“All right, then. Do you trust him?”
“I think so.”
“Do you trust him to do what is best for you?”
Becky nodded.
“What if—just maybe—he knows that the way to answer that prayer—Lord, bring me closer to you—is for you to remain single?”
Becky sat staring into her lap but said nothing.
“I do not say this is the case,” Christopher added, “but it might be. You say that sometimes it seems you receive no answers to your prayers, but that you desire to come closer to God. What if being single is the answer? What if God has things for you to learn unmarried that you could not learn if you were married?”
Again he waited. I know this was a hard thing to put so straight to her, but I knew Christopher felt Becky was sure to continue being miserable if she didn’t see what was really at stake in her life—God’s plan for her.
“If singleness is God’s will for you,” he went on, “and I do not say one way or the other, only that if it is—then you owe him deep and loving thanks . . . for by it he will be doing his very best for you. And whatever his ultimate plan for you is, it is obvious that it is his will that you are single now. So thank him, treasure this time—make the most of it!
“Again the question is: Do you trust him?
“Just think, Becky—your remaining unmarried may be the best tool for the Master to use to mold your character into Christlikeness for eternity.
“On the other hand,” Christopher now went on after a brief pause, “maybe you will marry some day. If so, let me offer some perspectives.
“For one thing, marriage is difficult. It is not all happiness and bliss. Tom and Jennie are having a tough time of it. Corrie and I will inevitably face misunderstandings and disputes.
“Because of this, there are those couples who are not able to weather it. I could cite you many examples from my pastoring days. I witnessed a few marriages break up. I saw many others in which the partners lived together in emptiness and pain. Even among married Christians there is separation and heartbreak and broken lives.
“And then, finally, there are a lot of unworthy and immature young men out there for a woman to marry who will make married life far more miserable than is single life. I become downright angry when I see some of the awful things my fellow males do and say to their wives. It’s terrible and yet all too common.”
By now Christopher was leaning far forward, his elbows on his knees, a tender fire in his blue eyes.
“My advice, then, would be this: Stay single, and rejoice in being single for as long as God chooses to keep you that way! It is not only all right to be unmarried. It is something you can learn to see as a great blessing! It may be that your singleness will protect you from an unpleasant marriage situation.
“On the other hand, marriage may be in your future. But don’t settle for an immature man without spiritual character and fiber just because you want so badly to be married. God is in the business of making men of God. Give him time to make one for you!”
The bunkhouse fell quiet, and Christopher let his last words settle deeply into Becky’s consciousness.
“But what should I spend my time doing?” Becky asked at length. “Sometimes I cannot help being lonely for someone.”
“How well I know!” replied Christopher. “Yet there are so many ways to make use of this time. Maybe the opportunity will come for you to visit Emily or Laughing Waters. Read to your heart’s content. Relish the opportunity to be a help to others. Do things that young married women miss out on. If this single time is for a season, you don’t want to look back when it is ended and feel that you wasted the time that was given you.”
“I suppose you are right,” she said hesitantly. “There is a lot someone like me can do that Jennie and Corrie and Almeda and Aunt Katie and Emily aren’t able to do.”
“Exactly. I would emphasize to you again, Becky,” he added softly at length. “The Lord has you right where he wants you. If it is his will for you to find a worthy young man some day, then that man will have found a gem, too.
“If that is not his will, then the Lord is preserving the precious jewel for himself alone. That jewel is you!”
When Christopher stopped, I knew from the tone of his voice that he was through. Becky’s head was bent, and she was softly weeping.
I knew this had all been very difficult for Becky to listen to. Christopher had a way of probing straight into the heart of things. He had done it with me, and I saw him doing it constantly with himself. I had learned to trust his wisdom and silently prayed that Becky would be able to as well.
I reached over to put a hand on Becky’s shoulder, loving her, feeling how much she hurt, and yet deeply grateful to God for giving me a man of such wisdom.
A minute later Christopher rose and left the bunkhouse, leaving the two of us alone.
Chapter 31
A Conversation About God’s Leading
The next day I called on Jennie again.
“How is she doing?” Christopher asked me that evening.
“Nothing too much has changed,” I answered, “but I think she appreciates having a friend who cares.”
“What did the two of you do?”
“We picked several quarts of berries and then made jam and a cobbler out of them. She was in a gay mood and wanted the cobbler to be just right for Tom. Then he came through the kitchen and made a comment about a splotch of flour on her face. He was no more out of sight than she burst into tears. I told her she had taken his comment wrong and that he had meant nothing by it, but she was sure he was criticizing her.”
“What did you say then?”
“I tried to help her laugh at herself, without a whole lot of success, and then we finished the cobbler. Oh, but it is sad Christopher,” I sighed. “Do you know what she told me?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘But, Corrie, I don’t even love him anymore.’ Then she started to cry. And they haven’t even been married two years. How can feelings change so fast?”
“Probably because the marriage was a mistake to begin with,” replied Christopher. “If the foundation is faulty, it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to build a strong and durable structure on top of it.”
“But I’ve heard you say that any two people can make a marriage work. Why would you then say it was a mistake?”
“Any two people can make it work. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some matches that are more suitable than others. There’s also the matter of the Lord’s will. The fact that any two people can make it work doesn’t mean the Lord doesn’t select certain people to be together and not others. Once we make a decision, whether with the Lord’s leading or outside of it, we’re stuck with our decision, come what may. Of course Jennie and Tom can make their marriage work—they have to make it work. That is not to say the marriage might have not been God’s will.”
“Is that what you mean by a mistake?”
“That . . . and timing. Sometimes the match is right but the timing is wrong. People get in a hurry. They put their immediate feelings ahead of the attempt to find out what God’s will might be in the matter. That can lead to equally serious consequences.”
“Why are people so anxious to marry?”
“Again, people put their current feelings ahead of knowing God’s will in the matter.”
“But don’t you think most people think they are doing what God wants when they make that decision?”
“Convincing yourself you’re in God’s will to validate doing what you want to do anyway is not the same thing as being in God’s will, independent of what you want.”
“Hmm . . . I hadn’t thought that we might convince ourselves we’re in God’s will when we’re really not. How do we know the difference?”
“It’s an easy enough thing to talk yourself into believing that you’re in God’s will. Anyone can do that. It’s another matter to be experienced enough in listening to God’s voice that you are able t
o set your own will and feelings aside so as to listen and be able to discern what is his leading. That’s not something very many people are well-practiced at.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s difficult, for one thing,” laughed Christopher. “God’s voice can be very, very soft—and if there is the slightest noise being made by our own emotions and inclinations, they will drown him out, and we will hear only our own wishes speaking to us.”
“I know that feeling,” I laughed.
“The main reason people aren’t well-practiced at it,” Christopher added, “is simply because they don’t want God’s will near as much as they like to think they do. They want their own will. They try to convince themselves it is God’s will they want, but in many cases that is just a little game they are playing with themselves.”
“That is a pretty harsh thing to say, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” sighed Christopher. “You have to remember, I did much of my spiritual maturing as a pastor. Unfortunately, that is a role in which it is possible to grow cynical about people’s motives very quickly.”
“How does a person know what God wants them to do, then?” I asked. “Someone like Jennie, who isn’t as experienced at listening to his voice as someone else.”
Christopher thought a moment.
“Probably the first thing,” he said, “is to listen to the voice of God through the advice of mature people who know you and love you. In Jennie’s case, I seriously doubt the Shaws were in favor of her marriage to Tom.”
“No, they weren’t.”
“If a person doesn’t take the good advice of people more mature than he himself, people whom God has placed there to help, it is doubtful God will speak in other ways.”
“You’re surely not saying you should always do what people tell you?”
“Of course not, only that God frequently makes his will known through others—especially to young people. Learning to discern and heed the wisdom that is around you is one of the first signs of maturity—and one of the most important ways to walk close to the Lord.”
“I know that Jennie wasn’t about to listen to anybody once she set her mind on marrying Tom,” I said.
“Then, no wonder she’s having trouble knowing what to do now,” he said. “You asked how an inexperienced person knows what God wants them to do? I would say we must obey those things we are shown, then we will be shown more. As we obey, more light will be given. But the opposite is true, too. If we don’t obey what we are shown and what we know to be right, even the little light we do have will eventually go out. God won’t force his leading on people who aren’t listening.”
As Christopher and I talked further, I realized it was no wonder Jennie had gotten herself into such a pickle. I couldn’t remember ever once in her whole life when I’d heard her so much as mention a desire to do what God wanted.
“By the way, what was your answer?” said Christopher after a minute.
“My answer—to what?”
“To what Jennie said about not loving Tom anymore?”
“I told her that it didn’t matter, in fact, it had nothing to do with anything. I said, ‘You made a promise, Jennie. Marriage isn’t necessarily based on love. It’s based on promises made and promises kept.’”
“Good girl! That’s exactly right. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
I put my arm around Christopher, and he took me in the two of his.
“That won’t happen to us, will it?” I said softly, with my head against his chest.
“What, that we don’t love each other anymore? Absolutely not.” He paused briefly, then added, “But the love will fade from time to time. It can’t be helped.”
“We know that,” I added with a smile. “We’ve already experienced it.”
“But the promises will never fade, and they are the glue that will always hold us together.”
Chapter 32
Who Makes the Decisions?
The following Sunday, as if reading my mind, Rev. Rutledge got up to preach and announced that his topic would be “Who Makes the Decisions in Your Life?”
“I would like to speak to you this morning,” he began, “about a very personal aspect of faith. It is, in fact, one of the most important aspects of all, yet one in which many who call themselves Christians lack in experience. If you happen to be one of those, I hope these few words of instruction may help you get started down what I think is a very exciting road of discovery with your heavenly Father.
“You’ve all heard, I’m certain,” Rev. Rutledge said, now smiling just slightly, “phrases that begin ‘There are two kinds of people in the world. . . .’”
He paused while a few nods went round the church.
“Well, I am going to give you another one to think about this morning. But when I greet you afterward at the door, I’m not going to ask you which side of the fence you happen to find yourself—”
“Amen!” called out Uncle Nick from the second row, and everyone laughed, including Rev. Rutledge.
“Although I may ask you, Nick Belle!” he shot back good-naturedly, still laughing with the rest.
“However,” the minister went on after the chuckling had subsided, “I earnestly hope that each one of you will ask yourself where you stand . . . and whether any sort of change might be necessary in your own personal life.
“So, here is my statement: There are two kinds of Christians in the world—those who make a habit of asking God what he wants them to do and then do it . . . and those who simply do what seems best in their own eyes.”
He paused, this time for several long seconds, to allow his words to sink in.
“In other words,” he added, “those for whom God directs the decision-making process and those who direct it themselves, who give God’s view of the events of their lives very little thought.
“Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m speaking of Christians and non-Christians. Remember, my statement was that there are two kinds of Christians in the world. . . . You see, it’s easy enough to believe in all the Christian ideas, which I am certain all of us here this morning do, and yet still not do very much practically about it. That’s one of the unfortunate things about Christianity. It is entirely possible to believe all its doctrines accurately and yet never once in all your life actually ask the question, ‘Lord what do you want me to do?’
“That is why I say that there are two kinds of Christians in the world. There are those who make a frequent habit of saying, ‘Lord, what would you have me do here . . . what is your will for me there . . . what would you have me say . . . fill me with your thoughts.’ And, on the other hand, there are those to whom it may never even occur to ask such questions.
“Where does the direction for life originate, from within yourself or from Another? Are you your own master, or have you chosen to occupy the position of a child looking to your Father to direct and orchestrate what comes and how you respond to it? Are you your own master . . . or are you God’s child?”
He glanced about momentarily.
“An even more important query might be,” he added, “Which do you want to be? The question I would present you with this morning reduces to this: Who makes the decisions in your life?”
Rev. Rutledge paused, then coughed two or three times to clear his throat. I glanced over at Harriet. She was looking at her husband with endearing love mingled with concern.
“There is a passage in the Old Testament I find fascinating in light of this question,” Rev. Rutledge went on. “Let me read it to you. It is found in the very last verse of the book of Judges . . . let me see. . . .”
He flipped through the pages of his Bible until he had located the passage.
“Here it is—’In those days,’ he read, ‘there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’”
Again he paused.
“Ponder the implications of those words, my friends,” he said at length.
�
�How were decisions made? ‘Every man did what was right in his own eyes.’
“How are decisions made in your life . . . or in mine? Do we not generally do exactly this—act and think on the basis of what is right in our own eyes, what seems best to us to do?
“Now note—it does not say that the Israelites ‘sinned’ in everything they did. There is no judgment placed on what they did at all. This passage of scripture is not a statement on what the people did. It is a statement about how they did it, about how decisions were arrived at. It is about the method rather than the result.
“Likewise, I am challenging you to reflect upon the method by which your life functions. In no way would I suggest that you or anyone else is doing wrong or sinning. For years I myself stood on the side of the fence where I would have to have answered the two-kinds-of-people question by saying that I was most definitely one who had never asked, ‘Lord, what would you have me do.’ It was not until I came here and had been among you for a time that such things began to occur to me, and I began to realize that despite the accuracy of my beliefs there was much missing in the practicality of my faith. But I was not a bad man, not a dreadfully wicked sinner. I simply recognize now that the method by which I ran my life was flawed. I did what was right in my own eyes.
“Note further—I did what was right in my own eyes, not what was wrong in my own eyes. I did not do willful wrong at all. I lived, as far as I was able, what we call a Christian life. But, you see, it was all according to how I myself regulated my actions and determined what that right was. I never asked God’s opinion in the matter.
“Neither do I say that any one of you is doing wrong. I speak of how you do what you do—who determines what is the right that you do? Where does your life’s momentum come from?
“As I said, for years I did what appeared right in my eyes. Why? For the very same reason that such was said of the Israelites of old—I had no king.”
The minister paused a long time to let his words sink in.
“We are meant to have a king,” he said after a while.
The Braxtons of Miracle Springs Page 14
