In discussing my talk from Sunday night at Crash, my friend made this comment to me – “it raised a lot of questions”.  The core ideas of this series – related to suffering – are challenging him as he thinks about the way he looks life and God’s involvement.  So we spent about 30 minutes volleying the tennis ball back and forth.  Frankly, I was refreshed by his honesty and the thoughts he brought to the table.  It challenged me as I move forward on my teaching plans in this series and as I look at the places in my life where I am living out what I am talking about.

I think that phrase – “it raised a lot of questions” is a good sign.  One, it means that he is listening.  As a communicator, this always makes me feel good.  Two, it means that he is thinking.  We talk about “thinking like Christ” a lot at Crash.  And he is doing it.  In his words…“I refuse to be a ‘Yes Christian’” (think Yes Man and move it into a spiritual context).  Three, it means he is moving the content of my talk into his life, which is the key to all that we do in the service on Sunday night. We say again and again, Crash is not a service; it is an idea, philosophy, a way of living life that a community of people have come together around. My friend is one who “gets it” and is doing it.

If you missed the talk, the Big Idea was “We serve a God who wastes nothing…not even our suffering and pain.” We looked at Jeremiah 8:8-13 and 29:4-14, along with Jesus’ take on the origin of man’s blindness in the first part of John 9 and his teaching about mourning and comfort in Matthew 5:4.  I reflected on how often we look at seasons of suffering and pain as “wasted” or “throw away” seasons, overlooking and neglecting the nature in which God is able to use suffering to accomplish great purposes in our lives. I described how important it is for us to trust GOD to not waste the suffering, not putting ourself in a place to explain why or how He does that.  We simply need to be present with those who suffering and hurt, admitting “this sucks” like Job’s friends did (before they opened their mouths and ruined everything).

For those who are interested in sharing it with friends, I opened the talk by sharing this video from the Late Show with Conan O’Brien circa February 2009 (pre-Jay Leno-and-Tonight-Show-drama.  The clip features comedian Louis CK talking about how much is lost or wasted on us, as we don’t appreciate so many of our experiences.  It set up the Big Idea for the night about God not wasting suffering or pain in our lives.  I found this hilarious and insightful.