Some of the most difficult words of Jesus for us to accept – believers or unbelievers – speak of blessing and gain through loss, weakness and failure. “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3); “… many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Matthew 19:30).
Jesus is speaking of humility and servanthood, commitment and sacrifice to Him and to our God in these verses – the very things humanity seeks to avoid. There are a number of passages of Scripture which seem to present the servants of God to their world and ours as “losers”, whether you consider Old Testament characters like Jeremiah and Isaiah, or New Testament persons such as Paul and Stephen. They gave their all for their Lord and ended their lives in what would appear to those without faith to be defeat and ignominy, but to God they were winners.
THE SAMSON PRINCIPLE. I want to take this a step further and present what I call, “The Samson Principle”. In this view, just as God is glorified in the life and death of Samson who could be considered in the eyes of the shallow minded to be a fool and a complete failure, so the lives of others appearing to be losers can be of great value. Somehow God is able to use the weak, the fallen, the untogether, the unachieved, the foolish and the failed to bring light to the world and glory to himself. He created the world to be filled with life. He created humanity in his own image, and he created people to in turn be creative and industrious. When we fail in these things, God does not. Somehow, He is still at work and can make something great out of even our failings.
AN EXAMPLE FROM THE WORLD OF ART. In writing about Vincent Van Gogh, I learned that he was a man of great faith in the early part of his life and career. Nobody tells us these things because the experts of our world want to bury faith and reward unbelief, and when Van Gogh’s faith is mentioned, it’s with a sneer. He “gave up” his faith; he was “damaged by religion”; he was “let down by the Church”. I discussed at some length what had happened to Van Gogh’s faith and to his soul in the latter years of his short life, ended by suicide. Van Gogh was a lonely man weighed down by great melancholy. He was spurned by women and never found the love he longed for. He was rejected in many ways, even by the Church through which he sought to serve his Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote to his brother Theo:
“What am I in the eyes of most people-a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person-somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low” (July 21st 1882).
In the end Van Gogh buckled to his loneliness and took his own life. It would seem that he was defeated as a man, an artist, a lover and a would-be soul-winner. He was poor, unsuccessful and lonely. It would also seem that he failed to glorify God, at least in the way he wanted to. I propose here that the opposite is true. I see him as an example which may illuminate many of our own lives; the lives of those of us considered by most people to be “losers”. I’m not promoting failure – we should all do our best in every area of life. What I’m saying is that if God can use a donkey, he can use me and you. You can be the most useless creature in creation – in the eyes of humanity – and still be great in the hands of almighty God.
BEAUTY FROM ASHES. It seems to me that it was Vincent’s frustration and loneliness, mingled with the potent force of his passion, which extracted from him his amazing and unique works of art. Many of them may never have come into existence had he found that loving, devoted woman he so craved for -had he somehow found the satisfaction he longed for, and dare I even say, had he succeeded in becoming that missionary to South America he wanted to be.
As I thought about Vincent’s life I couldn’t help thinking about the Biblical character Samson (see the Old Testament book of Judges, chapters 13 to 16). Samson was also a passionate man who loved women, and who, empowered by that passion and at the same time living against the will of God, vented his frustration in ways which paradoxically brought glory to God, and which were also an expression of God’s own feelings and frustrations. God’s hatred for the worship of the false god Dagon was expressed in Samson’s destruction of the temple to Dagon, which also caused his own death (chapter 16). It’s as if God intentionally drove Samson to that extreme point to fulfill His own purposes.
More likely, God knitted all circumstances and eventualities into his own will, in spite of Samson’s weaknesses and failings. In life’s rich tapestry, shaped by an infinite mind (and no, I don’t mean that everything is ordained) God can even make the ugly beautiful. This is reflected in Paul’s well-used text, in which he asserts that, “… in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). We mess it up, and yet God is able to direct it, re-work it, and use it anyway. That’s not a green light to just blunder through life, it’s a statement of hope that all is not lost, if anything, when God is involved.
I suggest that in the same way as Samson’s unintended ultimate success, Vincent’s weaknesses, sins, disorders and failures were all channeled (not created) to produce unique, vibrant and electrified works of art as an expression of God’s own creativity and passion. And what a blessing and a testimony they have been to millions of people, as they are to this moment, in this blog post. The stark beauty of nature and its underlying yet profoundly fallen state is represented in Van Gogh’s works for all to see.
Vincent loved nature, and I think the pictures he painted towards the end of his short life – when he was at his most distressed and lonely extent – are his most remarkable and expressive. Somehow God was at work even in Vincent’s darkness.
Christians too often reduce God to the predictable, the tame and the mundane, when God is anything but those things! “Our God is a consuming fire”, the Bible tells us, not a timid, tame, boring and limp-wristed old man. “The heaven of heavens cannot contain him”. He designed butterflies, DNA and sunsets. Those who caught a glimpse of Him were astounded and overwhelmed. God is great and majestic beyond our wildest imaginings! Somehow in Samson’s wild, tempestuous and powerful character – fallen though he was – we can glimpse the wild, tempestuous and powerful nature of our God.
IN CONCLUSION. My intention in today’s article, besides glorifying our Creator, is to bring encouragement to those of us who feel like we are failures; that our abilities and achievements are meagre and meaningless, and that our lives are of no consequence. God is our judge – not humanity and not ourselves – and God has the final say in our ultimate reward. Money means nothing to Him. Power is weakness. Fame is foolishness and defeat is success. Have you failed? Join the club. Yet above it all the incomparable Mind is at work to use you and I for His glory.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 