Luther on the Heart and Affliction

This messy Photoshop merges tornado damage and roses.
We waited a year to see the Joplin tornado's wreckage.

This is one of Luther's greatest statements, but it took me a while to understand and appreciate it. People are used to talking about major problems - financial, health, loss from death, shunning - and resolutions. Things happen that leave wounds and scars, physical and emotional. 

What if there is no solution in sight? That is when people fall into despair and lose hope.

Luther correctly points out that God's answer may be entirely different. He may let the affliction remain but move our hearts away from it. The trouble remains but it no longer dominates our thoughts and emotions.

After a long period of time, the negative is converted into a positive, which only God can do. The worst part of life can become the best in our memories, and it can train us to use those evil days to glorify God in helping others. 

Afflictions also open our eyes to the meaning of the Scriptures. We can read many passages without benefit until we are facing or remembering calamities. 

Synod Presidents, District Presidents, Circuit Pastors - they all use the correct Scriptures when ordaining or installing pastors. But if those pastors actually follow what the Word says, what the Book of Concord teaches, those same leaders will move heaven and earth to to remove them by craft and force. 

Spiritual Onslaughts

Someone posted this as an example of perfect cuteness.

Something in an online class reminded me of Luther's spiritual onslaughts. He identified Paul's thorn-in-the-flesh as inward torture rather than a physical malady.

Every good, worthwhile, and productive advance of the Gospel is always countered with spiritual onslaughts. They are a roller coaster of emotions as great things happen and hopes are crushed. The onslaughts may land on someone for no outward reason.

Luther wanted to be alone but knew that the company of others was the best medicine, along with music.

When someone was working on an important book decades ago, she felt weighed down all the time, especially when supposed allies attacked her viciously. They were the worst. She expected that from liberals but not from conservative Lutherans.

I reminded her of what Luther said, that Satan does not want a drop of our blood. Instead, the Opposer attacks our emotions, which is where we are weakest. Something can happen and it deflates our willingness to even approach a project. Someone will say, "If I still felt excited about this project, I could finish. There is not enough coffee to make me feel energetic now."

The mutual consolation of the brethren is one of the Means of Grace listed by Luther. I take that to mean how we speak or write to each other with the leaven of the Gospel. A word, a gift, a message, a conversation about trials and griefs - they all contribute to a life in the fullness of grace.

I know how it feels to be flattened by a child's illness, then two at once. Looking back, those years of agony were also filled with laughter, fun, tiny bits of wisdom gained. They are an always-full collection of joyful memories. Anything can provoke a mention or two. That did not put us another world but the real world, where people live with losses, crushing disappointments, and unjust reverses in their lives.

That is why I often cite Luther's quotation below. I combined roses with tornado damage in Joplin.