I’ve been a control freak all my life. I just want to do things my way. I’ve always prided myself in being a person of action. A person who gets things done. I’ve always wanted people to know they could count on me; that when they had a need, I was able to jump in and supply the solution. Because besides being a control freak, I’m also a fixer.
And that brings us back to the issue of waiting. Fixers hate to wait around. Waiting doesn’t get things fixed. Fixing requires immediate action. It requires wheels to be turning and buttons to be pushed, and it requires that the fixer have a planned course of action. After all, we fixers have a lot to fix.
So having bared my soul and explained my faults (at least a few of them), I have to admit that one of the most important lessons God has had to teach me deals with waiting. It hasn’t been pleasant, and often it’s been pretty ugly.
But sometimes we have to wait. Sometimes we have to let go of controlling and fixing. Sometimes my way isn’t the high way—the way of God.
Isaiah 30 is a chapter that deals rather strongly with those of us who struggle with waiting on the Lord. Right from the start of this chapter, I found myself faced with an admonition. “Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine.”
Hmmm. I thought I was carrying out plans that I’d cleared with God. I mean, I had that thirty-second prayer on the way to the grocery store, and I didn’t see any signs that said NO. Of course, there was that sign that said STOP, but I figured that wasn’t from God.
The verse in Isaiah goes on: “forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt [you can fill in just about any destination here] without consulting me.”
How many of us are guilty of that one? Did I see a few hands raised? A few twitching smiles? Go ahead, admit it—it’s just between you and God, after all. And He already knows all about it.
The chapter tells further how those obstinate children sought help in all sorts of different places. They looked to fix things in one way or another, and all of it was utterly useless. God called them rebellious, deceitful, unwilling to listen to His instruction. He promises there will be destruction because of their sin. And then God slips in a verse that left me feeling close to tears.
Verse 15 says, “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.’ ”
I have to admit, I saw myself in this chapter. Rushing about, seeking help here and there, refusing to wait for God’s hand—always having to have some portion of control. How it must have grieved Him. The Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, the Father who had promised faithfulness to a faithless generation. But they didn’t want to wait for that. We often don’t want to wait for it either.
What if God is too late? What if this time when we’re backed up against the Red Sea, God fails to show up in time to part the water, and we are captured by the Egyptians? (Those folks we thought at one time might be helpful to us, and instead they enslaved us.)
What if God is taking a break? What if He’s put the answering machine on and isn’t taking His calls? Sound silly? Maybe so, but I know I’ve had those worries before. Worries that said, “I got myself into this mess, after all. It isn’t God’s fault, so therefore I should get myself out of it.” Or better yet, how about that old adage “God helps those who help themselves?”
We want a fast-food God, a one-hour photo God. A God who works instantaneous results with no waiting. A God who offers an express lane to conflict resolution and self-gratification.
But waiting is often something we’re called upon to do, and we must begin to see this. God has a purpose and a plan even in those quiet, seemingly barren moments of rest. He has the control, and that is what we must give over to Him in order to see our needs met. Sometimes that comes easy, and sometimes it doesn’t, but it will be required of all of us sooner or later.
Maybe we need to practice waiting. After all, if something is foreign to you, you only learn it by practice. If you want to play the piano, you must practice. If you want to speak a foreign language, you need to practice it. And I’m pretty sure that if you want to learn to wait, you must practice waiting.
“Take five,” God says. “Sit a spell. Here, I have a nice comfy spot right under my wing.”
Did I see some shoulders slump? Somebody out there willing to admit they’re tired and just plain worn out?
Don’t be one of God’s stiff-necked children—the obstinate, who would have nothing to do with repentance, rest, quietness, and trust. Pull up a chair—better yet, crawl up on God’s lap and rest in arms that care. Hey, it’s practice time!
8
I See Dead People
This catchy little phrase, popularized by a recent Hollywood movie, is one I’ve heard repeated in all kinds of settings. Lately it’s been driven home to me in one particular area of my life. One that came as quite a shock.
My father-in-law, Fred, a big, husky guy who always managed to get more done in a day than most folks managed in a week, was stricken with cancer. The prognosis wasn’t good. The cancer was stage four, the worst, and he needed immediate surgery. The hope of the doctor was to buy time for Fred. The hope of the family was for a full cure.
In the process of dealing with this, I became one of the drivers to take Fred back and forth to the doctors and hospitals for his various treatments. At first, this was rather disturbing. I saw this once healthy man dwindling before my eyes, and I saw the other folks who frequented those radiation and chemotherapy stations. People in various stages of cancer. People in various stages of dying.
I saw dead people.
People who were there one week and gone the next. People who had fought the good fight as best they could only to reach the point in battle where the enemy defeated them. Old people. Young people. Death has no respect for age.
When you hang out in radiation treatment waiting rooms, you have a tendency to get to know the other patients. You pick up the lingo and speak like a pharmacist as you share what the doctors are trying in order to kill the cancer. You exchange the names of companies who carry merchandise that will help ease the miseries of the disease. You cling to each other, because you know the score better than those on the outside of this tight little world. Even so, I was the odd man out in a very selective club. I was healthy.
After a time, though, I got to know folks a little better. I learned that Helen’s last day of radiation would be Friday and that she and her husband were going out to celebrate. I listened to John talk about his recurring cancer and his hope that chemotherapy combined with radiation would bring him back into remission so that he could go fishing with his grandkids. I learned that Julie was a fighter extraordinaire, and that she’d been battling cancer off and on for three years. She had a raw, cynical edge to her, but at the same time she was one of the funniest, brightest points to our day.
If the doctor was late, Julie would call out, “Hey, I know more about that machine than he does anyway. Let me have a go at it. How about it, Fred? You want me to run the machine today?”
She gave us laughter in the face of horror. She made the situation bearable, because she reminded us that we were not alone.
In return, the members of the group asked me about my father-in-law and how his treatment was coming along. We laughed and joked about everyday things, then laughed and joked about bald heads, selective sunburns from localized radiation, and other insider-type issues.
For all of their problems, I’d never met a more alive group of people. These were seriously ill folks. Folks whose doctors, in many cases, didn’t hold out much hope for recovery or cure, but who offered instead . . . time.
Precious time.
While watching these people interact and listening to their stories and words of encouragement for one another, I couldn’t help but think that a good many of them would be gone in another few weeks or
maybe years. They talked openly about time limits and the progression of their illness. They weren’t morbid, but rather recognized their disease for the power that it had over frail human flesh.
“I’m dying to be done with chemotherapy,” Julie told me, then laughed as though she’d just told the funniest joke in the world. The others laughed too. They knew and accepted that there were limitations to life, but they’d made choices to spend their final days living, instead of dying.
I see dead people.
Not just in radiation and chemotherapy waiting rooms. I see them in congregations—pew warmers who come week after week to religious services. They go through the motions of religion, but never accept what Jesus has to offer. They are always hearing but never understanding, seeing but never perceiving, as is spoken of in the sixth chapter of Isaiah.
The difference, however, is that those with cancer recognize their condition. But many of those in spiritual limbo haven’t a clue. They don’t understand their disease. They don’t realize their need for treatment. Their cancer is spreading, eating them up from the inside out.
They come and go, and quite often can’t remember what was said ten minutes after walking out the front door of the church. They close their Bibles at noon on Sunday and don’t pick them up again until eleven o’clock the following Sunday. They are a burdened people. A busy people. A dying people.
Sometimes they listen quite well. They stake themselves out and go through all the motions and traditions. They can quote chapter and verse, but are still without understanding.
Often they see. They see the business end of the church. They see the numbers issues and the budgetary needs. They even see the problems related to giving themselves in service to the church. They are ever seeing, but never perceiving.
I see dead people.
People who are alone inside the emptiness of their souls. People who find no hope in the routine—no treatment for what ails them. They are a rather assorted collection of do-gooders and image gurus. People who point to their attendance like a badge of nobility, hoping that somehow occupying the third seat on the left-hand side of the fourth aisle will recommend them to the Father in heaven. People who are content to be dead, because they’ve never known life. Life in Jesus Christ.
Are you among the walking dead?
Are you just going through the motions, ever hearing but never understanding? Seeing, but never perceiving?
Do you want to hear?
Do you want to understand?
The hope that we have is a very real one. It’s cause for celebration. The hope we have to cure our disease of sin is a one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ.
Maybe you feel caught up in traditions. You go to church on Sunday and shake hands with all the right people. You smile and nod when you’re supposed to and maybe even murmur a hesitant “amen” when the time is right. You recognize that there might be a problem, but you haven’t a clue what the right treatment might be.
You want desperately to feel alive, but instead you are the walking dead.
Don’t give up. Don’t buy your grave plot just yet.
There’s a treatment for this disease. The doctor is in.
Jesus offers himself in a real and very present way. He’s the physician extraordinaire. He’s the prescription and procedure for eliminating what ails you. He’s the only cure your spirit will ever need.
Scared?
Afraid to diagnose that disease? Terrified to hear the words, “It’s terminal”?
Jesus understands. He is the Great Physician, and the treatment for your need is as simple as letting go of your indifference and worries. It’s as easy as releasing yourself to His care.
Dare to believe in the cure! Dare to believe that He has victory over death!
Let Jesus bring you to life. Celebrate what He has already done for you—what He offers as a free gift for the taking. His healing is complete, and He wants you to be whole. The cure is much better than the disease.
Oh, and if you think about it, celebrate on Friday night too. Helen’s cancer is in remission, and she’s looking for this to be a complete cure. I know if her determination and positive spirit have anything to say about it, we won’t be seeing her again. She’ll be too busy with living, and I think we should join her.
The Doctor is in. He’s calling your name.
What will your answer be?
9
Dead-Heading in the Garden of Life
I’ve tried over the years to develop my green thumb. I figured that with my grandmother and mother so heavily into gardening, I must have it in my blood. As a child, I didn’t really see it as an important aspect of living. All that dirt and hard work seemed to tip the scales against the favorable outcome of flowers and vegetables. Now, if we could have grown chocolate in Kansas, I’m sure I would have been the first one in the garden every morning. But broccoli and cabbage just didn’t have the same appeal.
As a teenager, I certainly didn’t want to spend time sweating it out in a garden while all manner of creepy crawly things landed on me for an afternoon snack. I saw nothing productive or important about gardening even with my grandmother offering me bits of sage advice.
“It’s important to keep your garden rows straight,” she once told me. “You have to have something to measure against. A mark on which to hold yourself true. The same is true for Christians. Christians have a tough row to hoe. It’s important that they keep their eye on the mark.”
I thought her sweet and a bit silly in the analogy. She showed me how to take a stick and stake it out at the very edge of the garden, tie a string to it, then put another stake at the end of the row at the opposite edge. I dragged many a hoe under that string, with Grandma telling me to keep to the mark. She probably had the straightest rows in all of Topeka, maybe even all of Kansas.
Then there was my mother. She taught me about weeds. She told me her father had his own theory on weeds and passed it along to his children. “If something grows up where it’s not supposed to be,” he declared, “it’s a weed.” Recognizing weeds from the good plants was always one of my downfalls until my mother reminded me of the even rows. “See how you have that neat little row of growing plants and then you have those little green shoots that come up at the sides? Those are the weeds. They don’t belong. They don’t fit in the line.”
I hated weeding, so I really didn’t care who stayed in line and who didn’t, but when I became an adult, I started to remember those little bits of wisdom. Gardening was suddenly more interesting for pleasure than for need. I didn’t want to plant in order to can one hundred quarts of anything, like my grandmother used to do each season. I didn’t even want to plant in order to have homegrown, fresh vegetables versus canned, store-bought ones. No, I wanted to plant for therapy, and I wanted to plant flowers for the beauty they offered.
Now, both my grandmother and mother planted vegetables as well as flowers, and the same wisdom and advice followed for each.
“Plant in a specific order, and when things show up out of order, you’ll know they don’t belong there.”
“Don’t forget to water and feed those little plants. They can’t get up and go to the kitchen for what they need.”
When I started reading up on gardening, I added other bits of knowledge. Things I’d seen in practice but didn’t remember hearing anything about in conversation. Things like working up the soil around a plant or mulching it or staking the plant. But perhaps one of the most fascinating things I read about was dead-heading.
What a term! My garden book states that you should dead-head any old blossoms at first sign of decay. Cut ’em out! Pop ’em off! Just get rid of those dead flower heads. I read on and was advised that by doing this, I would stop the flow of nutrients to blossoms that were no longer living, and thus the new buds would receive the extra food and water that might have gone to a blossom that was dead.
So out I went, snipping and clipping until I felt the garden had received an adequate haircut. I fe
lt horrible about it. I mean, the blossoms were dead, true enough, but it seemed almost cruel to just step in there and muster them out. They’d been useful to me only days before. Their beauty and rich colors had given me a sort of energy for my day. Their sweet aroma, now turned rather putrid with decay, had been a delightful sensation to my nose.
The emotions of life are much the same. There is a time for anger to drive us forward into action. The Bible says, “Be angry, but sin not.” It’s not a sin to have anger—it’s what you do with the anger that can create sin. I get angry at the injustice of abortion and euthanasia, but I would be sinning if I took that anger into the realm of killing the doctors who perform such deeds. I get angry when people vandalize my property, but again, I would be sinning if I returned the favor and vandalized theirs.
Anger is like a blossom that comes up in our life. Yes, it really is. It comes to flower in the heat of the moment or over a long period of development. Just like flowers. Anger really can be a good thing. Anger at the injustices of the world can drive us into service. Anger at ignorance can push us toward education. Anger at circumstances can often bring about a positive and beneficial change.
But if anger remains and isn’t dead-headed after it serves its initial purpose, it begins to decay and turn ugly. That’s when bitterness and rage take over. Their putrid smells and brown, dry petals do nothing to fuel the good, but do everything to drain the rest of the plant from the life-giving nutrients it needs to survive.
I knew a woman who vowed she would never forgive her father for the injustice of physical abuse. Beaten as a child by this demanding monster, she ran away as a teenager and found herself abused in many other ways. Her anger drove her, fed her, and eventually robbed her of a decent life. Daily she focused on her hatred and her bitter heart. She became undesirable in the eyes of her friends and family. No one wanted to deal with the decay and stench of her dying soul. She needed desperately to dead-head her anger, to let the other possibilities in her life have the rich nutrients that anger had robbed from them. The only trouble was, she hadn’t a clue how to garden.
Eyes of the Heart, The: Seeing God's Hand in the Everyday Moments of Life Page 4
