God’s been thinking about your brother-in-law for a long time.
Of course, sure-fire rain doesn’t guarantee that Ed will show up at the picnic. He had been looking forward to eighteen holes today. But his golfing buddy’s wife caught an ad this morning about the “Red, White, & Blue Sale” at Harry’s Lawn & Garden, and immediately swore that her husband had seen his last hot meal until he gets himself over there and finally buys that lovely Comfo-Life lawn furniture that promises EASY ASSEMBLY WITHIN MINUTES. So today God planted thoughts in a wife’s mind and allowed advertisers to stretch the truth about assembly-required by about—oh, say, five and an half hours—in addition to lining up nature in advance. And God is doing the same with people all over the country who need a little rain, or sunshine, to further his work in their lives.
Totally natural. Mind-bogglingly complicated.
ANY ROOM FOR MIRACLES?
And yes, God sometimes does perform actual miracles—answer number 4 to the question of how he operates. Thus, every so often our prayers for the sick are answered in a way that baffles doctors. Perhaps he also directly and supernaturally tweaks nature from time to time to steer it back on course, who can say? He did more that tweak it when Joshua’s sun stood still and the Red Sea parted. Wouldn’t a replay of that send the X-Files team scurrying! But miracles are not his day job, not his usual way of working.
Many Christians don’t see God in their trials. If no miracles are happening—or at least the floods aren’t receding or the cancer’s not in remission—God must not be at work. “Those ten plagues on Egypt, now that was God up to something.” Agreed, frogs and lice in Pharaoh’s bed made for a great movie some years ago. But to see in heaven the movie of how God ran the world from behind the scenes—the infinite complexity of it all—the wrenching of good out of evil like blood from a turnip—the clandestine exploiting of Satan’s worst escapades—the infiltration of grace and salvation behind even the barbed wire of Russian death camps—that will win an Oscar. Meanwhile, he wants us to trust him. As Jesus told skeptical Thomas after the resurrection, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
So why do we still doubt? Our intellects are limited. We can’t find a box big enough or wrapping paper wide enough to package neatly these truths. No one can grasp the Almighty. “Even angels long to look into these things” (1 Peter 1:12). But should that trouble a Christian? All Christians acknowledge the Trinity, yet no one can fathom it—three separate persons each being God, yet God being one. Our inability to comprehend something doesn’t make it untrue. As Paul put it, “Oh, the depth…of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).
Why do we doubt? Faith is hard—God hides, says the Psalms. He plays his hand close to the vest; he never shows all his cards. “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter” (Proverbs 25:2). We can’t see the good flowing from our heartaches. We may see some—perhaps we’re a bit more patient since arthritis slowed us down—more sympathetic to single parents since our marriage collapsed. The faith of Paul Ruffner radiating from his wheelchair attracted several newcomers to Christianity. But the good we can tally, does it outweigh the bad that we see? No. Eden’s lost innocence opened sluice gates of sorrow deep beyond telling. It will take heaven to dry it all up—to provide the total picture that will ease our hearts for ever.
Why do we doubt? At bottom, we’re uncomfortable with these truths because we’re sinful. By nature we all wish God were a few notches lower—a deity lofty enough to help in our trials, but not so…uncontrollable. C. S. Lewis pictured this wonderfully in his classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.7 Two children are searching for their brother who is under the spell of the wicked White Witch. They hide in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. The beavers speak in hushed tones of a rumor—Asian, the long-gone lion-king of Narnia, has been spotted and is again on the move. The lion is symbolic of Christ.
“Is—is he a man?” asked Lucy.
“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Asian without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
The sovereign God who holds your days in his hand is not safe. He’s anything but. He’s the King, I tell you.
But he’s good.
Section II
WHAT IS HE UP TO?
Seven
A FEW REASONS WHY
We pretend to sit placidly as million-gallon truths are poured into our quart-size heads. We acknowledge that God is good and knows what’s best, that he is able to steer calamities to serve his good purposes while remaining unscathed by evil, but still we struggle. It’s hard to soak it in. If anything, God seems more awesome than ever! So high and mighty, his purposes so grandiose, of such epic proportions, that we wonder how—or even why—he would notice the cracked molar under our porcelain crown.
We’re relieved to know heaven will one day dry up our tears, but what about now? To suffer is one thing, but to suffer and not press for meaning at all makes us itchy. We’ve touched on the “Who” behind suffering. But what’s he up to? Perhaps we’d better itch the question, “Why?”
Are there reasons?
“Well, Joni, are there?” Karla Larson asked, as though the question itself rested on her shoulders like the weight of the world. Karla is a woman in her late thirties who is desperate to understand a few reasons why. Severe diabetes is the root of it all. Both legs amputated. A heart attack. A kidney transplant. Constant battles with collapsed veins. Severe edema and legally blind. When we first met at one of our JAF Family Retreats, I remarked, “Karla, I’m amazed you were able to make it,” to which she replied with a grin, “I thought I’d better come before I lost any more body parts.”
She hasn’t lost her sense of humor. She recently mailed me one of her body parts. I opened the shoe box and discovered a used prosthetic foot with a note attached. “Since all of me can’t be with all of you all the time, I thought part of me would just have to do!”
At this year’s retreat she looked a little blue. With encroaching blindness and more surgical procedures looming, Karla was beginning to wonder whether or not it was worth fighting on. During a break after the morning session, we found a quiet corner by a large window. The words we shared were measured and heartfelt. Short and succinct. We agreed that suffering is a pain. We sighed about the temptation to give up. Finally, we got to the point. The one about “reasons why.”
“Look at me,” she said, dropping her gaze to her lap. Through her shorts, I could see the contour of the large plastic cups around her stumps. Karla wasn’t wearing cosmetic legs, but the bare steel bar kind with a hinge at the knee. She held up her hand to show something new: a fat white gauze wrapped around the end of a knuckle. Her finger had been amputated. “I’m falling apart.”
Children chattered outside the window. A phone rang at the receptionist’s desk. Down the hallway, a group of teenagers burst into laughter over a joke.
After several moments, she continued, “I’m a Christian. I’ve suffered. Don’t you think I’ve paid my dues?” she asked with pleading eyes. “I’m not depressed or anything, I just…don’t see the point. I want to go home now. Heaven, I mean.”
Normally, I wouldn’t jump to answer questions like these.
I’d just listen. But I know Karla. She passed the anger stage long ago, leaving behind bargaining, denial, and clenched-fist queries. Was she asking now out of a searching heart? I decided to gently step where angels fear to tread.
“Do you really want an answer?” I asked, sincerely.
She nodded.
“Well, you’re here. You’re not in heaven. This means God’s got his reasons.”
“What are they? What reasons are so good that they outweigh the pain of this—,” she said, holding up her bandaged knuckle again.
“Grab your Bible,” I said, gesturing to the one squeezed between her leg and the side of her wheelchair, “and read for me Philippians 1:21.”
Karla fumbled through the pages with her bandaged hand. (I told her I wished I could help but my hands were no better; in fact, worse.) She found the page and read aloud, “‘For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.’” She brightened, “Hey, there it is! See? To die would be gain. Even an apostle agrees with me.”
I smirked. “Read on.”
“Okay, okay…‘If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body’” (Philippians 1:22-24).
Watching a half-blind, legless, ailing woman trace the words on the page with a bandaged hand and give them voice made my throat clutch. “It’s okay to be torn between the two,” I said softly. “To go home to heaven is better by far.” Karla gave a puzzled look as if I were granting her permission to end it all with sleeping pills. “But,” I said quickly and emphatically, “—but it is more necessary that you remain here.”
“Why?” she scrunched her face.
“Look, read it again, it says, ‘It is more necessary for you that I remain.’ You may think it’s far better to depart and be with Christ, but as long as you remain in the body, your family and friends have something to learn. Something of eternal importance.”
Karla turned her face toward the window, her faraway look revealing she was deep in thought. Maybe she was thinking about Christie, her transplant nurse, cool-headed in the operating room but coldhearted about spiritual things. Maybe she was musing over other nurses at the clinic who spend their coffee break whining about new regulations. Perhaps her friends at church whose major problems were menopause and mid-life crises. Coworkers from her old office. Neighbors down the street. Bag boys and grocery clerks who always greeted her at the supermarket.
She turned back and asked, “It’s more necessary for them that I remain?”
THE POWER OF EXAMPLE
Go back with me to the bomb blast that gutted the Oklahoma City office building leaving 168 people dead and missing. A pastor-friend invited me to come and visit the families at the First Christian Church, where they were huddling and waiting for news of their loved ones. Before I was permitted to enter the family center, I had to be cleared and credentialed by the American Red Cross.
When I wheeled into the Red Cross center, an officious woman wearing a white lab coat exclaimed, “My God, are we glad to see you!”
I looked over my shoulder. Did she mean me? Did she recognize me from an interview? Later, when I learned she was in charge of the counseling services and didn’t have a clue as to who I was, I asked why she welcomed me with opened arms.
“Honey, I wish we had more people like you in wheelchairs volunteering during a crisis. When victims come in here for help and see someone like you, handling your own personal crisis, it gives them hope. You are a powerful example to them, a promise that they too will survive their tragedy.”
Oklahoma City is surviving its crisis. But so many in our culture of comfort are not. Slump-shouldered and near defeat, they need the power of example. They need to see someone experiencing greater conflict than they make it. “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised” (Hebrews 6:12).
If people are floundering in the mire of their problems, if they are infected by a spirit of complaint, or if they are (God forbid) lazy like the battle-weary believers mentioned in Hebrews, they need to be reminded that the power of God works—really works, not in theory, but in reality—in someone else’s life. It’s a good “reason why” behind our suffering. Karla Larson is a powerful example.
“Do you realize God needs you?” I asked her.
“He doesn’t need anybody.”
“That’s true,” I concurred, “but he likes to use you anyway, especially when it comes to other believers. Look up another verse. Colossians 1:24.”
“What is this, Theology 101?”
“For you, yes!” I poked back. “Besides, I don’t know these things by heart.”
“Okay, here it is,” Karla said, finding the passage. “‘Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.’”
She reread it silently then looked up. “Huh?”
“Nothing is lacking when it comes to what Christ did on the cross. It is finished, just as he said. But something is lacking when it comes to showcasing the salvation story to others. Jesus isn’t around in the flesh, but you and I are. When we suffer and handle it with grace, we’re like walking billboards advertising the positive way God works in the life of someone who suffers. It’s for the benefit of believers. But it’s more than a matter of example or even inspiration,” I stammered, groping for words. “It’s you. Because we are one in the body of Christ, we are linked together. Your victories become mine” (see 1 Corinthians 12:26).
I watched the idea sink into Karla’s head. I realized I was one of those benefiting. Sure, I’m a quadriplegic, but I don’t consider my problems as severe as hers. Karla, with all her angioplasties, manhandles more serious dilemmas than I. She shows me how to handle a bothersome ulcer on my foot that won’t heal. Backaches for which aspirins do zilch. If a woman who has to borrow a kidney can do it with God’s help, then so can I.
Karla patted the place where her prosthesis was joined to her stump and sighed, “You’re right. I wouldn’t be leaning as hard on God were it not for this. And there’s always Christie. And my other friends who don’t know God. I should think of them.”
I beamed with pride at her, as though she had just received a Ph.D. in practical theology. “And if God can sustain you in the shape you’re in, then we all ought to be boasting in our weaknesses! When people who face lesser conflicts—like sow bugs in the shower—when they see someone handle greater conflicts, it speaks volumes. They learn something powerful about God from observing you.”
It’s like this homespun poem I received the other day:
I saw the woman in the chair; she was in church again today.
Someone said they’ve sold their house; they’re going to move away.
No! I cried, they cannot go; they cannot move away.
I didn’t get to know her; there’s something I need to say:
Please tell me your secret; I want to sit at your feet,
I need to know how you handle the pain that is your daily meat.
How do you keep on smiling when each day your health grows worse?
How do you keep depending on God when you’re living with a curse?
Every time I see her; her smile comes from deep within.
I know her fellowship with God isn’t scarred by the chair she’s in.
She admits her health is failing; she knows she’s fading away.
How can she remain so calm when I’d be running away?
My friend, can you tell me how you can trust the Lord
How can you stay so gentle and sweet when He seems to wield a sword?
You are to me a promise that even in the midst of pain God is near and faithful if I will turn to Him again.
Liz Hupp
No man is an island. We are a
ll connected. “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone” (Romans 14:7). The purpose of life is to live for others. Jesus showed us that. Especially “others” 1 Corinthians 1:27 talks about: “For God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”
Karla shames the worldly wise who scoff at God. She shames the stiff-necked who trust in their strength. She casts shadows on them, and they know it. They can’t hold a candle to her gritty, gutsy faith. But that’s good. How else would their boasting be nullified? How else would they be stripped of confidence in their slim waistlines, tight abdominals, flashy photogenic smiles, big brains, bucks, and brass plaques on their office walls?
Karla may lose another finger—and if she does, the watching world will be forced to swallow its pride and drop its jaw in disbelief at her tenacious trust in God. Either she is mad or there is a living God behind all of her pain who is more than a theological axiom. Her life is a living proof that he works. Christianity asserts some pretty broad and sweeping claims; the stronger the claims, the stronger its substantiation must be. God eagerly invites unbelievers (and a few vacillating believers) to examine the foundations of Karla’s faith. Her witness is as bold as the claims upon which it rests and this makes people think twice about him.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. (2 Corinthians 1:3-6)
When God Weeps Page 10
