Night Terrors and Nearness: Real Comfort in Non-Solutions
What our people need in their moments of desperation is what my son needs in the middle of the night. He doesn’t need a lecture about his subconscious, what a dream is, and why it doesn’t need to be feared. Instead, he needs the comfort of knowing I’m there. As pastors, we have the distinct joy of simply being there with our members and, by doing so, reassuring them with the comfort, care, and compassion of God.
One of my sons frequently suffers from night terrors. For those who don’t know, night terrors are like sleepwalking—the person is technically still asleep but acting like they’re awake. My son’s terrors happen a few times a week and usually manifest in his screaming for 5–10 seconds before calming down again and falling back into normal sleep.
But sometimes his terrors are so loud he wakes himself up. When that happens, I typically go into his room, rub his back, and ask him what he was dreaming of that scared him so badly. I reassure him that I’m there; and ten times out of ten, that simple fact brings him all the comfort he needs to fall back to sleep.
Pastoring Like Parenting
Just as children sometimes need just their father’s presence, sometimes Christians need just a pastor’s presence.
The New Testament makes the connection between pastoring and parenting explicit in his list of elder qualifications. Paul tells Timothy that an elder must be able to manage his household well, and then observes, “For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Tim. 3:5)
The word Paul uses for “care” only appears two other times in the New Testament. Interestingly, they’re both found in Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. The compassionate Samaritan not only delays his journey to tend to the man, he remains with him.
Pastors, too, ought to manage God’s household by giving their people time and attention, like a father, and like the Good Samaritan.
The God Who is There
As under-shepherds, we represent the Great Shepherd to our people. And our God is the God who is there. Over and over in the Bible, we see the Lord reassuring his people with his presence (Gen. 26:3, 31:3, Ex. 3:12, Deut. 31:23, Josh. 1:5, Ps. 23:4, Isa. 43:2, Matt. 28:20). Through all the trials and hardships that God knows a life of faith will bring his people, he doesn’t promise solutions; he promises presence. He promises to care not through unveiled plans but through unceasing proximity.
While this sounds wonderful, if you’re anything like me, it’s a pill that’s often tough to swallow. I’m a “fix it” guy. I tend to be able to find the challenges with a plan and propose solutions.
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The Real Trans Identity…
Transgenderism is a philosophy that aims too low and accomplishes too little. Our identity is not in our genitals. Our salvation does not come from cutting off working organs. Our identity comes from the Lord Jesus Christ, who is transforming us into new creations!
A Pseudo-Identity
One of the most damaging aspects of sin upon the soul of fallen man is that it will lead a person on a never-ending goose chase to find their “true self” or “true identity.” Unfortunately, this quest bears about as much fruit as a group of first-year boy scouts going snipe hunting in the dark. Yet sin propels humanity onward like a hungry beast chasing the elusive carrot.
Instead of looking outside of ourselves to the one true God, who is blessed forever, sin will coax men and cajole women to search for their identity within their gender, sexual preferences, body size, wealth, status, children, careers, emotions, diseases, and virtually everything else. This is the very picture of idolatry: finding yourself defined by and controlled by the creaturely instead of the creator (Romans 1:25), which lead nowhere but hell.
Today, the most pervasive and pernicious campaign to derail human identity, in my humble opinion, is the transgender movement. Like all idolatrous movements before it, it has its own myth concerning its version of the fall, redemption, and future glory that it shamelessly puts forward to unsuspecting victims.
Instead of seeing the fall as separation from the one true God, transgender ideology sees that they have been separated from the correct set of genitals, which becomes fuel for their version of salvation. Instead of repenting, accepting who God designed them to be, turning to Christ for regeneration and hope, and then living in the Spirit for their sanctification, the transgender community promises that salvation can only come if you will surgically remove your breasts, chemically castrate your penises, take dangerous hormone therapy, and make your innies into outies. If you submit to Dr. Waldman’s madness, becoming a modern-day Frankenstein, you can have a mirage of hope. You will be promised freedom and salvation from the sin of being born in the wrong body, but that salvation is only skin deep.
Tragically, this has led to disastrous outcomes for many people, who, instead of finding heaven on the other side of a scalpel, have found only hellish depression, phantom pains, and the despair of unmet expectations leading many to commit suicide in their hopelessness. So clearly, the trans myth of salvation is just that, a myth.
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Everyday Blessings
The thing that makes revival so special is that it is rare. Yet, what is not rare is the everyday work of the Lord in our lives and churches. It is this slow growth that we see over time. We pray for great revival, but we trust in our God who is everyday working for his people.Last week there was breaking news about revival at Asbury College and Seminary in Kentucky. There are many on the internet giving balanced thoughts on this event and reminding us what true revival is. We should pray that the Lord would bring revival. A revival not just of feelings and emotions, but the true outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I do hope that what is happening at Asbury will prove to be a true revival. An outpouring that changes lives, churches, and nations.
In the account of the Welsh Revival in the early Twentieth century there were clear transformations that took place. Individuals’ lives were transformed so that they gave up their sins and followed the Lord. Society was changed to the point that in some places they closed the Police stations because there was no more crime. We should pray that a true revival might sweep across our land and that we might see ourselves, our churches, and our nation changed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
As we long for revival, do not forget that the Lord is working everyday. Revivals are special times. However, we should not despise the day of small things. This is the ordinary work of God. To bless daily by the means of grace and to grow the church through small steps. Yes, we long for revival, but we must also acknowledge and trust the ordinary work of the Lord.
Sometimes this work of the Lord is hard to see. It is like watching your child grow. You can’t see the growth every day or week, maybe not even every month. But over time, as you mark their height on the door frame, you see the growth.
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Going to Church Is Hard but Worth It
God’s pattern in Scripture is not to shower His people with blessings in the midst of comfortable and pleasant circumstances; rather, He most often calls us into difficult and uncomfortable scenarios, pouring out His blessing upon us there. That is what we can rightly call normal. Because Sundays are a time of great blessing, we should expect them to also be times of great difficulty.
Sundays never fail to be tough.
The plan is always to have the house clean and organized on Saturday, to do family devotionals, to set out and iron clothes for the morning, to go to bed early, and have a big happy breakfast together Sunday morning.
Things never go according to plan.
It never fails that Saturdays leave the house at its most chaotic of the week by the time the kids are asleep.
Scripture is read and prayers are prayed through gritted teeth as little ones fight bed time with all their might.
Each kid takes turns waking up through the night in synchronized increments.
Breakfast plans yield to making eggs and toast. Again.
Clothes are ironed at the last minute.
One shoe from the needed pair is lost into the void, only to be found in the afternoon.
And the thought comes: Should we even go to church? I mean, it’s just one Sunday. Everyone would understand if we stayed home. No one would blame us.
My wife was in that place last week. Both our two-year-old and two-month-old had a rough Saturday night, and the toddler was already rubbing her eyes before we even left for church.
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