Lives Lived as Lightning Rods | The Strike that Heals, Part 2

My lead-out statement for this article is that I’ve been in a multi-front battle for weeks to write it, revolving around the existential fear of my life.

When I say that God has put a call on me to write for him, please don’t hear a hint of pride in that statement, but severe trepidation. My assignment is no more or less valuable than that of any other servant of Jesus. We are one body with many parts, and every part is vital.[1] But, in this instance, a gift (=calling) of communication is particularly useful for illustrating what I believe I’m being pressed on to talk about today. And so, I will, with said trepidation, venture forward.

The above-mentioned existential fear is important for context: When I was a child (particularly from ages 6-9), a set of events and circumstances unfolded that caused great devastation in my life and family. The details aren’t important here, except that I have an image etched in my memory from a moment early on, that encapsulates the particulars of the heart/mind/soul impact that I carried forward.

In the image, I’m around six years old, standing on a sidewalk alone. Catastrophe has struck my world at a level that I am nowhere near mature enough to grasp or contain. And, in that moment, there is no one there to help me to do so. I am standing in a freeze-frame, in limbo by myself.

In that moment, a nascent terror, birthed from a collision of overwhelming emotions, struck me like a lightning bolt. It was like a chemical reaction, the feeling of being “bad,” (believing I caused the catastrophe) and feeling “utterly alone,” boiling over at the same time. It felt like death, unendurable, and my God-designed internal security system sucked it all into a mental safe-room and locked the door.

To be clear, in reality, I wasn’t alone. There were people nearby who loved me, but who simply weren’t able to be with me in that moment, (and/or many traumatic moments and seasons to come). Left unspoken and unchallenged, the terror of being condemned to be alone in my perceived badness snaked its way out of my “safe-room” and took root in my heart.

Most of us who are familiar with the dynamics of the spiritual realm (as depicted in Scripture) would readily say that the powers of darkness played a part in that cluster of wounding events. But are we also able to recognize that there was a holy Presence and an element of grace attached to them as well? (In another setting, I would be quick to share the many miraculous plans that God worked out over time, that branch out from those first painful strikes.) This is the ground on which my struggle with God has taken place over the past several weeks.

Set that story aside but keep it handy.

In venturing into the story of Joseph (one of Jacob/Israel’s twelve sons) in the last article,[2] some questions around God’s character and personality are impossible to avoid. The story depicts God as the orchestrator behind events and circumstances that violently tear 17-year-old Joseph from his home and family and take him through a horrific sequence of ordeals, to place him in an ultimately highly-honored position in a foreign land, in order to save his family (and many more people) from a coming largescale catastrophe. In fact, Joseph himself says it plainly.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God... 

Genesis 45:4-8a (emphasis mine)

We know that Joseph’s story is a foreshadowing of the future messiah, whom God would sacrifice (Jesus, God in the flesh, sacrificed himself) for the deliverance of his family-nation, Israel, and a remnant from every people on earth to be grafted in (all of humanity who would accept the gift). Likewise, Jesus was “sent ahead” to make preparations for a future Day when he will, once again, be revealed to his Jewish brothers and sisters as the brother they rejected and sold into death. In that Day, they will look upon him with deep contrition and mourning, but he will embrace them with joy and weeping, as their merciful deliverer and king.[3]

Again, God’s “strike-to-heal” pattern is revealed in Isaiah, the prophet’s, words:

Yet it pleased[4] the Lord to bruise[5] Him;

He has put Him to grief.

When You make His soul an offering for sin,

He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.

By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,

For He shall bear their iniquities.

Isaiah 53:10-11(NKJV, emphasis mine)

And those of Hosea:

“Come, let us return to the Lord;

for he has torn us, that he may heal us;

he has struck us down, and he will bind us up...”

    Hosea 6:1 (emphasis mine)

There’s a propensity among us to acknowledge this aspect of God’s nature, but to attribute the use of it only to Israel and the Jews, or to push it into the past, before Jesus’ payment for our sins, before the forming of the bridge of reconciliation between the believing and God. But the New Testament evidence eliminates this option.

Jesus’ provision for forgiveness and reconciliation at his first-coming did not mark the end of God’s “strike-to-heal” practices thereafter. The story and testimony of Saul (renamed Paul), apostle to the Gentiles (non-Jews), is a clear and detailed picture of a life lived as a “lightning rod,” against whom the powers of evil rage, and whom God strikes in His steadfast love—once to set him on course, then continually to display and exert his own power to deliver and heal many.

...Now as [Saul] went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.                                                                                                 

Acts 9:1-6 (emphasis mine)

...Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many [sleepless nights], in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 

      2 Corinthians 11:21b-30 (emphasis mine)

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul articulates the reason for it all.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

      2 Corinthians 4:5-12 (emphasis mine)

Honestly, my heart aches at the idea that it is within God’s loving and righteous character to strike those he loves in ways that cause deep and lasting pain, even if it is for glorifying, restorative, and lifesaving purposes. But I believe this seeming dichotomy can be reconciled, in part, by considering that there is a difference between pain and harm. Likewise, there’s a difference between the hands that wield them. 

Sometimes, experiencing this dynamic feels something like intermittently being shown a photo of myself and cringing (you know I’m not the only one)—forgetting that everyone else sees me as I am every day. But (being brutally honest), I’ve been in an unusually long season of painful strikes that has felt like an unending volley of lightning bolts coming from every direction. They’ve been riding on the winds of sin done by me, sin done to me, sin and death in the world, and the angry, teeth-gnashing of the father of sin, all bound together and constantly illuminating and provoking the propensities of my natural flesh. This is the ground where the heat of the past weeks’ battle has taken place. Lord, you want me to write and publish an article about what!?

Here is what the soak in Joseph’s story, and the struggle with the Spirit, has brought to clarity this time around:

The evil one strikes with fear, to cripple and destroy. He knows that fear is harness-able, useful for driving his targets to do his bidding—to either wall up in self-defense, consequently hiding the Light in our lamps and removing their threat to his interests;[6] or to lash out at our perceived enemies (the unsuspecting conduits of his strikes), distracting the eyes of the world from the Light in our lamps. The evil one has nothing to fear from the fearful.

God strikes in love, to heal and restore all things.[7] It is in his righteous character to do so. But He teaches us that perfect love drives out fear.[8] “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”[9] In our weakness, his power is made perfect.[10]

The thing about lightning in the dark is that, when it strikes, it lights up everything in its range of sight with brilliant light, exposing everything that is normally out of view.

For I [Paul] know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out...

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you... If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

     Romans 7:18, 8:9a (emphasis mine)

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

    Galatians 5:16 (emphasis mine)

In light of Paul’s vulnerable confessions and exhortations, there are daily decisions to be made: We can react to the strikes in life out of fear, retreating in self-preservation or lashing out in self-defense. Or we can rest and respond in love, lifting up our eyes like faithful, trusting lightning-rods, allowing the content of our nature to be slayed in preparation for the Light of Life to be displayed in us.

It’s stunning to look back over my life and see the regular intervals at which immensely painful “striking events” have put me on full public display, like links in a thematic chain, leading from an initial, course-setting event of a God-given plan and purpose to the maturation of it. These regular wounding/exposing/propelling occurrences have taken me to many places I would have never gone, through many experiences I would have never known, had it not been for that first life-altering catastrophe that catalyzed the rest. The lessons and effects of every season of my life have been woven into the person God has made me to be, to do what he has made me to do.

Is this an important lesson of Joseph’s story for the cellular parts of the Body of Christ? Do we all have unique, preconceived callings on our lives, for which we are being drawn down paths of painful preparation, as we live our lives endeavoring to be faithful, trusting lightning rods?

The temptation, especially for those of us in the Western-cultured church, will always be high, to deny this aspect of God’s nature and activity and label every painful thing as rooted in evil, because continual exposure as frail and faulty people hurts.

But I am steadily losing my trauma-rooted terror of being seen and known in my impoverished natural state, that feeds the empty threat of being condemned to eternal aloneness. The security of the cross is being deepened in me. The joy of the cross is dawning on me.

Maranatha.

To be continued...

[1] 1 Corinthians 12

[2] Read Genesis 37-50. See previous article at https://www.oneleggedsojourner.com/post/the-strike-that-heals-israels-deliverance-depicted-in-joseph

[3] Ezekiel 39:25-29; Zechariah 12:10-14

[4]  ḥāpēṣ: to desire, delight in, be pleased with, have pleasure. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=is%2053&version=NIV&tab=interlinear

[5]  dākā’: to be contrite; to crush; to be crushed, be dejected, be humbled; to lie crushed. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=is%2053&version=NIV&tab=interlinear

[6] Matthew 5:14-16; Luke 12:35-40

[7] Psalm 105:16-25

[8] 1 John 4:16-18a

[9] 1 Corinthians 13:7

[10] 2 Corinthians 12:7-10