can’t even begin to be thankful for or mention.

This is the church. I have benefited so greatly from being a part of God’s family; I can’t imagine living any other way.   Life is too hard to try to accomplish it solo, we need a family, and I am thankful that I have God’s family surrounding me. Thank you to everyone who has made our lives better and helped us out during a stressful but blessed transition.

Steadfast and Sure

Hope can be both the most wonderful thing and also dangerous. Hope can be extremely dangerous when the thing or event you are hoping for is uncertain or unattainable. When you place your hopes in something that is unlikely or that is continually removed from you it completely demoralizes you and tears up your character from the inside out. However, when you place your hope in something steadfast and sound it can pull you through the most difficult and challenging of times. The hard part is discovering something that is unwavering.

This last Monday I called the moving company. This is my normal routine, I typically call them twice a week, once on Monday the other on Thursday. You all are aware of the predictable run-around we get on the phone. But this week, the conversation was different, when I called this week they informed me it was loaded on a truck. In disbelief I corrected the dispatcher, “You mean it will be loaded this week?” They insisted it was already loaded and that it would be arriving in 10 days. It seemed incredible, too good to be true, after all of this time there was progress. But hope in something unsure is dangerous. These ne’er-do-wells have wronged us before and have practiced dishonest measures, how much can we believe them? Yet, we can’t help but get our hopes up, there is a glimmer of a possibility that our furniture and personal treasures might one day be reunited. 

This is all in sharp contrast to the hope we all have as Christians. The writer/preacher of Hebrews explains it this way:

Hebrews 6:17-20
“So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, ¹⁸ so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. ¹⁹ We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

We are told that our hope is different. Our hope is first attached to God’s promise and oath, these two entities are constant because of the character of God (He cannot lie). The author of Hebrews goes one step further to illustrate this point, he draws the analogy of a ship at sea. Anchors would have been a well-known implement; and most individuals would have understood that an anchor is only as good as the ground it is secured to. The analogy can be explained in this way: imagine you are a ship tossed at sea and you need something to cling to, we know the most immovable and steadfast reality is rooted in God. The writer goes on to say that being in Christ is as if Jesus picked up your anchor walked back behind the curtain to where God resides and firmly attached your anchor to Him. There is now no wavering or shifting of your hope. It is securely affixed to the most stable personage, God.  

Steadfast and sure.