Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 46

A Season of Many Firsts without Nanci by My Side

This is a year of “firsts,” that is, the first of many things without Nanci by my side. These weeks have included three of the very hardest firsts, followed quickly by Christmas and New Year’s. Then there will be Valentine’s Day, and March 28, the day of Nanci's homegoing, where in God’s providence our whole family will hopefully be all together, for the first time since her memorial service, May 15.

Last week was my first Thanksgiving without Nanci since 1969, so we had an unbroken string of 52 years. (One of those Thanksgivings three years ago I brought her home from the hospital after one of her surgeries.) Then last Wednesday, November 30, was her birthday, and seven days later, December 7, is the 54th anniversary of the day we met in 1968, as freshmen in high school. I wrote this on her birthday this week:

Happy birthday to my soulmate Nanci. Her mom always used to make her this chocolate wafer log cake with whipped cream for her birthday. After her mom went to Jesus, our daughters Karina and Angela picked up the tradition. I can picture Nanci and her mom and dad and my mom and dad right now. I expect after the resurrection, on the New Earth, where we know we will eat and drink together, that birthdays will probably be celebrated (why not in that Land of Celebration?), and Nanci's mom will be making this log cake for her and the rest of us. Happy first-birthday in a far better world, sweetheart!

The next day Angie sent me this photo of a slice of the log cake she made in honor of her mom’s birthday. I love that Angie still makes it for her family.

I feel profoundly sad in some respects, yet so deeply grateful for the life God gave Nanci and I together, and it is impossible to be this grateful without also being happy. This is 2 Corinthians 6:10, “sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” And it is not just words or pretense or wishful thinking, it’s an absolute blood-bought reality, a certainty that I feel deep in my heart and bones. I sense continuously not only His presence but Nanci’s. “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD [Yahweh], the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).

Below is a blog post I wrote 14 years ago in honor of Nanci’s birthday and the anniversary of our meeting:

December 7, this Sunday, is the 40th anniversary of the day Nanci and I met. We were freshmen in high school. It was a double date in which we went to see two new movies at Portland's Village Theatre on 122nd: the original The Odd Couple, with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, and The Americanization of Emily with Julie Andrews.

Forty years. Wow. I love Nanci more today than ever. She is a treasure. Fun, upbeat, delightful. You name it.

Nanci and I had a wonderful day celebrating her birthday last Sunday November 30. She loves football, so after watching an NFL game, we went out for dinner to The Old Spaghetti Factory.

The Old Spaghetti Factory, the original in downtown Portland, the mother of Spaghetti Factories everywhere, opened one month after we met. It was our favorite place to go in 1969 and the early seventies. (Anybody remember the silent movies they showed you while you were waiting in the always crowded original Old Spaghetti Factory? How about the chunks of fruit in the spumoni ice cream? That was the only thing I didn't like!)

In 1969, at TOSF, I discovered their spaghetti with Mizithra, and I've never ordered anything else there in the forty years since. I don't seek alternatives to perfection, either with Mizithra or with Nanci.

(I haven't read a TOSF menu in years, since there's no point when you know what you want, but I can tell you what it used to say of Mizithra: "Legend has it that Homer lived on this while writing The Illiad." I can't think of many better things to live on while writing a book. Maybe I'll try it someday.)

Next, Nanci and I drove to The Academy Theatre on 78th and Stark. It opened in 1946 (the website says 1948, but congratulatory Western Union telegrams on the wall, from Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, say 1946). Then it closed in the 1970s and was completely renovated a few years ago. It's a charming place, located halfway between Nanci's childhood home and Multnomah Bible College where we went. It's right next to Flyin' Pie Pizza, which they serve on the theatre menu too, and people are welcome to have a full meal in their reclining stadium seats.

Then Nanci and I drove to the house she grew up in, in Southeast Portland, about 69th and Division, by Mount Tabor, in Franklin High School District. Nanci hadn't been back there in years. It was a whole day of nostalgia.

Nanci in gradeschool. Wasn't she adorable? Still is.

Okay, below I'm going to just throw in some random pics of Nanci, from my laptop computer, which is all I have with me now. So scroll down and you'll see some fun pics with brief comments. Apologies to grandsons Ty and Jack since I don't have photos of them with their grandmother on this computer. I'm winging it.

Here we are ten days ago in Florida, with Webers and Tebows. Like I said, Nanci loves football. We couldn't turn down the invitation, and became Gator fans and fast friends. Go Gators.

Nanci with our precious friend Joni Eareckson Tada last month when I was speaking at a Joni and Friends conference in southern California.

Nanci getting laughs from famous people. Notice that she is focused on the dog rather than them, and they're getting a kick out of her.

Nanci watching a playoff game between Seahawks and Packers, her two favorite teams. Picture taken at moment of action. Take a close look at Nanci's face and you can see she's into it. Dan Franklin is pumping his fist at far left, then Dan Stump, and our daughters Angela and Karina. This was pre-grandchildren, so would have been five or six years ago.

Holding Jake, our first grandson, August 2004.

With Matthew and Jake at OMSI a few years ago.

With two of her favorite people, grandson Matt and dog Moses.

With our dear friend Diane Meyer's dog. Nanci's a dog person. Which means half my birthday gifts to her were dog-related.

So, bottom line, I have a Jesus-loving, family-loving, football-loving, movie-loving, dog-loving wife, who also has loved me for forty years this weekend, despite the fact that I can be an idiot, and periodically make a point of proving it.

Who could ask for any more in a wife?

I love you Nano, and I thank God for you.

Always have, always will.

God’s Providence in Joseph’s Story—and Ours

“Providence” is a word we use frequently in talking about God, but we may not have thought deeply about what it means. Theologian Timothy George defines it as “God’s faithful and effective care and guidance of everything which He has made toward the end which He has chosen.”

God’s providence was a deep comfort to both Nanci and me as we faced her cancer. In her journal, Nanci quoted Joni Eareckson Tada: “God is not a sweep-up boy who follows you with a dustpan and brush, second-guessing how everything will fit into a divine pattern for good. God’s hands stay on the wheel of your life from start to finish so that everything follows His intention for your life.”

That quote comes from Joni’s book Pain and Providence, in a section where she writes about God’s providence in Joseph’s life:

I draw a lot of inspiration from the story of Joseph. There were plenty of unfortunate mishaps in Joseph’s life, like being tossed by his envious brothers into a pit and left to die. But later on, after more mishaps, Joseph told his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Gen. 50:20-21).

I like that word, intended. He is a God of intention—He has a purpose, a target, a goal, and a plan. Joseph’s problems did not catch God off guard. From the beginning, God calculated for Joseph to experience all these things. Why? For the salvation of others.

God is not a sweep-up boy who follows you with a dustpan and brush, second-guessing how everything will fit into a divine pattern for good. God’s hands stay on the wheel of your life from start to finish so that everything follows His intention for your life. This means your trials have more meaning—much more—than you realize.

Consider this: If Joseph had not been sold to those caravan traders by his wicked brothers, he would not have been sold as a slave to Pharaoh. And if Joseph had not become Pharaoh’s right-hand man, no one would have built giant grain silos to ward off the famine. And if the famine hadn’t happened, Jacob and his family would never have come to Egypt for food and safety. And if Jacob’s family weren’t in Egypt, there would have been no slave laborers. And if no slaves, no Exodus, and no giving of the law to Moses. And no Promised Land. And, finally, no line of Judah from which the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come.

What an amazing example of the providence of God! It is enthralling to see how the troubles of one young man named Joseph could kick-start a whole chain of earth-shaking events which would ultimately lead to our salvation.

Joseph’s story could be yours. Only heaven will reveal the incredibly complex intertwining of events in which you have played a pivotal role. Like Joseph, you may not be able to discern it at the time, but God has it all in hand. He has it all in control. And you, dear friend, are needed in His marvelous plan to spread His kingdom in your corner of the world.

As usual, I wholeheartedly agree with Joni. Let’s take another look at this amazing story. Joseph recognized God’s sovereignty when he said to his brothers, who betrayed and sold him into slavery, “It was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.... 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 45:5–8). God didn’t only permit Joseph’s journey to Egypt, he sent him there through his brothers’ evil deeds.

Later Joseph told his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20, ESV). “God meant it for good” communicates something far stronger than God being handed lemons and making lemonade. God did not merely make the best of a bad situation; on the contrary, fully aware of what Joseph’s brothers would do, and fully permitting their sin, God intended that the bad situation—which He could have prevented, but didn’t—be used for good. As Joni explains, He did so in accordance with His plan from eternity past.

We see two wills at work in Genesis 50:20. The brothers successfully did evil, and God successfully brought about good from their evil—but His good dramatically eclipsed their evil. While God did not force them to do evil, He sovereignly worked so that the moral evil they committed, and the consequential evils that came from it, accomplished His ultimately good purposes. These purposes extended not only to Israel, but to Joseph and even to Joseph’s brothers, the evildoers.

Similarly, some of those who crucified Jesus later embraced the redemption accomplished in His crucifixion. Hence, in a sense inexplicable except by God’s sovereign grace, they became beneficiaries of their own evil deed.

How great is our infinitely holy God that He can and does use sin—including my sin and yours—to accomplish His purposes. Should this cause us to minimize the seriousness of our sin? No more than it caused Joseph’s brothers to minimize theirs. What it should do is maximize the sovereignty and providential wisdom our almighty God. Our sins are great, but our Savior is infinitely bigger than our sins!

Nothing about God’s sovereign work in Joseph’s life suggests that God works differently in the lives of His other children. In fact, Romans 8:28 and Ephesians 1:11 make it emphatically clear that He works the same way with us. Countless millions of choices and actions are contemplated every second across this globe. Our all-knowing and all-powerful God chooses exactly which ones He will cause or not, ordain or not, permit or not. He does not permit evils arbitrarily, but with purpose. Everything He permits matches up with His wisdom and ultimately serves His holiness, justice, love and grace. As Joni puts it, “God permits what he hates to achieve what he loves.”

Though events in our lives may have less drama or historical prominence, God didn’t act out of character with Joseph. Rather, He revealed for our benefit how He sovereignly and providentially works in our lives as well. Knowing this can provide great encouragement and perspective as we face our own trials and sufferings today.

See Randy's book hand in Hand: The Beauty of God's Sovereignty and Meaningful Human Choice.

Photo: Unsplash

What Does Scripture Mean by the Term New Heavens?

A reader asked, “What does the Bible mean by the term new heavens? And why is it referred to heavens (plural) but then switches to heaven (singular)?”

The Old Testament uses no single word for universe or cosmos. When Genesis 1:1 speaks of God’s creating “the heavens and the earth,” the words are synonymous with what we mean by universe. Heavens refers to the realms above the earth: atmosphere, sun, moon, and stars, and all that’s in outer space. Then in Isaiah, God says, “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17). This corresponds to Genesis 1:1, indicating a complete renewal of the same physical universe God first created.

Revelation 21:1-2 says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. . . . I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” Because “new heaven” (singular) is used here, some think it’s God’s dwelling place that passes away and is renewed. But the present Heaven is described as unshakable in ways the physical universe isn’t (Hebrews 12:26-28). The “new heaven” in Revelation 21:1 apparently refers to exactly the same atmospheric and celestial heavens as “heavens” does in Genesis 1:1. It also corresponds to the “new heaven(s)” of Isaiah 65:17, Isaiah 66:22, and 2 Peter 3:13. In Revelation 21:2 we see God’s dwelling place isn’t replaced but relocated when the New Jerusalem is brought down to the New Earth.

The new heavens will surely be superior to the old heavens, which themselves are filled with untold billions of stars and perhaps trillions of planets. God’s light casts the shadows we know as stars, the lesser lights that point to God’s substance. As the source is greater than the tributary, God, the Light, is infinitely greater than those little light-bearers we know as stars.

The Bible’s final two chapters make clear that every aspect of the new creation will be greater than the old. Just as the present Jerusalem isn’t nearly as great as the New Jerusalem, no part of the present creation—including the earth and the celestial heavens—is as great as it will be in the new creation.

While some passages suggest that the universe will wear out and the stars will be destroyed, others indicate that the stars will exist forever (Psalm 148:3-6). Is this a contradiction? No. We too will be destroyed by death, yet we will last forever. The earth will be destroyed in God’s judgment, yet it will last forever. In exactly the same way, the stars will be destroyed, yet they will last forever. Based on the redemptive work of Christ, God will resurrect them.

Earth is the first domain of mankind’s stewardship, but it is not the only domain. Because the whole universe fell under mankind’s sin, we can conclude that the whole universe was intended to be under mankind’s dominion. If so, then the entire new universe will be ours to travel to, inhabit, and rule—to God’s glory.

Do I seriously believe the new heavens will include new galaxies, planets, moons, white dwarf stars, neutron stars, black holes, and quasars? Yes. The fact that they are part of the first universe and that God called them “very good” means they will be part of the resurrected universe. When I look at the Horsehead Nebula and ask myself what it’s like there, I think that one day I’ll know. Just as I believe this “self-same body”—as the Westminster Confession put it—will be raised and the “self-same” Earth will be raised, I believe the “self-same” Horsehead Nebula will be raised. Why? Because as part of the present heavens, it will be raised as part of the new heavens.

Will the new planets be mere ornaments, or does God intend for us to reach them one day? Even under the Curse, we’ve been able to explore the moon, and we have the technology to land on Mars. What will we be able to accomplish for God’s glory when we have resurrected minds, unlimited resources, complete scientific cooperation, and no more death? Will the far reaches of our galaxy be within reach? And what about other galaxies, which are plentiful as blades of grass in a meadow? We will expand the borders of righteous mankind’s Christ-centered dominion, not as conquerors who seize what belongs to others, but as faithful stewards who will occupy and manage the full extent of God’s physical creation.

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Sale ends Monday, November 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Contentment Is the True Measure of Godliness

This Black Friday, it’s worth reminding ourselves that we are living in an era when we have more material possessions than any generation before us. Compared to Americans living in the 1950s, we have countless more conveniences, including big-screen TVs, microwaves, online shopping, smartphones, and twice as many cars. It’s easy to assume our purchases will automatically lead to greater contentment.

But will they? Dr. David G. Myers claims that this generation is actually less content than generations before it. “Compared with their grandparents, today’s young adults have grown up with much more affluence, slightly less happiness and much greater risk of depression and assorted social pathology.”

The false idea that prosperity brings contentment is nothing new. Paul warned Timothy and the church at Ephesus about false teachers—first-century equivalents to modern prosperity theology proponents—who were “depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain” (1 Timothy 6:5).

Like the Pharisees, these false teachers were religious braggarts, and most of what Scripture says about the one group applies to the other. Jesus put it this way: “Everything they do is just to show off in front of others” (Matthew 23:5, CEV). They impressed people with their clever interpretations and personality-driven communication. Instead of faithfully teaching God’s Word, they misused their platform to perform and make money. We know from historical documents that some prominent religious teachers in that time charged exorbitant speaker fees. Like their counterparts today, they embraced the secular culture’s materialistic values while baptizing them with verses taken out of context.

Many people believed such preachers were wealthy because God approved of them. But He didn’t then, and He doesn’t today.

After describing the false teachers as “imagining that godliness is a means of gain,” Paul immediately followed with “but godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).

Like the Pharisees, the false teachers used superficial, outward godliness as a means to the ends of popularity, power, and wealth. Paul, however, wasn’t talking about a show of godliness. He was referring to genuine, inward godliness centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is a humble godliness that manifests itself as a natural outflow, never as a calculated performance.

The New Living Translation renders 1 Timothy 6:5-6 this way: “To them, a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth” (emphasis added). When it comes to lasting gain, true godliness definitely pays off! But the measure of such godliness is our contentment, not our bank balance. And that is the great gain.

Excerpted from Randy's book Giving Is the Good Life . Also see more resources on money and giving. 

Photo by Simona Sergi on Unsplash

Praise and Gratitude, Even in Affliction

To the arrogant I say, “Boast no more,”
and to the wicked, “Do not lift up your horns.
Do not lift your horns against heaven;
do not speak with outstretched neck.”
No one from the east or the west
or from the desert can exalt a man.
But it is God who judges:
He brings one down, he exalts another.
In the hand of the Lord is a cup
full of foaming wine mixed with spices;
he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth
drink it down to its very dregs.
As for me, I will declare this forever;
I will sing praise to the God of Jacob.
—Psalm 75:4–9

God is the Almighty Judge who brings one person down while exalting another with purposes and timing that only He understands. His creatures may respond to His mysterious ways with bitterness, indifference, or praise. Given these alternatives, I choose praise.

Puritan pastor Richard Baxter wrote, “Resolve to spend most of your time in thanksgiving and praising God. If you cannot do it with the joy that you should, yet do it as you can.… Doing it as you can is the way to be able to do it better. Thanksgiving stirreth up thankfulness in the heart.”

Baxter is right—expressing praise and gratitude makes a grateful heart. Gratitude is a perspective-shaping habit, especially in difficult times.

Charles Spurgeon wrote, “I venture to say that the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the possible exception of sickness.… If some men that I know of could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God’s grace, mellow them marvelously.”

Though he sought to avoid suffering, Spurgeon said, “I am afraid that all the grace that I have got of my comfortable and easy times and happy hours, might almost lie on a penny. But the good that I have received from my sorrows, and pains, and griefs, is altogether incalculable.… Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house. It is the best book in a minister’s library.”

You may think, I refuse to accept that suffering can prove worthwhile. But your rejection of God’s goodness will not make you better or happier; it will only bring resentment and greater pain. Accept health as God’s blessing and its absence as God’s severe mercy. Samuel Rutherford wrote these profound words in the seventeenth century:

If God had told me some time ago that he was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that he should begin by crippling me in arm or limb, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing his purpose. And yet, how is his wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven.

Father, when we like what is happening, gratitude comes more naturally, though even then we take far too much for granted. But when we do not understand your purposes, praise is an act of humble submission learned only through the experience of trials. Given the alternatives of bitterness, indifference, and praise, may we always choose to praise you. For whether or not we see your hand in all that is happening to us, you remain worthy of our praise. Someday, in retrospect, we, your children, will wonder how we ever could have doubted, how we ever could have failed to speak your praises. Give us today the same perspective we’ll have one minute after we die.

Excerpted from Randy's book  90 Days of God's Goodness. 

Photo by Rainier Ridao on Unsplash

God Invites Us into His Happiness

In my book Happiness, I assert that modern Christians need to speak more, not less, about happiness—the kind of happiness that’s centered on Christ.

Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) said, “Let us leave sadness to the devil and his angels. As for us, what can we be but rejoicing and glad?”

I talked with a young woman who viewed the Christian life as one of utter dullness. She knew that following Christ was the right thing to do, but she was certain it would mean sacrificing her happiness.

Unless her view changes dramatically, her spiritual future is bleak. It isn’t in our nature to continually say no to what we believe would make us happy—or to say yes to something that would make us unhappy. (Don’t mistake perseverance for choosing unhappiness—the man who faithfully loves his wife suffering from dementia is not choosing unhappiness but rather choosing the happiness of honoring his wife, keeping his vows, and hearing God’s “well done.”)

So where did this young woman, who was raised in a fine Christian family and church, acquire such an unbiblical notion? What are we doing—what are we missing—that leaves many of our children and our churches laboring under such false impressions? Why do we think it would be unspiritual for the Christian life to be centered on what God calls the good news of happiness?

Celebration and gladness of heart have characterized the church, including the suffering church, throughout history. Scripturally, the culture of God’s people is one of joy, happiness, gratitude, eating and drinking, singing and dancing, and making music. It’s not the people who know God who have reason to be miserable—it’s those who don’t.

When our face to the world is one of anger, misery, shame, cowardice, or defensiveness, the gospel we speak of doesn’t appear to be the good news of happiness. And we shouldn’t be surprised if people, both outside and inside the church, aren’t attracted to it. Why should they be?

Joy and laughter should be the church’s norm, not the exception.

Children who grow up seeing church as a morose, hypercritical place will turn their backs on it in their quest for happiness. Those who have found happiness in the church will usually stay or return.

Sadly, many non-Christian young adults today view Christ’s followers as “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental.” These words all describe unhappy people. (If the world judges us, so be it, but it shouldn’t be because we’re chronically unhappy.)

It seems to me there are two extremes of Christians when it comes to happiness. Some change the channel from the coverage of a hurricane, refuse to think about sex trafficking and abortion, and ignore the sufferings of this world while grabbing on to superficial living. They look the other way when their marriages are in trouble or when their children choose wrong friends, yet they keep claiming Jesus’ promise of easy lives without suffering. (Never mind that Jesus never made such a promise!)

Other Christians are perpetually somber, never laughing or poking fun at themselves, rarely celebrating, and quick to frown when they see someone having fun. Shoulders sagging, they believe that happiness is ungodliness.

The Bible presents a more balanced perspective. Paul said he was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Sorrow and joy can and do coexist, for now. (Note that the “always” in this verse is applied to rejoicing, not being sorrowful.)

If we constantly focus on all that’s wrong with the world, then sorrow or anger will be our default. But the apostle Paul, writing from prison in Rome, calls on us to rejoice in the Lord not periodically, but always.

It’s not insensitive, unkind, or wrong to be happy. By being happy in Christ, we lay claim to the fact that God is bigger than the Fall and affirm that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will reverse the Curse and reign over a new universe. Our happiness shouts that our God is present with us and at work in the world every minute of every hour of every day. The narrower our view of God’s presence in this world—and in our daily lives—the less happiness we’ll experience.

Scripture’s good news is of “great joy,” not “great duty.”

Mike Mason writes, “No one would become a Christian if this hard decision were not accompanied by stupendous joy.”

The Puritans, never accused of being trendy, talked a great deal about Christian happiness. Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) wrote to Lady Kenmure, “I have neither tongue nor pen to express to you the happiness of such as are in Christ.”

Baptist pastor Octavius Winslow (1808–1878) said, “The child of God is, from necessity, a joyful man. His sins are forgiven, his soul is justified, his person is adopted, his trials are blessings, his conflicts are victories, his death is immortality, his future is a heaven of inconceivable, unthought-of, untold, and endless blessedness—with such a God, such a Saviour, and such a hope, is he not, ought he not, to be a joyful man?” It was a rhetorical question—who could possibly have more reason to rejoice than one who knows Jesus?

When the gospel is viewed primarily as laying burdens and obligations on people, the Good News gets buried. Burdens and obligations are not good news; good news is about liberation, deliverance, newfound delight, and daily celebration. Sure, duty is real and the gospel calls us to a life of obedience, but it’s glad duty and joyful obedience.

There’s an age-old tradition of Christ-followers who have found their deepest happiness in their Lord. We should eagerly join them and say with English Puritan John Flavel (1627–1691), “Christ [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean . . . so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet.”

Growing in our happiness in Christ is a process.

The bride of Christ matures incrementally. As we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), we grow in joy.

Paul depicted the gradual process of growth in Christlikeness this way: “We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18, niv). With ever-increasing glory comes ever-increasing happiness in our Lord. Sin loses its hold on us—largely because we see the misery it brings. We begin to ask ourselves, “How could I believe for a moment that sin could bring me happiness?”

We also learn from adversity. When our perspective and our faith are put to the test, our happiness can flourish. That’s why so many passages surprise us by connecting rejoicing with trials (see James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:6-9; 2 Corinthians 8:2-3; Hebrews 10:34).

Our pursuit of genuine happiness in God honors Him.

When Puritan Jonathan Edwards was only nineteen years old, he made a resolution that speaks volumes: “Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigour, and vehemence . . . I am capable of.”

Like most of the Puritans, Richard Sibbes did not demean the quest for happiness; rather, he saw Jesus as the proper object of that quest: “Only to a true Christian, by a supernatural light, is discovered both the right object, and the right way to felicity.”

In the movie The Stepford Wives, husbands program “perfect” wives. Of course, these robotic wives are perfect only in the sense that they do whatever their husbands want. But what any good man really desires is a relationship with a real person who responds out of heartfelt love and happiness. Fake, programmed love or happiness is empty—in fact, it’s unreal.

C. S. Lewis said, “The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.”

God doesn’t force happiness on us. He invites us to enter His happiness and find it in Him.

Excerpted from Randy's book Happiness. Browse more resources on the topic of happiness, and see his other related books, including  Does God Want Us to Be Happy?

Photo by Christin Noelle on Unsplash

Helping Give Children Access to Clean Water Is an Eternal Investment

Jesus, in Matthew 10:42, makes a startlingly significant promise about a seemingly small act of service: “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward."

In that verse, Jesus is referring to His apostles as "these little ones." And later, in Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus broadens His statement about “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink” to "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (v. 40). Surely the principle involved extends to children and the neediest of our fellow humans.

Jesus had a very special love for children:

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’” (Matthew 18:1-5, NIV).

He also said these remarkable words about His disciples, and once again the principle naturally extends to all children, in particular those who love Jesus:

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in Heaven" (Matthew 18:10).

In this video you will meet Luci, a sister in Christ in another part of the world where her life—and those of “the least of these” in her community—radically changed due to the accessibility of fresh water through Water Mission, an organization I truly believe in.

If our love is genuine, when we see the picture, or hear the story of a thirsty child, we don’t just feel bad for the moment or merely think, I wish that child weren’t thirsty. Love finds a way to help that child or children like her. Love means giving.

John Wesley spoke of the good our generous giving can do:

In the hands of [God’s] children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked. It gives to the traveler and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of a husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We may be a defence for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain. It may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame: yea, a lifter up from the gates of death!

The truth is, if you and your children are not malnourished or enslaved, and if you can access clean water and shelter, you are relatively rich—on that basis alone. The next time you’re tempted to think, I don’t have enough money to give, don’t compare yourself to the relatively small number of people who have more than you. Compare yourself to the seven billion others who have less—most of them far less.

Contrast your investment in “the least of these” with buying an RV, a larger TV, or a high-end vacation, or putting more money into an already ample retirement plan. It’s not that those things are inherently bad; simply consider their temporal nature and the longer lasting, and so eternally beautiful impact of money given to reach the unreached, get clean water to a remote village, feed hungry children, or educate young people so they can get good jobs and thrive.

“Your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost” (Matthew 18:14).

I encourage you to send the gift of life to needy people created in God’s image, and for whom Christ died, including children and their parents who are laboring to keep them alive. You can give directly to Water Mission, or if you prefer, you can give to EPM's relief fund (choose "relief fund" under the "select fund" dropdown) and through Friday, December 9, we will direct 100% of your donation to Water Mission.

Can Focusing on Heaven Become an Idol?

If our perspective shifts from Christ, we can idolize anything—including our own incorrect views of Heaven. Some people today write about angels and Heaven, but they completely leave out God (or paint a false picture of Him). I think a perfect example is Mitch Albom’s book The Five People We Meet in Heaven. I read that book and thought, there’s nothing about God! Heaven is the dwelling place of God, and Mitch Albom doesn’t even mention Him. How tragic—only talking about ourselves is a dead-end street.

Heaven is not going to be about us. It’s first and foremost about God. And everything else we say and think about Heaven should be seen in relationship to Jesus Christ, who every created thing will exalt for all eternity.

We’ve been made for a Person, and we’ve been made for a place: Jesus is the Person; Heaven is the place. But the place is always secondary to the Person. Heaven’s appeal should rest solely on its status as God’s dwelling place. The place has its glory and wonder and appeal, but only because it reflects God’s glory and wonder and appeal.

We see in Scripture that God and Heaven—the Person and the place—are so closely connected that they’re sometimes referred to interchangeably. The Prodigal Son confessed, “I have sinned against heaven” (Luke 15:18, 21). John the Baptist said, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). Why didn’t he say God instead of Heaven? Because God identifies Himself that intimately with Heaven. It’s His space. And that’s God’s idea, not ours. He could have offered us His person without His place. But He didn’t.

Biblically grounded thoughts about Heaven shouldn’t be seen as an obstacle to knowing God but as a means of knowing Him. The infinite God reveals Himself to us in tangible, finite expressions. Next to the incarnate Christ, Heaven will tell us more about God than anything else.

Some people have told me, “I just want to be with Jesus—I don’t care if Heaven’s a shack.” Well, Jesus cares. He wants us to anticipate Heaven and enjoy the magnificence of it, not to say, “I don’t care about it” or “I’d be just as happy in a shack.” When you go to visit your parents in the house you grew up in, it’s no insult to tell them, “I love this place”; it’s a compliment. They’ll delight in it, not resent it.

Likewise, there’s no dichotomy between anticipating the joys of Heaven and finding our joy in Christ. It’s all part of the same package. The wonders of the new heavens and New Earth will be a primary means by which God reveals Himself and His love to us.

If we think unworthy thoughts of Heaven, we think unworthy thoughts of God. Conventional caricatures of Heaven—as endless tedium, strumming harps and wishing we’d brought a magazine—do a terrible disservice to God and adversely affect our relationship with Him. If we come to love Heaven more—the Heaven God portrays in Scripture—we will inevitably love God more. If Heaven fills our hearts and minds, God will fill our hearts and minds.

Every thought of Heaven should move our hearts toward God, just as every thought of God will move our hearts toward Heaven. That’s why Paul could tell us to set our hearts on Heaven (Colossians 3:1), not just “set your hearts on God.” To do one is to do the other. Heaven will not be an idol that competes with God but a lens by which we see God.

Those who love God should think more often of Heaven, not less.

See also my articles Heavenly Minded and of Earthly Good and God’s Presence Is the Essence of Heaven.

For more on the New Earth, see Randy’s books  Heaven  and The Promise of the New Earth . You can also browse our resources on Heaven and additional books.

Photo by Paul Volkmer on Unsplash

Gratitude Coupled with Humble Service Multiples Happiness

Dennis Prager writes, “We tend to think that it is being unhappy that leads people to complain, but it is truer to say that it is complaining that leads to people becoming unhappy. Become grateful and you will become a much happier person.”

When possible, we should take positive action to right what’s wrong. But when we complain about circumstances beyond our control, we’re telling God, “You don’t know what you’re doing; I know better than you.”

If you’ve recently faced a negative situation, write out a list of what you wish others had and hadn’t done for you. Use your list as a guideline to minister to those who need your wisdom and encouragement. Don’t grumble about others; instead, seek to change the primary life God has entrusted to you and the one you have some control over—your own.

I’ve heard many amazing stories of how hurting people have experienced love shown by God’s people. In hard times, Nanci and I have experienced the same. Imperfect as the local church is, we thank God for it, and our gratitude spills over into happiness.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18, NIV). Serving others is one of the best cures for loneliness and depression. “In humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). Helen Keller wrote, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” She also said, “Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.”

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says, “Undeniable guilt, plus undeserved grace, should equal unbridled gratitude.” Far too often, though, it’s our arrogance and ingratitude and complaining spirits that are unbridled. Consequently, our relationship with God and others is hindered and our happiness diminished.

Proud, presumptuous people always think they deserve better. If the day goes well, they don’t notice. If it doesn’t, it’s a great disappointment, and someone else is always to blame.

Good days pleasantly surprise the humble. Even on a difficult day, their hearts overflow with gratitude. They’re happy because they know they’ve received better than they deserve.

Excerpted from Randy's book Happiness . Browse more resources on the topic of happiness, and see Randy’s related books.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

How Can I Keep Trusting God If He Hasn’t Answered My Deepest Prayers?

Note from Randy: As I’ve mentioned before, our Eternal Perspective Ministries staff members sometimes answer questions on my behalf, often quoting from things I’ve written. I am often struck by the fact that what they write back is better than what I would have. I appreciated this answer that Stephanie Anderson wrote to someone asking about unanswered prayer.

A reader wrote us to ask:

Dear Mr. Alcorn, I read your lf God Is Good booklet but I feel there’s an aspect left out that is causing a stumbling block for me with faith. I have no problem with the sovereignty of God in the trials of life. But I’m struggling with His promises in regard to prayers that don’t seem to be fulfilled. As a single woman, I have prayed for marriage and there is no answer on the horizon yet. I have also prayed for a baby’s life, putting my reputation on the line claiming God doesn’t desire that any of these little ones should perish and it is the enemy that comes to steal kill and devour but Christ came to give life more abundantly, and yet watched that baby die. 

It is so hard for me to even pray anymore because I feel like if God wouldn't give me my daily bread in this regard with prayers for what His Word says are good things, then why should I bother praying about more minor things? There are SO many promises in Scripture about if you live a righteous life, God will bless you, but all I feel is cursed by a desert. I would have no problem if there were only verses in the Bible such as "in this world you will have tribulation." But I cannot conveniently cut out the opposite: "Trust in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" and "Ask whatever you will and it will be done for you" and Matthew 7 about God being a good Father and not giving a stone when His children are hungry for bread.

So how can I reconcile what seems like God's blindness to His promises? I'd have no problem if God set the expectation that life is just going to be hard, and suck it up. Where I struggle to believe is when He promises but doesn't deliver.

I’m Stephanie, part of the EPM staff, and I’m responding on Randy’s behalf. Your struggle with unanswered prayer is not an uncommon one, and I think if we’re honest, we’ve all faced it at some point. We understand from God’s Word that He is sovereign and in control, and He is good, and He loves us. He demonstrated that love on the cross dramatically. So why does He not answer these very good prayers (for a godly marriage, and for a child’s life saved) in the way you had hoped? It certainly can be hard to understand from our limited perspective.

You wrote, “I feel cursed by a desert.” And yet—and I know this might sound surprising—I think it’s very good that you are wrestling with these issues. You’ve been given an opportunity. In the desert, you can truly experience God in a way you might not in any other situation. I love how the band I Am They puts it in their song “Make a Way”: “You brought me to the desert so You could be my water…You brought me to the fire so You could be my shield…You brought me to the darkness so You could be my morning light.”

Randy writes in his large If God Is Good book, “If you base your faith on lack of affliction [I would add, on a prayer being answered as you had hoped], your faith lives on the brink of extinction and will fall apart because of a frightening diagnosis or a shattering phone call. Token faith will not survive suffering, nor should it. …Losing your faith may be God’s gift to you. Only when you jettison ungrounded and untrue faith can you replace it with valid faith in the true God—faith that can pass, and even find strength in, the most formidable of life’s tests.”

You mentioned several verses. I will share a few resources related to a couple of them. Like any verse in Scripture, we must look into the context and at parallel passages to understand what God is communicating. Mark 11:24 says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

The ESV Study Bible says this: “God delights to ‘give good things to those who ask him’ (Matt. 7:11) and is capable of granting any prayer, though we must ask with godly motives (James 4:3) and according to God’s will (1 John 5:14). …Those who trust God for the right things in the right way can have confidence that God will ‘supply ever need…accordingly to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 4:19), knowing that he will work ‘all things together for good’ and will ‘graciously give us all things’ (Romans 8:28, 32). Some have misused this verse by telling people that if they pray for physical healing (or for some other specific request) and if they just have enough faith, then they can have confidence that God has already done (or will do) whatever they ask. But we must always have the same perspective that Jesus had—that is, confidence in God’s power but also submission to his will: ‘Father, all things are possible for you…Yet not what I will, but what you will’ (Mark 14:36).”

I found what Jon Bloom wrote in this article helpful: “This is what we must keep in mind: prayer is a relational interaction, not merely a service transaction. Faith is not divine currency that we pay God in order to receive whatever we ask in prayer. Faith is a relational response of trust in what God promises us. Faith says to God, ‘I trust what you say so much that I will live by what you say.’ And those who are audacious enough to really live by what God says will see mountains move that God wants moved. That’s why Jesus said, ‘If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you’ (John 15:7).”  

You also mentioned Psalm 37:4. Randy writes, “Psalm 37:4 is a great but often misunderstood verse: ‘Delight yourselves in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.’ Some people take this to mean that God will give us whatever we think we want. But the key part is ‘delight yourself in God.’ When we delight in the Lord, He often changes our heart’s desires to what most honors Him, then grants them to us. It’s not that we always get what we want, but that He teaches us to value and even want what He—in His sovereign and loving plan—gives us.”

As I read your message, I thought about how hard it can be for us to truly want Jesus more than we desire anything else, even seemingly very good and right things. But it is only when He is the primary desire of our hearts, and we truly know that He is good and He loves us, that we can open our hands and give Him the gift of our trust. Like a good parent (the best parent, really), He knows exactly what His children need, and when we need it. And He also has the immense advantage over earthly parents of seeing and knowing all the things we can’t possibly see or understand. Anyone who spends time around children knows how often they ask for things they think would be wonderful (a third scoop of ice cream or a dinner consisting entirely of gummy bears). He would never give us a stone when we ask for bread, and like any good father, He also will not give us bread if He knows it won’t be in our eternal interests. We truly can trust Him. “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15).

Randy’s ministry focus is on having an eternal perspective. I love this quote from Oswald Chambers about prayer: “We impoverish God in our minds when we say there must be answers to our prayers on the material plane; the biggest answers to our prayers are in the realm of the unseen.”

You wrote, “So how can I reconcile what seems like God’s blindness to His promises?” The truth is, God has not promised us a godly spouse, healthy children, adult children who love and walk with Jesus, the perfect marriage or job, great wealth, or excellent health. Anyone who says otherwise is misusing Scripture. Confusion about what God has and hasn’t promised can easily trip us up. In fact, Scripture says, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). But God has promised that He will always be with His children (Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 28:20), He will work all things together for our eternal good (Romans 8:28), and He will bring us into His presence with great joy (Jude 1:24). He has promised us a beautiful eternity with Him (Revelation 21:3).

Here are a few more quotes from Randy in If God Is Good:

“Every time we ask God to remove some obstacle in our lives, we should realize we may be asking Him to forgo one more opportunity to declare his greatness. Certainly He sometimes graciously answers our prayers to relieve our suffering. This too testifies to His greatness, and we should praise Him for answering. But when He answers no, we should recognize that He desires to demonstrate His greater glory. May we then bend our knees and trust His sovereign grace.”

“We want deliverance from suffering. We don’t want our loved ones to die. We don’t want economic crises, job losses, car accidents, or cancer. Our prayers and often our expectations boil down to this: Jesus should make our lives go smoothly. That’s what we want in a Messiah. But it is not what God wants. Jesus is not our personal assistant charged with granting our wishes. While He sometimes does not give us what we want, He always gives us what we need.”

“Trusting God in suffering involves obeying God even if He chooses not to rescue us. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship an idol even though King Nebuchadnezzar threatened to throw them into a blazing furnace. [An idol is anything that takes God’s place in our heart and thinking.] The three young men answered, ‘If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up’ (Daniel 3:16–18). Some people hold tenaciously to a faith that their child will not die, that their cancer will disappear, that their spouse will recover from a stroke. Do they have faith in God or is their faith in what they desperately want God to do? The three young Hebrew men trusted and obeyed God, knowing He could deliver them from the fire and asking Him to do so, but realizing He might not. God sometimes chooses to heal in supernatural answer to prayer. Still, all who pray for healing should affirm, like Daniel’s friends, that they will worship and honor and obey God ‘even if He does not.’”

I want to share something that Randy wrote in our EPM magazine about all the prayers for his wife Nanci’s healing from cancer that seemingly went “unanswered”:

Thank you so much for all your prayers, some of you for four years of praying consistently for Nanci. My heart is full of gratitude to you. Don’t feel your prayers were not answered. Many of them were, and many others were answered in a better way than we could ever ask. 

Nanci and I prayed together every night for over four years, asking God to remove the cancer. We asked Him to perform a miracle, and if He didn’t do that, to use the medical means over which He is sovereign to save her life. We understood that healing was never a certainty, and also knowing full well that sometimes He chooses to heal and sometimes He doesn’t, and even when He does the healing is temporary, and death always comes. “For death is the destiny of every person, and the living should take this to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). When doctors told us Nanci was going to die, she told me, “We always knew that, we just didn’t know when, and we still don’t.”

I don’t regret all those prayers for a moment. I believe it was right to ask, and I know we were sincere in our asking. God didn’t answer as we hoped He would. But then God also didn’t answer the prayer of Jesus to have the cup of suffering taken from Him.

In Gethsemane Jesus prayed to his Father three times, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). A bit later, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). Though we asked God wholeheartedly to heal Nanci, we recognized Him as Lord and trusted Him to do His will even if it wasn’t our will. We knew what God sovereignly chose would be both for His glory and Nanci’s good.

Similarly, Paul prayed earnestly for God to remove a physical disability, but recognized God had a higher purpose in not removing it: “In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

Some people claim that if God doesn’t answer your prayers as you wish, it’s your fault because you lack faith. By the same logic, Jesus and Paul were at fault that their prayers weren’t answered as they desired. (But of course, Scripture does not fault them at all for this.)

I vividly remember hearing the story twenty-two years ago, in May 2000, when Pastor James Montgomery Boice preached at Tenth Memorial Church in Philadelphia for the last time.  He told his stunned congregation that he was rapidly dying of cancer. At the end of the message Boice said, “Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you’re free to do that, of course.  My general impression is that the God who is able to perform miracles—and certainly He can—is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place…Above all, I would say pray for the glory of God.  If you think of God glorifying Himself in history and you say, `Where in all of history has God most glorified Himself?’ the answer is that He did it at the cross of Jesus Christ, and it wasn’t by delivering Jesus from the cross, though He could have…And yet that’s where God is most glorified.”

Finally, here is something that Nanci wrote in her journal about faith. She said, “Faith is…a deep and continued study of the character and work of God Almighty; then, based upon the above, submitting your requests to God Almighty—placing your well-grounded knowledge of His character and works into each request, always asking His will be done.”

I believe having someone to talk to about all of this would be of immense value to you. Do you have a local church, and is there a trusted older believer or your pastor you could meet with?

I pray that you will come through the other side of this faith struggle with a deeper trust in Jesus and a greater understanding of His love for you and His purposes in your life. 

Photo by Spenser Sembrat on Unsplash