This is a quote from a man who started New Hope Ministry in a little baptist church here in the Southern Tier of NY state. “I believe God doesn’t waste a hurt” says Ray Kuhr. His program is an expansion of 12-step programs and is aimed at all addictions. I have long thought that the modern term for sin is addiction and that the remedy is the same.
I continue to slowly read the Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda. I spent a week pondering this segment beginning on page 256

God doesnt’ waste a hurt….I do believe that absolutely everything that happens in this mortal world is a part of God’s redemptive plan. If we could see from the perspective of eternity, we might find the sorrows of this life a noble participation in the divine cosmic plan. We bear these things for God’s sake, for the sake of that divine image for which our bodies have been made. If we bear our sorrows as God’s sorrows rather than as some personal divine “gotcha”, perhaps the hurt we so dearly feel will be for a much higher purpose. Rather than seeing our selves as worthless sinners, if we see ourselves as divine souls living this particular human experience for God’s sake, than each hurt will be redeemed.

It wasn’t too many years ago that news of a recession and the falling of stock prices would have been meaningless to me, mostly because I didn’t have any stock in anything and didn’t own a home. Being healthy and able to work myself to death gave me a sense of self-righteousness about monetary wealth. I would preach, much to my embarrassment now, about trusting God for our financial needs and not depending on savings accounts and retirement investments. Easy for me to say to all those wonderful people who took time each week to hear me preach and to pay my paycheck. Ah the simplicity of being young and naive! I wonder why someone didn’t just slap me or try to not pay me and see how well I practiced what I preached.
There is a subtle difference between living with faith that God will provide and being just plain irresponsible.
God has been faithful in providing for me anyway. This would lead me to believe that God is less interested in my being perfect than am I. Sure I’ve learned some painful lessons about debt and credit and needing versus wanting. But in the end, God has provided what I needed when I needed it regardless of me getting it all right.
Here we are in the midst of a panicking financial world. Those with wealth in investments are feeling the pain. But those who have nothing, still have nothing. I may have been naive about financial matters, but I have to say that there is a freedom in having nothing to lose (I think that was Janis Joplin’s line in Bobby Magee….). Financial crisis does bring clarity about what is needful and what is merely materialistic idolatry. I may not have known what I was talking about but the truth is still the truth. If God is not on the throne of our hearts, no amount of material wealth will satisfy. Perhaps this current crisis in the marketplace is all a corrective to the god of market-based living and a reminder that God is not mocked.

“What is therapy and why do people seek it?” asks A.G.S.
I’ve become a bit cynical and jaded about this question. On a personal level, I spent a total of 20 years in one form of psychotherapy or another. When I was a pastor and a chaplain, I found it a necessary tool to keep myself honest in facing my own limitations and tendency to codependency. As far as actually growing and changing in the process, I have to honestly say that only happened when it was just too painful to not change. On one hand, there is this desire within us to grow and improve. But there is also the inherent sin of laziness. Author and psychotherapist M. Scott Peck calls this “original sin.”
And yet I have changed and grown and come to a place of eternal joy. I’m sure the therapy I participated in over the years is due some credit for positive change but the lion’s share has come for practicing the presence of God.
I’ve kept a journal off and on for most of my life. One entry from my adolescence observed: “The more I try to change something about myself, the worse that thing gets.” The corollary to this is the spiritual truth: “What we focus on grows.” I think this is why most psychotherapy doesn’t work. Gerald May in the book Addiction and Grace is wonderfully helpful in understanding the brain chemistry that makes this so.
Nearly 2000 years ago, the Apostle Paul lamented about this in the seventh chapter of the book of Romans and his answer to this dilemma in chapter eight has proven true for me: “Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!… The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Let me give a practical example of how this is done. It is important to have a space somewhere in your home that is your personal sanctuary in which you pray and meditate. It is helpful to have some sort of altar in this space with things on it that symbolize your experience of God. (For me this is an old family Bible, three candles to represent the Trinity, a carving of the Holy Family from Jerusalem, a cross and a number of pictures.) Such a space helps to create new neurological patterns that bring to your mind and body an accumulation of Spirit-based experiences. Spend at least 15 minutes a day in this space. If this is not possible, begin with five minutes. Begin this time by deeply breathing in God’s presence and exhaling your worries. Do this three times. Then recite the Lord’s Prayer Follow this by just sitting in silence knowing that you are surrounded inside and out with God’s loving presence. As concerns or fears or distractions come to your mind, silently pray “Lord Jesus Christ, Have Mercy.” (aka The Jesus Prayer or the Prayer of the Heart) Again breath in God’s grace and breath out your distractions. As you practice this, over time you will sense a deep peace. Through out your day, when faced with your own limitations, just repeat this process. Instead of struggling on your own to change yourself, use this technique to remind yourself that it is God who changes and redeems us from the inside out.

About 15 years ago, I was in the habit of reading a story to the children at the preschool in the church I pastored. This was often a humbling experience. Very young children have trouble saying the name “Peg”…it often comes out as “pig.” I was respectfully addressed as “Pastor Pig.” Having a life-long battle of the bulge, it was hard not to take this personally.
In the advent of 1993, I was telling the Christmas story to the 4-year old afternoon class. It just so happened that there were several church children in this class so they all felt like the knew me and were very comfortable saying anything that was on their mind. I finished what I thought was a brilliant retelling of the Christmas story when little Samantha called out “Pastor Pig, Pastor Pig you forgot part of the story! You didn’t tell the part where the evil King kills all the babies!”
It helps to know that Samantha had a very challenging 2-year old brother and a brand new baby at home. Perhaps this story gave her some hope or secret delight. But this part of the Christmas story somehow doesn’t fit with the enchantment of the crèche, with Mary and Joseph and the little sheep and shepherds and magi. But Samantha was right, the real story is far less enchanting than the manger scene suggests and it is far more like real life in the near east even today. And just as it was important to Samantha, it is important to us that we tell the whole truth.
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