Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Jesus Creed

Home
Evangelical
The Myth Of A Blessed Life

The Myth Of A Blessed Life

Last updated on: June 8, 2018 at 6:49 am by Scot McKnight

The Myth Of A Blessed Life 2018-06-08T06:49:03-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Myth of a Blessed Life, by Mike Glenn

If you hang around church long enough, you’ll hear some version of the popular church myth that goes something like this: if you’re in the will of God nothing bad will ever happen to you. You’ll hear it said in different ways, but the gist of it is always the same. If you’re doing what God wants you to do, then you’ll always find a parking place near the front door, you’ll never have a cavity or get stuck in an elevator. Your kids will never get a fever and your job will always make you happy and pay well.

Anytime you will hear about an “exception” to this rule, someone in the crowd will want to know what unknown sin is now being paid for. After all, this person must not be in God’s will if – pick the instance you want – the children made bad grades, someone lost or job or, God forbid, someone gets cancer.

Sadly, I have to confess I believed this myth for most of my life. Now, I would have never admitted to believing it. I was far too sophisticated in my theology to ever admit I was this shallow, but in the deepest recesses of my mind, I did believe it.

And I had a pretty good reason to believe this myth. Most of my life had been charmed. I grew up in a great home. I went to good schools and made good grades. I married a beautiful woman who gave me two beautiful boys. My life was charmed. Whenever I would be with someone who was having a tough time, I would do my best to be a good friend to them, but I was always grateful to be “blessed” by Jesus.

Then I got prostate cancer.

I hate to admit this, but one of my first responses was thinking Jesus had broken our deal. Here’s was our deal, or at least my assumption of the deal I thought we had: I served as a church pastor and put up with all of the Baptists that attended and in return, Jesus made sure nothing bad happened to me.

That seems fair, right?

Anytime you hear the doctor say “cancer”, it will rock your world. Your mind does some crazy things to you in those moments. Your heart does too and if you’re not careful, if you’re not willing to pay attention to what God is doing in this moment, you can lose your faith all together.

I lost mine. No, that wouldn’t be correct. I didn’t lose it. That means you put it somewhere and then, when you went to look for it, you couldn’t find again. I didn’t misplace my faith. Jesus took my faith from me. He stripped it away. Jesus will never tolerate the presence of idols or falsehoods in your life, even when we call that idol “faith.”

For most of us, faith is about a feeling. We have strong emotions about Jesus so, therefore, we “believe” in Jesus. We begin to live for these deep, emotional moments. We measure how close we are to Jesus by the intensity of the emotion we feel. We become spiritually addicted to this emotion.

In the New Testament, faith isn’t about emotions. It’s about action. “If you love me,” Jesus said, “keep my commandments.” Period. No qualifiers. No exceptions. No escape clauses. If we love Jesus, we obey His teachings…even when you have cancer.

I mentioned Jesus took my faith away. What He did was take my understanding of faith away. I had understood faith as a contract. I did this for God and in return, God was obligated to do something in return for me.

But Christ didn’t give us a contract. He gave us a covenant. The covenant is His promise He won’t leave us no matter what. His Presence redeems every moment, even the moments when you’re recovering from surgery…and waiting on the tests to come back…playing “what if” in your mind.

In it all, Christ walks with us and we learn some things along the way.

In this life, sooner or later, everybody gets a turn. Sooner or later, something goes wrong – a family breaks up, a business goes under, your child gets arrested. It may be your fault. It may not be your fault, but the pain will be all yours. No one gets a free ride. Suffering is the price for living in this world.

While Jesus never guaranteed we’d never have to face a bad time, He did promise that He would redeem every moment. What do I mean that? I mean He’ll give meaning to suffering. One of the reasons suffering is so hard to handle is too many times suffering doesn’t mean anything. We endure days and days of pain and for what?

A woman goes through a lot of pain when she’s in labor. When the baby is born, she forgets the pain, or she just thinks of it a lot less. The baby gives her pain meaning. Jesus promises to give our pain meaning.

And what meaning did I get from my pain? More than I can tell you in the limits of this blog. I can tell you two things. First, I live out my priorities with a lot more intentionality. Sure, I had priorities before I got sick, but I was always living by someone else’s expectations. Not anymore.

Second, I became a lot more human. I listen more intently. I pay more attention to the beauty of each moment. Jesus, in His power and His grace, used even my cancer to continue to sanctify my life.

I’ve been cancer free for eight years, but I haven’t been pain free. My father passed away. We had to put my mom in memory care for Alzheimer’s. In big ways and small ways, life has happened.

And through it all, Jesus has kept His promise. He’s walked with me through all of it. The promise was never that bad things wouldn’t happen, but that He would never leave us. In the end, that’s all that matters. The blessed life isn’t found in the absence of pain, but in the constant presence of the Risen Christ.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

June 8, 2018

Schisms In The Church

Next Post

June 8, 2018 The Spirit of Pentecost

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: The first plague in Egypt turned the Nile River into blood.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE