PEOPLE WITH PROBLEMS
(Rather Than Problem People)

I don’t want to be the kind of minister or editor who is isolated from the “world out there” where one finds the blood and gut issues of life. The preacher who insulates himself against the wilderness of sin and trouble by hiding out in his office all day is not likely to do any problem solving when he stands before the people. The big evangelist who zooms into town a few days, holes up in a hotel, conducts easy services at a fashionable church, dines with the affluent, and leaves with their bounty in his pocket is hardly in the class with those who are ministering at the raw edges of our sick culture.

When I sit down to my typewriter as a Christian journalist, one ministering through the printed page to folk in many walks of life and with myriad of problems, I want to do so as one who has learned in the great drama of life to “weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice.”

One of the great shortcomings of the modern church is that its assemblies offer so little to the troubled soul. People come hungry and they leave hungry. They walk away bearing the burdens they brought with them. Modern preaching does little problem solving. Even though the apostle insists that all things in the assembly are to be for the edification of the saints, there is often more that is discouraging than encouraging. Religion should be a peaceful, joyous experience, but as often as not it is burdensome and oppressive.

The Bible tells us that there is a time to heal, but the gift of healing is not likely to be ours so long as we are out of touch with suffering humanity. He who sits with those in darkness can more meaningfully point to freedom’s holy light.

I am writing this from northern Alabama, where I have been in a unity forum at the Grassy congregation, near Arab. I came earlier than the forum and remained afterward so that I could be with the people, teaching and visiting among them. While this section of our society is probably as serene as any, here is a brief listing of some of the problems I found in the homes I visited.

1. A brother in the prime of life dying of cancer. Standing by his bed through three visits, I grew well acquainted with his desire to live, to see his little girl grow to womanhood and to share the twilight years with his wife. Years ago I “talked over” his little girl who died from a fall, and since then his teenage son died in a traffic accident. And now he is dying and knows it. The presence of death, sickness and tragedy are baffling to him, even when he’s too sick to be baffled.

2. A 19-year old who is paralyzed from his neck down. He is a bright lad, but an accident has rendered him completely helpless except to move his head. His condition is still a new experience, so he continues to explore the mystery of his tragedy. “It is hard to believe as I look down at my arms and legs that I can’t move them as I always have, but I can’t,” he said to me with more of an air of mystery than of self-pity. “I miss such simple things as being able to scratch my nose and rub my hand through my hair,” he added. “People just can’t realize what it means to be paralyzed,” he said. “If for just one minute they could be as I am, they would see what a blessing it is to be able to move.”

3. A sister who has grown old, and now having recently lost her husband, she is in the throes of loneliness that she was not prepared for, if such people ever are. She weeps. She nurses sweet memories, aided by pictures she has clustered around her. Her loved ones are nearby, but her mate has gone, and it is a loneliness that she pretty well has to bear alone.

4. A little boy that has lost part of one foot, which affects all his plans for the future, and which makes him different from most boys his age.

5. Parents who are cut off from their married son due to unfortunate relationship they have with his wife, despite their efforts to the contrary. Rather than gaining a daughter they have lost a son. He never calls or writes, leaving them wounded and grieved.

All this and much more even within the shadow of one small rural congregation. And this area probably has fewer shadows per capita than the larger urban communities. It is just that kind of a world. Such problems bear down upon our own people, challenging the intention of Jesus not only to give us life but the abundant life.

They are people with problems, as we are all people with problems. We are people with problems more than we are problem people. People become problems, I dare say, because they are not sensitive enough toward people with problems. They think about themselves too much or take themselves too seriously. A chat with a kid who has lost a foot or a youth who cannot so much as lift a finger might well change their perspective and their priorities.

Churches sometimes actually contribute to people’s problems through an insensitivity to life’s dark drama. A sister who is trying hard to pick up the pieces of her shattered life makes her way to one of our assemblies only to be brutalized from the pulpit for having more than one living husband. A brother who finds excitement in a newly found truth is warned or scolded for expressing himself in the presence of what is suppose to be the family of God, his own brothers and sisters in the Lord. A youth is confused by irresponsible remarks about the theory of evolution or when he is subjected to a lot of nonsense talk about “worldliness” or “being faithful to the church” or “marrying in the Lord,” which he sees to mean marrying in the Church of Christ.

We have made problem people by failing to feel deeply for people with real problems. We are unlike Jesus on this, for he met people where they were, allowing his love to make the big difference in their lives. The woman taken in adultery was a problem person, but in treating her as a person with a problem, our Lord changed her life.

It sometimes sounds hollow to tell a person with a serious problem that Jesus is the answer. He is not, after all, a minister of magic, and life does not come easy, nor is it without tragedy, even to his most devoted disciples. Even though we believe that Jesus is indeed the answer, the ultimate answer, to all of life’s reverses and even to life itself, it is a conviction that should quietly motivate us in our service to others rather than a motto to be mouthed in the presence of seriously depressed people. Let Jesus as the answer begin in us, through our love as we become his Body in this world.

I may not be able to tell a brother that Jesus will take away his cancer, but I can assure him that he will, for the asking, be given the grace to bear it. And I can urge him to look for God’s will in such tragedy, for God still loves him, maybe even more now that he is sick. And that God in his own way will give him victory through Jesus, and that he will turn fear into trust.

While one senses that anything he says to a youth paralyzed for life sounds like empty words, he can always speak tenderly of God’s love. And even here, where life seems hardly worth living, one is to look for God’s will. I am naive enough to believe that we help such people when we drop by and speak of God’s love and understanding.

An aged sister left alone in this world has a more serious problem than some of us realize. She may not be dying and she is not paralyzed, but her heart aches with grief and loneliness bears down upon her as if it were a dark, rocky mountain. We need to assure her of our love and understanding, and to help her see that with the indwelling Holy Guest in her heart she is never really alone. And that Jesus will eventually lift the burden of grief, and that in it all he will minister to her and make her more beautiful and loving because of it.

A boy with a bad foot can be shown the many opportunities that one has despite such a handicap, with a reference to those heroes who have been wonderfully used of God with even greater handicaps. He might not become a tennis champion, but he might one day win the Nobel prize in chemistry. Or he might be an obscure teacher in a ghetto school. Whatever direction, it can be God’s way for him, with Jesus providing the resources of strength.

Few of us are able to understand the grief of parents who have lost a son who yet lives. They will tell you that it is worse than death. Practical advice, such as suggesting that they sit tight and let him take the initiative, is easy to give. Such problems are often like volcanoes in that what appears on the surface is but a small part of what is wrong. To pray and to wait upon the Lord is a good scriptural answer, but those of us who love and minister to such ones must realize that this calls for a resignation to God’s will that few of us have. This may be part of the answer to such cruel experiences. While God certainly does not bring these things upon us, being both too good and too wise, he may well use them to minister to us and to make us what he wants us to be. There is another world, you know, for which we must be disciplined and cultivated. —the Editor