Resilient Faith E-Book

Lewis Allen

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Lewis and Sarah Allen Teach Young Christians How to Approach Difficulties and Disappointments Biblically We all encounter problems and challenges on a daily basis, ranging from small things—traffic, losing your keys, or running late—to much bigger issues—job insecurity, health issues, and relationship struggles. What should a believer in Christ do in the face of such adversities?  Authors Lewis and Sarah Allen propose that while the world may teach us one way to approach challenges, there is a better way—complete dependence on Christ and pursuit of wise living. With the help of the Holy Spirit, Christians are able to live more joy-filled lives in the midst of adversity. In a conversational and personal tone, the Allens walk through key biblical passages as they relate to challenges and share stories, case studies, and illustrations to encourage us to rely on Christ and commit to his church in the battle of Christian life.   - Ideal for New or Young Christians: Especially those feeling discouraged by doubt and disappointment - Engaging and Interactive: Includes case studies and illustrations, with questions and prayers at the end of every chapter  - Practical and Realistic: Readers will receive biblical direction for applying these principles to their daily lives 

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“Resilience feels like an exotic rarity today. Christians want to be steadfastly joyful and faithful, yet so often we don’t know how. Lewis and Sarah Allen shine the light of the gospel onto our everyday lives, showing how we can grow spiritual muscle amid the practical challenges we face. Here is wisdom and comfort for all who want to endure and thrive in Christ.”

Michael Reeves, President and Professor of Theology, Union School of Theology; author, Rejoice and Tremble and Gospel People

“Gentle yet firm where it needs to be, practical and biblical, this book is filled with actionable insights for the struggling Christian to (re)discover resilient faith!”

Josh Moody, Senior Pastor, College Church, Wheaton, Illinois; President, God Centered Life Ministries

“Such wisdom! Lewis and Sarah Allen will arm you with gospel weaponry to apply to the whole of life, including habits in food, exercise, sleep, relationships, and spiritual discipline—spurring you on to retreat to Christ and thus grow in stamina. This book gave me the gospel backbone to face past hurts, especially those wrapped around the church, and move on to greater resilience, love, and service.”

Natalie Brand, Bible teacher; author, Prone to Wander: Grace for the Lukewarm and Apathetic

“Realistic, honest, and saturated in Scripture, Lewis and Sarah Allen gently challenge us to have the courage to defy our culture, deny ourselves, and follow Christ when we would rather stay on the sofa.”

Jonty and Linda Allcock, Pastor, The Globe Church, Central London, United Kingdom; author, Impossible Commands; and his wife, Linda, author, Deeper Still and Head Heart Hands

Resilient Faith

Resilient Faith

Learning to Rely on Jesus in the Struggles of Life

Lewis and Sarah Allen

Resilient Faith: Learning to Rely on Jesus in the Struggles of Life

Copyright © 2023 by Lewis Allen and Sarah Allen

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Dan Farrell

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7798-7 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7801-4 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7799-4 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7800-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Allen, Lewis, 1971– author. | Allen, Sarah, 1971– author.

Title: Resilient faith: learning to rely on Jesus in the struggles of life / Lewis Allen and Sarah Allen.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021052184 (print) | LCCN 2021052185 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433577987 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433577994 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433578007 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433578014 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Resilience (Personality trait)—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Trust in God—Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV4597.58.R47 A45 2022 (print) | LCC BV4597.58.R47 (ebook) | DDC 233/.5–dc23/eng/20211130

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021052184

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021052185

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-01-31 04:40:00 PM

To all of the young adults we’ve shared our lives with and received so much from over the last 25 years, and to our five precious children. We are so much richer through God’s grace in your lives. “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thess. 3:5).

Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1–2 NIV

Contents

Introduction: The Enduring Gospel

part 1: Retreat

1  Where Troubles Take Us: Learning to Retreat Like Jesus

2  The All-Seeing, All-Caring Lord: Secure in the Savior

3  Step Out: Forward with Jesus Is Always the Right Direction

part 2: You Can Stop Now!

4  One Day: The Sunday Gift

5  Every Day: The Rest That Restores

part 3: Hope-Full

6  Those Who Hope in the Lord: Fix Your Hope on Easter Truth

7  The Hope of Heaven: Glory Is Waiting for Us

8  Hope Today: Living with the Hope of Glory

Part 4: Body Life

9  Appetite: Bringing Our Habits and Desires to Jesus

10  Body Work: How Everything We Do Matters to God

Part 5: The Resilient Gospel

11  The Courage of Grace: Think, Feel, Fight

12  Facing the Enemy: Our Tempter and Our Shield

13  Battle Lines: Confident in Jesus’s Righteousness

Part 6: God’s Word: Prizing the Power

14  The Sharp Edge: Do You Know the Power of God’s Word?

15  Confession Time: Bring Your Heart to the God Who Cares

16  Truth Wins: Prizing the Bible

Part 7: God’s Word: Hearts and Habits

17  Hold On! Creating and Keeping Healthy Bible Habits

18  Take It to Heart: God’s Word for Our Deep Needs

19  Sharing the Word: Learning to Minister Jesus in How We Speak

Part 8: Praying

20  Depend: Discover the Freedom of Relying on the Lord

21  The Weak and the Strong: How Grace Changes a Praying Heart

22  The Spirit Is Here: Experiencing the Spirit as We Pray

Part 9: The Church

23  Sharing Worship: The Church Meets Her Lord

24  Leaning In: Enjoying Family Life Together

25  Resilient through Serving: The Spirit Sustains and Grows Jesus’s Servants

Conclusion: And So?

Notes

General Index

Scripture Index

Introduction

The Enduring Gospel

Spirit-Filled and Stumbling?

We’ve got a box in our home where we keep a battered blue and white badge. Anyone of a certain age who grew up in the UK will probably recognize it. It marks me (Sarah) out as having been a runner-up in a competition organized by the children’s TV show Blue Peter. To have a Blue Peter badge in the early 1980s meant that you were a winner!

Don’t you just love success? Maybe somewhere you have a certificate or a trophy that brings back a rush of happy memories. You’ve worked hard at something, and you’ve succeeded at it. People have noticed your talents, and you’ve made progress at what you’ve set your heart on. Success is sweet, and life sometimes is very sweet. You’ve got the badge to prove it.

So often, though, life can be hard and bitter. We’re writing this book near the end of 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused immense and international devastation over the past two years. Some have been personally affected by illness and bereavement. All have had personal freedom severely restricted. We’ve been reminded that, despite rapidly improving technology, life is fragile, the unexpected can happen, and people are unreliable. And it’s not just other people who are unreliable, but perhaps you’ve discovered you’re unreliable too. One day you think you’ll achieve great things, but then the next day, it’s all you can do to crawl out of bed. Hard situations show how weak we all are.

This weakness can be confusing if you’re a Christian. You know that you are a child of God, filled with his Spirit. Your Bible teaches you that God is for you, but when trials come, you stumble and feel as though you are falling. Is your faith all that you thought it was?

Real World

We have been happily married for over twenty-five years and have been involved in ministry together for even longer. We’re not immune, however, to the struggles of feeling weary and weak. Dealing with our own problems, serving other people, and just being part of a family means that very often we both feel out of our depth, confused and failing. Sometimes other people see our cracks; sometimes they don’t.

Our five children are now in or approaching young adulthood. As we watch and support them, we’ve realized that life for them and the young adults in our church is so much harder than it was for us at the same stage. The world is a far less stable place, and young adults are bearing the brunt of the instability. A fragile world makes for fragile minds and hearts. For example, in both the US and the UK the proportion of students who reported a mental health difficulty in 2021 was around 50 percent, an enormous increase from the 20 percent who identified in this way in 2014.1 The privileges previously taken for granted—housing, careers, savings, health care—are in scant supply for today’s young adults.

Fortunately, it seems easier than ever before to raise your hand and say, “I’m struggling,” and that’s no bad thing. There are countless celebrities and sports people who have been applauded for honesty and courage in acknowledging their weaknesses. But what happens next? How do they (and you) keep going when pain comes? Or how do you get back on your feet when you feel as though you’ve been floored? And how does our Christian faith make a real difference? Before you is a journey into distinctively Christian resilient faith and living. It’s a way marked out by our persevering Savior, Jesus Christ, and he has all the resources needed to help all of us make it to the end with a confident faith in him.

Real Resilience

This book is written out of our own personal challenges, joys, and disappointments in work, relationships, and church. It also comes out of our work supporting young adults who are struggling to stand firm, Christian as well as non-Christian. We’ve seen that in times of trial, what’s needed more than anything else is resilience, the ability to weather the storm and keep going.

For the Christian, resilience is about more than grittiness or self-care. It is about standing firm in your faith and keeping on following Jesus. Thirty-one times the New Testament uses the Greek word hypomene. The sense of it is covered by our words “patient-endurance,” “perseverance,” and “steadfastness.” This is the grace-shaped habit of keeping on trusting Christ even when life is hard, of relying on God’s power to obey Jesus in difficult times.

So here in this book, we’ll be focusing on developing resilient faith. There are nine main sections, each with two or three mini chapters. Some chapters are written by Sarah, some by Lewis. We suggest that you take one chapter a day or perhaps ponder a part each week. You could give yourself the added challenge of reading this book with a friend. Together, aim to grow as you discuss and pray through what you read and learn in this book. Discipleship is always best shared!

Some of what we talk about will help you explore the assumptions you have about life—for example, the place of rest, work, leisure, and habits in the life of faith. We explore the attitudes and behaviors that will help you grow in engaging with God’s word, praying, being part of the church, and serving the Lord. We are sure that resilient faith, which the Holy Spirit is forming in all of us, is shaped as we bring all of life under the loving and gentle authority of our gracious Lord.

In the pages ahead we illustrate some of the challenges Christians face by introducing you to some characters, their struggles and faith. These aren’t specific individuals; instead, we’ve put together traits and situations from a range of people we’ve known over years of ministry.

The Bible passage that more than any other shapes what’s ahead is Ephesians 6:10–18. Our central chapters explore this passage of Scripture in some detail. Paul sets before the Ephesian believers the idea that the Christian life is a battle Christians are commanded to fight. If Christians are to develop and stand with a resilient faith, we all must take up the spiritual weapons and armor that Paul details. If we step out of the battle, pretend that the devil isn’t real, or assume that the Christian life is easy, we’ve lost. If we fight the battle, experiencing in Winston Churchill’s famous phrase, “toil, tears, and sweat,” we’ll discover that we’re actually standing firm through the working of God’s power. We are being resilient in his strength.

We want to help you put on the armor that God provides so that you can stand firm in both the gut-wrenching shocks of life and in the energy-draining day-to-day. More than anything, we want to encourage you that God is really for you in this journey. As you learn to stand in your faith, you will see how much you are loved and safe in Christ, can be confident in the Father’s plan for you, and are empowered by his indwelling Spirit. There is truly no joy as deep as standing firm in faith in the Lord (2 Cor. 1:24).

Let’s go!

Part 1

Retreat

Trouble comes to everyone. You just have to wait. It might take a while and appear as a sudden blow, or it may have been keeping you company for longer than you can remember. When any of us meet trouble, we discover that life isn’t a cartoon in which crisis comes neatly packaged and labeled, an obstacle to jump over on the way to a happy ending. Trouble—whether unemployment, ill health, loneliness, anxiety, or any of the everyday difficulties we all face—changes the way we behave toward God and toward other people.

Our dog Laurie is a big, hairy lurcher. He can run like the wind and loves to play with our kids, though strangers might back away when he comes bounding up, muddy and eager to say Hi!, all fangs and big paws. But in November, when fireworks are let off to celebrate Diwali and Guy Fawkes Night, Laurie hides because he’s a wreck. No matter how soft and calming our voices are or how many times he’s heard the bangs and whistles, he squeezes himself into the tightest spot he can find behind the sofa or under my desk and shivers. He retreats.

You and I are the same. When trouble arrives, we very often retreat, brushing off the comfort that is available and shrinking ourselves in an attempt to stay safe. For an hour or two during fireworks that might not be a bad strategy for a dog. But hiding away for weeks and months under the duvet or online does real damage to us.

In these next three chapters, we’ll start by looking at how Christians sometimes retreat in stressful situations. Then you’ll learn from Jesus other ways of responding besides retreat. He entered a world of trouble and can show you how to stand and face difficulty. What’s more, he offers you the strength to do it.

1

Where Troubles Take Us

Learning to Retreat Like Jesus

. . . Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

Hebrews 12:2

Sometimes when someone asks me how I’m doing, I (Sarah) answer, “I’m fine,” when I’m not. That might be because it’s the wrong time or place or even the wrong person to talk to. But sometimes it is because I just don’t want to face the issues all around me. I don’t want to expose myself to other people’s help. I kid myself that I’ve got my own strategies for dealing with my problems. I think that I’m all right on my own.

Pressure Points

There was a time when my friend Nell thought exactly the same. While drowning in the demands of college deadlines, she told me she was fine and put on a fake smile. She stopped replying to my texts and didn’t pick up the phone. She didn’t only push me away, she pushed the God she loved away too. She couldn’t concentrate when she tried to pray, so she stopped praying. Reading her Bible was overwhelming, so she stopped that too. Still, she turned up at church and Bible study. She knew all the right answers to give in discussion and polite conversation. Ask her how she was doing, and the reply would come back, “I’m all right . . . really. How are you?” But inside, she grew more and more distressed.

Nell’s strategy of masking her difficulties by smiling wasn’t working for her. She had felt that time was what she needed and that being on her own would help. She thought that if she could get through this crisis on her own, it would be easier and less messy. But her experience of retreating from church friends and the Lord proved scary. In the end, she came to realize that separation is death-like. Retreating into yourself and relying on yourself, she discovered, can feel deathly.

How Jesus Responded to Pressure

It was good news for Nell to discover that Jesus retreated at times, but that his retreats weren’t about panic or self-reliance. In Matthew 13–14, we hear about some of the pressures Jesus was under. First, he was in Nazareth, his hometown, but although people were amazed at his teaching, they rejected it and took offense (Matt. 13:53–58). Second, he heard that his cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded by Herod, and that Herod was now terrified that Jesus was actually John brought back to life (Matt. 14:1–12). Rejection, grief, and perhaps concern about Herod’s next move must have created the temptation for Jesus to despair. We know that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness (see Matt. 4:1–11). But think about this: he faced the human realities of stress and trouble and sorrow throughout his life. Temptation for him must have been ever present. He was fully human in every way. And so, he reacted to these pressures in a fully human, fully sinless way by retreating into relationship.

In Matthew 14:13, Jesus “withdrew . . . to a desolate place by himself” and, as he was interrupted, later he went farther, escaping “up on the mountain by himself to pray . . . he was there alone” (14:23). Matthew couldn’t be clearer about Jesus’s retreat to be away from people to be with his God, on whom, in his human nature, he depended. Exposed on the mountain in all his human vulnerability, Jesus could pour out his heart and be understood. He could be comforted through knowing his Father.

Of course, intimate dependence and comfort is what you want when you’re stressed, isn’t it? That is what we all yearn for. And it is obvious that seeking God’s help is what we should do, isn’t it? Apart from all the other useful strategies we will take time to explore in the course of this book, taking time to rest consciously in God’s love has to be number one. There are no substitutes.

Does this truth sting a bit? Perhaps (as I do) you feel regret or sadness or even guilt as you see Jesus’s perfect response to pressure, and as you reflect on your own kind of retreat. Rather than retreating into relationship with our heavenly Father, we so often hide in distraction and worse. Whether your go-to distraction is binge-watching, binge-eating, compulsive shopping, or something darker, or the (often, but not always) healthier options of fiction, gaming, crafting, social-media, or exercise—it still isn’t prayer, or at least, not in-depth prayer. The issue, very often, for us Christians isn’t that we don’t know what to do, but that we don’t do what we know is best.

Turning Back—to Him

What then are we to do?

Reflect for a moment on why Jesus would have journeyed to the mountaintop in the dark. God is love: the Son and Father and the Holy Spirit are always one in essence and united in joyful, delighting, superabounding love. Now incarnated in a limited body, Jesus went to spend time with his heavenly Father, to find rest in this love. He did it because it was the best thing for a tempted and pressured man to do.

This loving retreat, what one theologian has called “a perfect openness,”2 was an expression of obedience. As a perfect man, Jesus obeyed his Father by remaining in his love (John 15:10). To love God, for him (and for us as his followers) means seeking to obey; to obey means persevering in love. So often, the right-thing-to-do seems to us like drudgery. Dull but necessary, like cleaning the bathroom or drinking plenty of water, writing thank-you notes or checking the oil in the car. But Jesus shows us here that to obey is to love. He obeyed because he loves his Father, and he loves us. Now that is a remarkable thought! Here I am at my desk, typing on a laptop in a Yorkshire town on a snowy February evening. Jesus walked up a mountain in the warmth of a Galilean spring two thousand years ago, and he did it out of love for me. This loving obedience of his, as he retreated to wrestle in prayer, was part of the righteous life he lived that I and so many millions more might know him now and into eternity.

In Romans 5:19, Paul tells us that “through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (NIV). This means that the minute-by-minute obedience of Jesus’s earthly life, and the ultimate obedience of dying on the cross, have changed the identity of all who have been joined to him by faith. If you’ve put your trust in him, you’re joined to him, and if you’re joined to him, you’re given his righteousness. It’s as if you now have an ID card stamped “righteous.” All the boxes you’ve ticked and those you’ve left blank are now superimposed by that stamp. Righteous.

So how does this help you when you yet again turn your eyes away from the Bible on the shelf or ignore the texts and calls of your Christian brothers and sisters? Well, for a start, it tells you that’s not who you are. Christians have been called righteous. And to be righteous is to be connected and dependent, not disconnected and self-reliant.

This means that turning to Jesus in trial or in worry or even in boredom is to walk through a door he has already opened for you by his own obedience. You might feel the battle to concentrate or struggle to be honest about the state you’ve slipped into but turning to Jesus means entering his loving embrace. Jesus did the right things you couldn’t and wouldn’t do, and this means that now you can take that step into conscious dependence on him. How do you start? Perhaps by confessing the independence that has kept you from coming to him and the desire you have to keep away from God and his holiness. You must ask him to give you a hunger to keep turning back to him and for the day-by-day strength to form new habits of reliance.

Nell’s recognition that separation was doing her no good was the start of rediscovering her strength in the Lord. It wasn’t an easy start, and there have been quite a few backward steps and pauses in her journey so far. Through God’s help, she’s learning to keep retreating to God, to speak honestly with her Lord about where she is. That step has led to her speaking honestly to a few other people too. Knowing their support, she has found that her practical problems aren’t so overwhelming as they once seemed.

Reflect

1.  In what ways do you hide from difficulties? What are some habits that you have developed as a way of avoiding dependence on others or on the Lord?

2.  Reflect prayerfully on these extraordinary verses from Hebrews:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Heb. 4:14–16 NIV)

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. (Heb. 5:7 NIV)

  Notice how Jesus is shown in these verses. He knows what it is like to be tempted and to be dependent. He knows how hard prayer is. And through all of this, he conquered to become the priest you need. His power is made perfect in weakness.

3.  What is one new habit you’d like to develop to cultivate dependence on God and fellow Christians? Write it down and consider what you need to change. Is there a Christian friend you need to share your struggles with? Could you ask someone from church to check up on how you are really doing?

Pray

Lord Jesus, I thank you that you showed us by your life what it means to rely on your perfect Father. I thank you that you pray for me in all my weakness.

Heavenly Father, I thank you that you hear your Son’s eternal prayer and save those who come to him.

Holy Spirit, I thank you that you have been sent to strengthen all who ask for help in Jesus’s name.

Help me rely on you, Lord God, and give me the desire and will to keep turning to you. Help me to be honest with others about my struggles and ready to receive help.

All this I pray, in Jesus’s name and through the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

2

The All-Seeing, All-Caring Lord

Secure in the Savior

I have seen him who looks after me.

Genesis 16:13

Every so often I (Sarah) see a story in the news about sinkholes. Tiny cracks slowly appear in a pavement or a road, then suddenly a hole opens up and a car, house, or perhaps a person plummets down. The sinkholes are normally not that deep, but the devastation can be horrible. Last summer, I saw footage of a man waiting for a bus in New York City when a sinkhole suddenly opened up beneath him. One moment the man was standing silently on a bustling sidewalk; the next moment he was in fifteen feet of darkness, cold and wet and surrounded by rats!

Going Under?

It’s easy to see how our troubles can feel like a sinkhole. We might fall into them when we’re just going about our business. Though we may be physically near everyone else, we are stuck in a different and scary world. In this part, we’ve already thought about our inclination to pull back and withdraw into self-reliance when we hit difficulty. Here I want us to think about the temptation toward destructive self-pity: the instinct we all feel to obsess about ourselves, our needs, and our pain while forgetting the needs of others.

In pain it is easy to keep running over our sorrows, playing to ourselves (and perhaps to others) a soundtrack of grievances and hurts. The “If only . . . ,” “Why me?,” “Not again,” “This is all so awful!” and “She always . . . ” thoughts run on loop, sometimes with an added “It’s not my fault,” or “It’s so unfair.” This narrative makes the walls of our sinkhole seem steeper and slimier. It becomes harder and harder to climb out, and the darkness presses in.

I’ve found that a difficulty can come to define who I am; it dominates my social media feed, what I read, and the songs I listen to. Life becomes all about my particular kind of hardship. I’ve looked out on others and thought, “You won’t understand. You don’t know what it is like!” Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation?

In these situations it then becomes tempting to play Top Trumps of suffering. Do you remember that card game? When our children were younger, we had a dinosaur Top Trumps pack. There was a card for each species with a terrifying picture and also scores for different characteristics—say, fighting power, adaptability, or size. In a similar way we rank and compare our troubles to decide who most deserves our compassion, and how much of it to give. Very often, our troubles rank highest of all. I’m the one who needs pity! What’s more, I need all the pity I’ve got so there’s not much left over for anyone else—at least not much for people outside our immediate circles or who might demand much from us or who don’t share our suffering score.

Please don’t misunderstand me here. We’ve just seen in our last chapter how Jesus wrestled in prayer, so there’s certainly a place in the Christian life for lament and honesty about pain and hardship. We absolutely must recognize our griefs, share them with others, and retreat into the love of God. There’s a difference, though, between an honest expression of pain brought to the Lord and self-centered pity.

The All-Seeing Savior We All Need

Let’s look at what happens when Jesus retreats. The first time in Matthew 14, he arrives at the solitary place he’s heading for but is met by crowds who have tracked him down wanting miracles and healing. What does he do? Though he is grieving and under pressure, his heart responds. “He had compassion on them and healed their sick” (v. 14). In Mark’s version of the event, the reason for this compassion is added. Jesus sees that the crowds “were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). He’s not moved by their need for physical help so much as by their lostness. These crowds are wandering without the direction and protection a shepherd could bring. They are in danger. So he heals, teaches, and later feeds them fish and bread. Jesus’s retreat has been interrupted by the needs of demanding crowds. They do not deserve his attention. They’ve done nothing to earn it. They evidently had little interest in this miracle-worker except what they could get from him for their daily needs. But Jesus gives them love and help, because he understands their deep needs. Despite his own burdens, he is able to reach out.

The second time Jesus withdraws (straight after feeding the crowds), he does get to pray, but then something similar happens (Matt.