Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

• Revelation 21:4

To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.”
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.

• Genesis 3:16-17

Then I would still have this consolation— my joy in unrelenting pain— that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.

• Job 6:10

For they persecute those you wound
    and talk about the pain of those you hurt.
Charge them with crime upon crime;
    do not let them share in your salvation.
May they be blotted out of the book of life
    and not be listed with the righteous.
But as for me, afflicted and in pain—
    may your salvation, God, protect me.

• Psalm 69:26-29

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.

• John 16:21

You have forgotten God your Savior;
    you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.
Therefore, though you set out the finest plants
    and plant imported vines,
though on the day you set them out, you make them grow,
    and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud,
yet the harvest will be as nothing
    in the day of disease and incurable pain.

• Isaiah 17:10-11

“‘No longer will the people of Israel have malicious neighbors who are painful briers and sharp thorns. Then they will know that I am the Sovereign Lord.

• Ezekiel 28:24

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs was concerned about the condition of my heart.  But this week, she quizzed me about pain.

Babs moaned, “I am sorry, Harold.  We will have to break up our driving into two days this weekend, but wasn’t food distribution a good thing at that food bank?  I had fun boxing up the food, and I noticed you sitting there talking to people.  Why did you pick those people to talk to?”

I shrugged as I drove down the interstate.  “I watched them as they entered the room.  When I saw a lot of pain on their faces, I simply asked them if they wanted to talk about it?”

Babs asked, “About what?”

I chuckled, “A few of them came out with their groceries and asked that.  I just said that it looked like something was on their mind.  If they really had something on their mind, they sat down.  Some were guarded.  Others just poured out their hearts.  Mostly, they talked about pain.”

Babs said, “I have only recently started feeling pains.  When I first became ‘other living,’ I really did not have the full human experience.  Now, even without a sin nature, I feel pain.  A couple of weeks ago, I had a bad tummy ache.  A month or so ago, I felt that this body that I am in was born of sin and I was frantic to get baptized.  But what pains did these people talk about?”

I sighed, “Being homeless is painful, but these people had homes.  I detest the politically correct term of ‘food insecurity.’  They make it sound less than what it is.  When you say that people are going to bed hungry, that makes people feel bad.  It should make people feel bad.  Food insecurity almost sounds like a mental disorder.  No, it is not some fear; it is a pain in your body that is real.  So, everyone in that line, unless they were scamming the person that interviewed them and ran a background check, they had that pain.  But how did they get that pain?  Some were deeply in debt due to wages not going up but the cost of everything going up.  Could they get a better job?  Yes, with training that they cannot afford and have no hours in the day to attend.  And yes, there were some of those in the line that loved to complain.  They learned early in life that if they complained about what was going on, some do-gooder would come along and hand them a few bucks.  Those people exaggerate their pain for dramatic effect.  But they have become so used to handouts, they would starve without the food bank.  In those cases, there is a thin line between helping and enabling, but it is not our job to judge such things.  God knows what is in our hearts, and God knows what is in their hearts.”

Babs asked, “But how did you relate to them?”

I sighed, “First, there is an old saying that folks do not care what you know until they know that you care. You have to have felt pain in some way to relate to their pain. Listening is important, but they have to know you care. I talked about my wife passing away about a year and a half ago.  I talked about how Morrie had rebelled, but now he was back in church and had his life straight and his priorities straight.  When they talked about illness keeping them from having an extra income, I related that to my wife’s long illness.  And I actually took a pay cut when I became a sales manager, to give the incentive to make sales for the bonus.  And it took a couple of years to develop the rapport with the customers to ever see a bonus.  I never really had ‘food insecurity’, but I know the pain.  Pain is universal; pain is part of the Fall of Mankind, the curse of Adam and Eve both involves pain.”

Babs nodded, “Yeah, let’s just have a Bible study in the car.  I’ll look up the Bible verses.  You mentioned the Fall of Mankind, and that is in Genesis 3.  But how do people deal with pain?”

I groaned, “Let’s look at Job.  Search for unrelenting pain.”

Babs said, “Yeah! Job 6:10.  Wait a minute!  Job had joy in his unrelenting pain?”

I sighed, “Please, Babs, do not do like so many people do and stop reading.  The rest of that verse says that he did not deny the Words of God.  God provides the good, but when the bad comes our way, God wants us to learn a lesson.  Job’s friends refused to learn the lesson.  They thought Job was being punished, and the more Job suffered and refused to confess a sin that he did not commit, the more adamant his friends got.  But through Job’s suffering, he would not blame God.  He just wanted God to explain why this had happened.  You know, from a standpoint that God is ultimately sovereign.  God wants good for our lives, so God must know the reason for Job’s suffering.  And Job supplied that reason, that even in suffering, Job had joy and praise for God.”

“So, were Job’s friends mocking and persecuting him like David says in Psalms 69?” Babs asked.

“Hmm,” I had to think.  “I am not so sure.  God did chastise the friends, but they mostly talked of their ideas and public ideas at the time as to suffering, especially the amount of Job’s suffering, came from sin.  Psalm 69 talks about how those who look upon a person who is suffering and add to that suffering, kind of kicking a man when he is already down.  David speaks of his pain being part of the purification process, preparing him for eternity in Glory with God.  It all comes down to how we react to setbacks in our lives and in the lives of others.  When we praise God and lift our brother up, God takes notice of that.  And just because David says that God should not have these people who kick a man while they are down in the Book of Life, God can still show them Mercy and Grace.  Imprecatory verses can be part of our prayers.  We are asking for justice, but then we will want mercy once we arrive before God on the Day of Judgment.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “I always wondered about that.  You pray for God to avenge you, but if God wants to save them, then they are no longer your enemy.  But is pain ever worth the suffering?”

I snickered, “I passed a kidney stone.  Right there in the emergency room.  The ER doctor was a woman, and she said that she related kidney stones to having a baby.  It might not be as intense of a pain, but you are pushing and pushing with this terrible pain and when the baby comes, you could care less about the pain.  That’s in John 16 somewhere.  But when you pass a kidney stone, all you have is a tiny piece of rock, not even fit for a piece of jewelry.  In that case, the memory of the pain sticks with you longer.”

Babs giggled, “Verse 21 for your future reference.”

I smiled, “The only true peace is when all people are loving God and keeping His Commandments.  But look up Isaiah 17.  Somewhere in there, Isaiah is giving a prophecy against Judah.  They have fallen away from God.  They do not trust in God to keep them safe, secure, and prosperous.  So, if you reject God and go after foreign ideas, how do you expect to have a bountiful crop?  No, they will have incurable pain.  Only cured if they repent and return to God.”

Babs giggled, “That’s in verses 10 and 11.  This is fun.  You point me sort of in the right direction and I have to look it up.”

Then Babs scrunched her nose again, “And what hope do you have in pain?  Just that the pain will be over?  What’s the point?”

I had to think, “Babs, look up Ezekiel and pain.  About the middle of the book.”

Babs smiled, “Ezekiel 28:24.  It talks about how Israel will have a land with no painful briers or sharp thorns.  But if those briers and thorns are part of the curse, where is the land that does not have those?”

I smiled, “Now, Babs, look up Revelation 21 for your answer.”

Babs shouted gleefully, “So, in the New Heaven and New Earth there will be no briers or thorns, because there will be no pain or suffering.  God helps us through suffering and pain here on earth and then God gives us a place like the Garden of Eden that is not broken like this world is.”

I replied, “Yes, Babs, you gave a great summary.  The Christian has God to help him and always be there for him.  And when we go to be with Jesus, we will live where there is no pain, no suffering, no death, and no sin.”

Babs leaned back in her seat and stared into the darkening sky, “I sure want to be around to see that!”

“Me, too, Babs, me, too.”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

The first time I ever had a kidney stone, I passed it in the ER and the ER doctor, a female, told me the analogy between passing kidney stones and having a baby.  Without the baby to hold and love, you might just ask, “What was the point of all that pain?”  But for the baby, John 16:21 gives the answer.  And after my wife had natural childbirth with our second son, she was a cheerleader for the technique.  Did it hurt?  Absolutely, but the next day she was walking up and down the hallway while those who had needed a Caesarian Section were barely hobbling, holding there IV pole with each step.

I rarely planned a trip that had me driving well past the setting sun.  And sometimes, I felt that I could keep going until I got out of the car, or truck, to fill the tank with gas, and my body would tell me it was time to stop and go the remaining distance the next day.

And Babs is using more of a Socratic style of teaching like she did last week.  Ask questions and keep the conversation flowing so that learning can occur.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.