Gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads
Gifts for Moms
The Gospel Counsels You All Day Long
Gospel Therapy for Us All
God put Ecclesiastes 11:10 in the Bible because he understands us. He feels for us in all our anguish—every dark emotion that holds us back from living free. So he provides gospel therapy in the Bible. It might translate into a conversation with your dad, or a drill during football practice, or whatever. God knows where to find you and how to help you. And if his provision includes counseling and medications, great. Thank you, Lord!
In my recent years, guess who has helped me big-time? Martin Luther. Yes, the Protestant Reformer from five hundred years ago! Luther speaks into my persistent vexation and stubborn pain. He helps me throw my head back and just laugh the laugh of faith.1 Here is a sample of his counsel, written to a friend who was tired of living:
Good friends have informed me that the evil one is tempting you severely with weariness of life and longing for death. . . . You must be resolute, bid yourself defiance, and say to yourself wrathfully, “Not so, good fellow. No matter how unwilling you are to live, you are going to live and like it! This is what God wants, and this is what I want too. Begone, you thoughts of the devil! To hell with dying and death! You will get nowhere with me. . . . I must eat, drink, ride, go or do this or that.” . . . Undertake to do anything else that you are able—whether play or something else—just so that you free yourself from these thoughts, hold them in contempt and dismiss them. If necessary, speak coarsely and disrespectfully, like this: “Dear devil, if you can’t do better than that, kiss my toe.”2
Luther counseled us to avoid solitude, hang out with friends, and keep having good times in the midst of hardship.3 “Remove vexation, put away pain”—Martin Luther understood the practicalities of that faith in Christ!
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
Ray Ortlund
Meditating on Ecclesiastes 11:9–10, Pastor Ray Ortlund encourages readers to set aside our dour limitations and joyfully embrace the many good gifts God lavishes upon this world.
Here’s another way it worked for me. Decades ago, when I began pastoral ministry at a historic church, I bought an old, used Pontiac Bonneville. A respectable pastor’s car. Then one night a big deer ran out into the road, and before I could hit the brakes—WHAM!—that poor deer gave her all to free me from that boring car. I settled with the insurance company and used the money, with Jani’s blessing, to go buy a brand new, fiery red, Chevy Camaro Z-28, with a 305-horsepower engine roaring under the hood. Every time I drove that car, I had fun! When I went to the airport one day to pick up a guest preacher from Scotland, his comment was priceless: “Rrraymond, this carrr is verrry Rrreformed!” Exactly. That Z-28 declared my gospel freedom to enjoy the grace of Christ (Gal. 5:1). Yes, even a “muscle car” helped me defy vexation and pain, while plowing through some ministry challenges!
We should move on. But I can’t resist one more gem from Luther. He shows us how the good news of justification by faith can flip our vexation and pain into joy:
When the devil tells us we are sinners and therefore damned, we may answer, “Because you say I am a sinner, I will be righteous and saved.” Then the devil will say, “No, you will be damned.” And I will reply, “No, for I fly to Christ, who has given himself for my sins. Therefore, Satan, you will not prevail against me when you try to terrify me by telling me how great my sins are and try to reduce me to heaviness, distrust, despair, hatred, contempt and blasphemy. On the contrary, when you say I am a sinner, you give me armor and weapons against yourself, so that I can cut your throat with your own sword and tread you under my feet, for Christ died for sinners. . . . It is on his shoulders, not mine, that all my sins lie, for ‘the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (Isa. 53:6). So when you say I am a sinner, you do not terrify me but comfort me immeasurably.”4
Our enjoyment of God’s grace is powerful.
Luther shows me how ridiculous I am, whenever I get to tormenting myself. By raw faith in Christ, I choose gospel backbone. You too? Then let’s rejoice in our Lord boldly. This old hymn gives us strong words for when vexation and pain would paralyze us:
Well may the Accuser roar
Of sins that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more;
Jehovah knoweth none.5
Richard Baxter wisely said, “Think and speak as much about the mercy you have received as you do about the sin you have committed.”6
Our enjoyment of God’s grace is powerful. Here’s how powerful. “Remove vexation and put away pain” in the Old Testament reappears in the New Testament as “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7)!
Notes:
- The Mayo Clinic notes the health benefits of laughter: “Stress Relief from Laughter? It’s No Joke,” Mayo Clinic, September 22, 2023, https://www.mayo clinic.org/.
- Theodore G. Tappert, ed., Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel (Westminster, 1955), 89–90.
- Tappert, Luther, 85: “By all means, flee solitude, for the devil watches and lies in wait for you most of all when you are alone.” And: “Be merry, then, both inwardly in Christ himself and outwardly in his gifts and the good things of life. He will have it so. It is for this that he is with us. It is for this that he provides his gifts—that we may use them and be glad, and that we may praise, love and thank him forever and ever” (p. 93). Also David Powlison, “Don’t Worry,” The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Winter 2003: 64: “Anxiety can’t coexist with hearty laughter!”
- Martin Luther, Galatians (Crossway, 1998), 40–41.
- Samuel W. Gandy, quoted in John White, The Fight: The Christian Struggle (InterVarsity, 1977), 88–89.
- Michael S. Lundy, Depression, Anxiety, and the Christian Life: Practical Wisdom from Richard Baxter (Crossway, 2018), 92.
This article is adapted from Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: A Gospel Call to Bold Enjoyment by Ray Ortlund.
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