DEEP CALLS TO DEEP: SPIRITUAL FORMATION IN THE HARD PLACES OF LIFE PB

Is there a positive purpose to suffering? How many times have you heard that question? And how many times have you felt that the answers are too simple - perhaps even naive? But what if suffering actually has a positive purpose?

What if suffering is the only state in which humans stand empty enough before God to learn and grow?

Popular author and retreat leader Tony Horsfall turns his attention in his latest book Deep calls to Deep, to the raw pain and honesty of suffering found in the Psalms of Lament, psalms that show the psalmist daring to be real and straight with God.

These 'sad songs' make up nearly a third of all the psalms and yet they are mostly neglected by the church today. Much of our spirituality is geared toward relieving our pain and finding ways to ensure happiness, success and well-being... Anything that contradicts this rosy picture of cheerful certainty is ignored, denied or avoided... Yet struggle and challenge are necessary for authentic spiritual growth. The reality is that God sometimes does lead us down difficult paths as he seeks to draw us closer to himself and form his life within us. Far from being an invalid expression of the Christian life, suffering may well be an inescapable part of the journey of knowing God more intimately.

Tony shapes his work by using the process pioneered by Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, of orientation - disorientation - new orientation.

Brueggemann's approach regards the Psalms as a whole as wrestling with the answers to two key questions:

1.Why do the unrighteous seem to prosper and the righteous suffer?
2.How can Israel be defeated, given that God has chosen Jerusalem and made a covenant with David?

They speak, as a result, to the eternal human struggle over where our allegiance lies, who is in control of our lives and whether or not we truly believe that God is sovereign.

Brueggemann's scheme identifies psalms that reflect these movements in the life of faith and the seasons of life they represent: seasons of well-being when everything is smooth and we can see that God is in control (orientation); seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering and death when we feel anger and resentment towards God, expressed in the cry of lament (disorientation); and seasons of surprise when joy breaks through the despair, and light replaces the darkness (reorientation). This movement between the seasons is transformational, though never easy and always involving pain and surprise.

Tony selects psalms that develops Brueggemann's process showing how the Psalmist can guide our present-day spiritual formation. Psalm 145 is used to describe the settled situation of orientation. He then considers four psalms that describe different types of disorientation (Psalms 130, 42, 43 and 69). Finally he explores Psalm 30, a prayer written from the perspective of reorientation, where lessons have been learned and the blessing of God has been clearly distinguished from the God of the blessings. A liberating place where the psalmist has accepted and embraced the fact that God is beyond our comprehension and that it is all right to live without having an answer for everything. He now trusts God to be God, recognising that to understand with the heart of trust is better than to understand with the mind. Only this place of understanding will deliver a surge of resurrection life.

Understanding the life - death - resurrection principle will mean that we are not taken by surprise when we find ourselves in a period of disorientation. Rather, we will have an inkling of what God is about and may be better equipped to come through these times as stronger people, more Christ-like and more effective in our service for God.

Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Bible Reading Fellowship
Published: 20 Feb. 2015