New Thoughts (01/04/11-01/06/11)
Lord, I wish to thank You at the outset for having led me to take these brief verses in isolation. Had I been looking at them as being of a piece with the events of the preceding day, I would have missed the opportunity to contemplate the significance of Peter’s reaction, and how that applies for the present day, for my own life and situation. So, thank You, Lord, that You have been so active in these studies and continue to be thus active, leading me into such insights as not only captivate my thoughts and imaginations but are also training me as to my character, changing things on the inside that I might better reflect You outside. It’s slow, yes, and there remains much that still needs to change, but that there has been a great change in me over the years, I cannot deny, nor can I find cause to take any credit for that transformation. It’s all You, and for that, I am ever grateful.
I find two points contained in this passage that I would comment upon. Both of these points, I must note, are reflective of things which are happening in my own life at present in one way or another. As such, it is very much natural that my thoughts should travel on these particular paths, but I will again note the perfect timing of my God in having brought me to this particular passage at this particular time with these particular insights to consider.
The first then: Jesus cursed the tree. I want you to think about that. Jesus cursed! Now, I think many of us are half convinced that one of the Ten Commandments forbids cursing. But, there is no such command to be found there. The closest I suppose one might come would be Paul’s admonitions to the church in Ephesus. There, of course, we’re talking more about coarse language, sexual innuendo and other such crudities of the erudite. This is a matter of cursing along the lines that we might think of as putting a hex on this or that, although I don’t suppose we’d ever apply that imagery to Jesus, would we? And this, I think, is the shocking part of the scene. For, that’s pretty much exactly what Jesus did.
There is, however, this distinction to be observed between the thing Jesus spoke, and the sort of hex-casting mystical magicism that has been practiced by lesser and darker beings down through the ages: Jesus was praying. It’s right there in the terminology used to describe what He had done. The Greek term is kateerasoo, a composite word containing the prefix kata and the root ara. These mean, in their order, down and to pray. Thus, the term for cursing might understood as praying down. Now, particularly given that this is Jesus we are talking about, it must be clear that the indication is not that Jesus was praying down to some being which might answer, but rather that He was praying to bring down some result. Indeed, if we chase ara back another step, we arrive at airo, which means specifically to lift up. Thus, prayer is viewed as upward directed, a lifting of our thoughts, our words and our requests to heaven. It is for this cause that the smoke of the sacrifice was viewed as representing the prayers of the people, being lifted unto heaven.
I am stressing this because I want us to recognize a very key point here, which continues a thought I had pursued in the preceding study. Whether offered for the good or the ill of their object, whether seeking blessing or cursing, prayer remains a matter of conversing with God, of making our needs and our desires known to the Lord of Creation. Let me also stress this aspect of the matter: These are petitions set before the King for His consideration, not commands issued to our underling that He is therefore required to obey, as if under penalty of death for failure to do so.
Listen! Prayer has power. There can be no doubt as to that. God answers prayer. But, He has not bound Himself to answer our every prayer, and particularly not to answering as we conceive that He ought answer. There is the obvious example used by my betters who share this view. If God were bound to answer our every prayer, then there would be no cancer and indeed, no disease of any sort left extent in the world. There would be no natural disasters or, if there were, they would be restricted to spaces where life would not be destroyed by their violence. For all that, if prayer were answered, snow in New England would be restricted to ski slopes and reservoirs where it is needed, and never found on the roads or driveways – at least, not mine.
Then, of course, one must consider how God would be required to react to such prayers as might be found in conflict one with another. If one contingent prays for rain to water the crops and another prays for warm sun to bring joy to the day, how is a God required to answer every request as made to answer? Does He tally the requests on each side and go with the more popular option? Does He support the underdog? Look! It ought to be patently obvious how foolish such a conception of God’s being bound by our prayers is. And yet, we have this sense that our words our powerful.
How is that, you ask? Well, I have been around so many who are afraid to speak accurately as to their own situations because it would be confessing a negative. They may be battling the onset of pneumonia or something worse and yet, if you ask them how they are doing, they will insist they are healed. Honestly! One look tells you that this is not the case. I grant you, there is something, something to be said for having confidence in God to address the situation, but these espousals of obvious non-truths are not confidence. They are trying to talk yourself into something. They are, let’s face it, lies. It’s not a function of believing God’s report over the world’s. You can dress it up like that, but it’s still what it is: a lie.
These sorts of beliefs, this being ever so careful to confess only positive truths and carefully craft each word, lest we speak something negative into existence: Think about that! We suppose ourselves so powerful that we can speak something into existence! What hideously enormous egos we have. Here we are, children of the God Who truly did create at His Word, and we know it. And yet, we think it’s all about us. We think it’s our words that are doing it.
Understand, friend: God is not required to do what you say. It’s really quite the opposite. You are required to do what He says. It’s His plan and His purpose that matter. He does not particularly need your prayers to permit Him to act, although He assuredly invites your prayers and your active participation in His process. But, if your prayers have naught to do with His will, then they are no more than vain, empty words. I tell you that this applies every bit as much for your pursuit of blessings as it does to your casual curses.
Prayer has power, but the power of prayer is not in our words, spoken or unspoken. The power is God. The power is the Holy Spirit guiding our thoughts and therefore our prayers in such directions as will reflect what God is doing. The power is the Holy Spirit shifting our direction when our prayers start off on the wrong foot. As always, I will bring up David as a prime example in this regard. Go read his prayers as we have them in the Psalms. Very often, these start out in a viciously vindictive mood. God! Stomp my enemies! Stomp them so thoroughly that no least progeny of theirs survives. For all that, kill off their livestock, too, and any crops they might be raising. Devote them to destruction, Lord! But, those prayers tend to get turned. They were not reflective of God’s purpose, they were reflective of David’s frustration and fear. So, the Holy Spirit moves in mid-prayer and starts shifting David’s focus, and pretty soon, we’re at a never the less moment. Never the less, Lord, Thy will. It’s there in His Son, and it’s there in the prayers of His saints, if those prayers are valid at all. God, I’ve told You how I’m feeling, but far better that I should contemplate how You would see this situation resolved, and resolve myself to align with Your will.
There are two fundamental reasons to be understood as to why the curse Jesus uttered had effect. First and foremost is that He is God. He is Life. He is the creative Word, and as such, He is also the destructive Word. It is He Who can destroy to the uttermost. The devil, for all his noising about and advertising himself as such a powerful destroyer, cannot do that. He does not, in the end, have the power of life and death in himself nor in his control. That power resides in Christ alone. To whom He speaks life, there is and ever shall be life. To whom He speaks death, there is no appeal that could be made, nor any thought of parole. It’s over. Just as was the case with this fig tree, so with the man, and even with the nation to whom such a message is given.
Second, and in retrospect, of equal import is this: What Jesus spoke was in perfect accord with what God willed. With Jesus, to be sure, it is ever thus. This is not to say that Jesus knew no desire for a different way. We know that there was at least the one occasion, as He contemplated the Cross drawn nigh, on which He would most certainly have preferred to be told of another solution that would satisfy God’s will. But, notice that boundary He set: Only such a solution as would satisfy God’s will.
You know, there’s nothing wrong with asking God to reveal to our thinking such alternatives as we might not have considered which would still accord with His plans. Indeed, to seek such alternatives is a variation of seeking to discern His plans. Who, after all, could better direct us? Indeed, as I noted in the previous study, we have the assurance of Scripture that whether we are inclined to consult Him or not in our planning, it is He who directs our steps. Prayer has power, but not such power as could force God from His own determined course.
In line with this thought comes another. The gift we have in being granted to pray to God with the assurance of a hearing is a marvelous promise all in itself. We don’t need to come with thoughts of appeasing an angry God that maybe, just maybe, He would grant our petition. We don’t have to come cringing, fearful that He might just as easily strike us dead on the spot for our importunity as receive us. No! We are granted full access, invited to come boldly (though reverently) before His throne and make known not only our big problems and challenges, but even the small things. There is nothing so small that God considers it an inconvenience to be called in on the matter.
I was at the funeral service yesterday, and it was said of the deceased that for her friends, there was no request they might make that she would treat as an inconvenience. Nothing was seen as taking her out of her way. Nothing was asking too much, or coming at a bad time. What a marvelous testimony! What a marvelous display of our own status as those whom God has called His friends. For, if a fallen being like unto ourselves can manage such an attitude in life, even towards a few, it is a wonderful thing. But, God is so far and away beyond our capacity for goodness! If, then, it is possible for one of us to do so well, how much more will God receive our calls with benevolence and good will!
Yet, even having this promise to lay hold of, we must take care. It is a privilege that we must not abuse by taking it for granted. I think I could pursue that thought in two different directions. There are, indeed, two primary ways in which we do just that: take God for granted in our prayers. The first is really a restatement of what I’ve been saying already. It is that tendency to suppose that He must answer, and He must answer as we have stated. This is really reducing God to an idol. It is making Him to be lowered to the status of some demon or genii or the like that we can manipulate by our careful diagrams and incantations. How dare we! There is no key phrase that will mystically bind God to act on our behalf. If we could bind God by a word, why, pray tell, ought we to consider Him God at all? What fools we mortals be!
The other way in which we are even more inclined to show an attitude of presumptive abuse of privilege in prayer is that we often do not really even consider that we are praying, or Who it is we are praying to. It is well and good to think of God as a friend and to converse with Him as a friend, for He has told us that we are friends of His. It is well and good to come to Him with the freedom and love we would know in coming to our father, for He is our Father. But, for all of that, for all that we are granted to come visit in His den, it behooves us to be mindful always that He is also King of kings, Lord of lords, the Supreme rule over all that is. He is, then, worthy of an honor and reverence such as no other could ever be worthy of. In our most intimate dealings with God Most High, however much in love, however much in joyful sharing, we ought also to be mindful of His majesty. There is no place in that mindset for tossed off prayer, for prayer that is offered as little more than a token necessity that we would get out of the way so we can get on with life.
Try telling your spouse you love her without really feeling it at the moment. Do you think you could get away with that? Try it. You’ll soon enough learn the error of your ways. Look! For that, consider the I love you, I hate you attitudes of a child. One moment, they’re all about eternal gratitude, and given five minutes it will turn around to eternal ire. Neither one has much meaning, and you’d best know it as a parent. It’s not an expression of love or its absence. It’s just the ego, the will, announcing its pleasure at being appeased or its displeasure with being opposed. If you’re willing to be moved by such nonsense, you’ll never make through parenthood! The point, though, is that we are not fooled by such idle sentiments, and if we are not, then we can be certain that God is not. To tell Him how much you love Him when you feel no such thing at the time is a waste of breath, or of thought if you’re the type to pray silently.
Better – far better – to get it out in the open. There is that quote that R. C. Sproul tends to bring forward from Martin Luther, if memory serves: “Love Him? Sometimes I hate Him!” That’s the honest heart of every believer, I suspect. However much we love Him, and love Him truly, there are those times when we just aren’t feeling the love. Maybe we’re in the midst of a season of discipline. Maybe we’ve just faced a setback, a course correction, even a calamity, and we don’t get what’s happening. These things come in life, and to pretend we’re all happy with God in spite of it might, just might, reflect an intellectual realization of things, but it sure doesn’t represent our feelings in the moment, does it?
Who do we think we’ll be fooling, then, if we come to God pretending everything’s fine between us when it isn’t? What do we think to accomplish by lying like that? Are we really just trying to talk ourselves back into belief and trust? You know, I can trust God and still be pretty upset with Him over some things. I can trust God in the face of what my wife is going through physically, but I’m still pretty darn pissed that she’s going through it. I can recognize that my understanding of things is particularly finite, here. I mean, I know God is good, and know it with certainty. I know that He works things for good for those who are in His service, and I know it with certainty. What I don’t know, cannot fathom, is why He can’t work it out better. How is this pain and suffering the best of all possible worlds? How can that be? Makes no sense to me, and I hate that these things exist in a world made by a perfect God. And yet, I must trust to His perfection.
This leads me to the other topic which I want to pursue with regards to Peter’s noticing the tree. I have considered a few possibilities as to what was going through Peter’s mind as he commented on this. Obviously I cannot know, yet I can suppose that Peter was a man not all that much unlike myself, and consider it from there. I have posited pride as one motivator, Peter striving to show himself a leader among the twelve, as he is the one who was really paying attention yesterday and notes the results today. I have also posited a more humble motivation: that what he saw about Jesus in the death of this tree was so atypical of what he thought he knew about that Man that he was deeply disturbed. Being as men are hardly ever so simple to understand as to be reduced to a single motivation for any particular deed, it may well be that there is a bit of both, and other motivators besides that explain why Peter spoke while the others apparently did not.
For my purposes at present, I want to focus on that motivator of concern. Just last night, Minister Patton was instructing us against thoughts of praying to God with thoughts as to how He could possibly allow evil events in the life of good people. There is truth in that, and the more accurate cause for wonder is indeed that He has allowed any good thing to occur in the lives of what are a universally evil people. For all that we are the saved, the redeemed, and for all that he has, as was pointed out, changed our names from sinner to saint, the fact remains that we continue to abide in this fallen flesh, and we continue, as even Paul continued, to deal with the fact that we sin. We continue to daily put ourselves back into that position of needing Christ, of needing one Who can save us from ourselves, one Who will pay the penalty which is our rightful due. That part never changes. The penalty He paid remains our rightful due. It is only the great and good mercy of our Judge that has provided a means for our freedom from the full weight of the Law.
All of that being said, it must be admitted that there are things that occur in this life that we find very difficult to fit together with our understanding of a God Who is Good. To pretend we don’t deal with such thoughts is no more useful than the claims of those who insist they are in perfect health when the evidence so clearly states otherwise. Yes, there is value in reminding ourselves of God’s Truth: that He is Good, that His gifts to His children are Good and that He indeed works everything together for the Good of those in His service, those who love Him. But, with all of that deeply rooted within us, there are still those things that, when we look at them, just don’t fit with what we know.
I maintain that this is at least a part of what we find Peter dealing with here. He has been traveling with Jesus some three years now. He has seen power on display from this Man. He has seen and heard the Father’s approving endorsement of this Man as His Christ. He has witnessed miracle after miracle and heard a wealth of teaching. He has become fully and utterly convinced that here in this One Who proclaims, “I AM the Life” are the words of Life. Indeed, Peter has been a man wholly convinced that when Jesus declared Himself the Life, He spoke truly. He has seen so many deeds done that gave evidence of that fact. He has seen it all, right up to the resurrection of Lazarus just a week ago. What he has seen up to now, though, has been the demonstration of the power that is in Jesus, this power of Life, always used to bring life. If there was a destructive side to His power, it had always been directed at the enemies of life, the demons and devils that so beleaguered the sons of man. But, never had he ever known Jesus to use that destructive power against anything of earth’s creation. Never.
So, to see this tree dead to the roots, and know that this had transpired because of what seemed a particularly casual word from this Master of his: well! Had he been of our time, he might well have been thinking, “this does not compute.” A Spock would have considered what he was seeing and decided that it was not logical. This particular piece did not fit the puzzle of Jesus. It did not demonstrate the power to save. It did not look like hope. It just plain didn’t make sense.
Now, our lesson from this might best be found in recognizing what Peter does not do here. For once, his boisterous nature did not lead him to jump headlong into error. I am recalling, at this point, that moment that followed upon his vocalizing his realization that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. Within minutes, he had gone from speaking incredible truths about this One to counseling Him to buck His own plans and purposes, leading to Jesus rebuking him as a satan that needed to get out of His way (Mk 8:29-33).
Here, as we see him pointing the tree out to Jesus, I see something different in him. I see him acting more in the manner of Mary upon learning of her role as mother to the Son (Lk 1:34). This, in contrast to Zacharias’ response to hearing of his own son to be (Lk 1:18). Zacharias questioned the news as being impossible, unbelievable, and therefore requiring some kind of sign. Mary, on the other hand, believed the news, and sought only to understand how it could happen. The difference in attitude is critical, and that this is so can be observed in the great difference as to how the two were treated for asking almost the same thing. Zacharias asks, “How shall I know for certain?” Mary asks, “How can this be?” Yet, the one expressed doubt, and the other only a desire for understanding.
As Peter approaches Jesus on this occasion, I think he just wanted to understand. What he was witnessing did not seem to fit with the Jesus he knew, with the God he knew. Yet, the fact of the event did not mean that he was going to throw out everything he knew. It just pointed to a limitation in his understanding. I have likened it to that feeling we might have had when a particular hero of ours is suddenly revealed to have a terrible character flaw. Maybe it’s that day you first discover that your mother or father isn’t perfect. Maybe it’s discovering that your older brother isn’t the constant protector you thought he was. Maybe it’s something else. But, I think we’ve all experienced moments like this, moments when something happens, something is seen, that threatens to shatter everything we thought we knew. It can cause us to even question our own memories. If this is what so and so was really like all this time, how could I have failed to see it for so long? How much of what I recall of my own life is really just a figment, an imagined past that has no root in reality? I tell you, those times come, and they are dreadful!
The greatest desire of our hearts in a time such as that is that somebody, somehow, will give us the key understanding that will set everything back on an even keel. We want nothing so much as to hear an explanation for those shocking things that will eliminate the shock, that will cause them to be understandable, that will restore our hero to heroic status once more.
Now, I can put on my holy, Sunday face and pretend that I never see anything in what God is doing that hits me in this fashion. Intellectually, I can even accept that, as noted, the more marvelous deal is that God is good to anybody, for there is assuredly nobody who deserves it. But, the questions remain. When we see somebody taken from life, as our dim understanding perceives it, long before their time, especially when it is somebody who has given such clear evidence of faith and devotion to God and to God’s ways, it’s hard to reconcile.
I could go back to the death of my own mother. Here was a godly woman. Here by her side was a man freshly devoted to serving God as a pastor. And, seemingly at one and the same time as he committed himself to the course of service to God, comes news of this impossibly large tumor in her neck, thoroughly inoperable, well beyond the medical science of the day to do anything about. Now, I cannot claim to have been a follower of God in that time, but I can tell you that seeing these two things juxtaposed I could not fathom why anybody ought to be bothered with following Him. If this was the reward for service, what point serving? It is so utterly unfathomable to me why it should fall thus. It is so utterly unfathomable to me why so many martyrs have been part of the history of God’s people. It is unfathomable to me.
At the same time, and you can perhaps blame my years of reading science fiction for this insight, I recognize that we are not given to know the might have beens. We are not granted to see the alternate course of reality that would have resulted had things been different. I can, of course, also look to the record of Scripture for comfort. I can look at the life of Joseph and see how all the terrible and undeserved things that befell him led to a particularly marvelous and life-saving outcome, not just for himself, but for nations. Realize, after all, that it was not just Israel and his sons that were saved because of the position Joseph had attained. Egypt, too, could count him their salvation in famine, and other nations of the region as well. Because he maintained a profound faith in God and dependence upon God, God was able to use his life to the blessing of many. One might even look at him as an early fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.
I could look, also, to the more negative example of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was informed by the prophet of God that his days were coming to a close. He had been a good king over Israel, and faithful to God. Yet, God was informing him that it was time to put things in order. How did Hezekiah react? He pleaded for more time. He prayed for a rescinding of this schedule, that he might enjoy more days upon the earth. Sadly, God granted this request. I say sadly because, as much as many people point to the results as being powerfully good as proof of the power of prayer, I look at the Hezekiah of those ensuing years, and I see that in the few added years that his prayer obtained, he managed to undo the greater part of the good he had done prior. He is, perhaps, the sad exception to those who don’t know what were the might have beens. Had he accepted God’s timing for his demise, he would have finished the race with a record unblemished. But, he didn’t. He insisted on more time. He insisted on his own will over that of the God of Creation. The results hardly commend such behavior, do they?
So, yes, there are those events that, as we witness them from our limited understanding, seem completely at odds with the character of God. But, then, we do not see the sweep of history, not even that small portion of it that encompasses our own span of days. Meanwhile, God is He Who knows the end from the beginning. He IS the end and the beginning, the Alpha and the Omega. And, He IS the absolute definition of Good. This is our confidence. Though we may find ourselves having to ask that we might understand how the events of life fit with that Truth, we can and indeed must be certain that it is Truth.
There is a prayer of sorts which I had suggested as something that might have been in the minds of Peter and the other disciples as they saw that tree. It is a prayer that I really think we all pray at times, whether consciously or unconsciously, which is to say we might not word it as clearly, but it’s in our thoughts just the same. It may also be true that I am but projecting something of myself onto the Peter I imagine in this scene. There has been a lot happening in life of late that I find particularly difficult to align with the goodness of my God. There are things both intensely immediate to my own life and things perhaps more distant, things of very personal scope and things of enormous scope.
I could look, for example, at the many tyrants whose regard for life, even the lives of their own subjects, is as good as nonexistent. I could look to those regimes intent on developing weapons that have made saner nations sober, and this with the intent of deployment. I could look to our own governing powers which seem to have lost their tiny little minds, seem intent on tearing the nation down rather than building it up, and I could ask how this would be a good thing, given the nations poised to take our place in the order of the world should we truly fall.
I could come closer to home, and scratch my head over the stresses and fractures afflicting so many church bodies, amongst which I must count both my previous family and my present. How is it good, Lord, that your people, known by Your name, and to be recognized by their love one for another, cannot even resolve and reunite? How is it good that your shepherds appear to be floundering and at a loss to lead? How is it good that the world looks upon Your representatives and finds nothing but proof of hypocrisy? These questions cannot help but arise in our thoughts, whether we allow them to approach prayer or not. Really, whether we are couching them in the phraseology of prayer changes nothing about the impact and import of our questions.
Let me draw closer still to home. Having this last week attended the funeral of the wife of one of a brother in this new family of mine; she so young, so afire for God, with so many (so many!) lives touched, and yet she is taken home, leaving behind husband and children to make their way forward without her. Of course, this rather strikes a sympathetic note with me in that I experienced my own mother’s loss in similar fashion. Sure, and I like to put up a front suggesting that this hasn’t had impact on who I am, but that’s purest nonsense, isn’t it? Of course it had impact. I must also confess a certain amount of concern or even fear that arises because my own dear wife’s health is so embattled, and I have no desire to learn how I should react if she were taken, as it were, untimely from my life. Hey. Again, I could pretend I don’t feel these things. After all, I know at some level that there is no untimely exit from life, only God’s timing. I know that all things work for good. I know the story ends well. But, these things, knowing these things, does not stop the thoughts.
I work through these things here because I think it important that we understand a critical point: God already knows our thoughts. However proper we attempt to be when we’re actively praying, that’s only one small part of the story. The fact of the matter is that our thoughts and beliefs in those times when we’re not actively praying say as much if not more about our view of God. The fact of the matter is that we are almost assured of finding ourselves in that place that Mary and that Zachariah faced. “How can this be?” If we have not yet been faced with the questions that plagued Job, it is pretty much guaranteed that we will. Perfection of theology and of doctrine, as fine as those things are, will not be enough in such times. They never are.
Listen. I must return to David, as I ever do in considering things of this nature. David prayed what he was thinking, not what he figured God wouldn’t mind hearing. Moses, too, was inclined to speak his mind when he came to the Lord. It seems to me a common theme amongst the heroes that Scripture provides for us. The men whom God praises as being after his own heart are men who do nothing to hide their heart from Him, but rather get real with Him. It’s all well and good to be instructed that we ought not to pray such things as we know are inaccurate, but I’m not convinced. If we will not be open and honest talking to our Father in heaven, how then shall we hear Him honestly when He brings His Truth to correct our hearts?
I’m telling you, it’s OK. It’s OK to seek understanding. Mary did it. “How can this be? I look at myself, and I understand the mechanics of conception, and it hasn’t happened thus to me, so wherefrom this babe of which you speak?” Note well, because this is the critical point: Mary wasn’t doubting God. Mary wasn’t calling Him a liar. Mary was seeking to understand. That is set in contrast with Zacharias, whose question was much the same, but rather than seeking to understand how this might come about, his asking of the question revealed disbelief. “How shall I know? What will you do to convince me that you speak truly?” That is a direction we ought not to go! How wonderful that we serve a God merciful enough to forgive even such an affront to His good name! Zacharias would be severely chastened, it is true, but he would survive having offered such insult to the Purity of God.
David, of course, began many a prayer with the most ungodly of sentiments. But speaking honestly in this way, in the privacy of communing with God, provides the single, safest place to deal with those ungodly sentiments and allow the Master Physician to heal them. Who better to hear us when we are at our worst than He Who is able to fashion us for the best? I tell you, it is far unhealthier to play this game of propriety with God than to be ourselves and allow Him the teachable moment we thus provide for ourselves. Our Teacher is infinitely adept at availing Himself of those moments and thereby teaching us. It’s there in David’s psalms and prayers. Wherever he may have started, the Spirit of the Living God has ministered to his hurts and his emotions and brought him into a place of aligning his thoughts with God once more.
There is, then, this huge distinction between failing to understand in our own lights how it is that what we are witnessing and what are undergoing could possibly fit with the knowledge that there is a perfectly Good God in perfect control of it all. It’s another thing entirely to look at those situations and conclude that we must be mistaken about God. We are mistaken, to be sure! We are doubtless mistaken more often by far than we are correct. But, let us be certain of this: The mistake we make is in the interpretation of events, not in the understanding of God’s character. He Is Who He Is. The fact is that despite our egotistical sense of our own importance, we are not who He Is. His ways, for all our scientific advances, remain just as far and away beyond our own. His thoughts remain too wonderful for us. Yet, in His grace, He stoops down, makes Himself understood to even the likes of us.
All of that being said, let me repeat that prayer I had set in the mind of Peter, and let me, in this case, offer it up on my own behalf. If you who might be reading this are finding yourself facing such situations as must challenge your faith – not so as to cast it in question but so as to exercise it, perhaps you might want to take this prayer as your own, too.
I just don’t really understand how You could have done something like this. But, oh! How I want to learn that it all makes sense. Please, Lord. You are good but this does not seem good. Please, would You explain the good of it that my trust may be restored?
To that, let me add something a bit more.
Lord, my trust in You is indeed established like the Rock that You are, upon the Rock that You are. Yet I cannot make sense of what is happening. I cannot look upon these circumstances and find the good in them. I know Who You are. I know You are good. I know your gifts are good. And yet, I look at this and cannot see the good in it. I cannot find it in me to look at my wife’s situation and find it good, even if it is producing spiritual growth in great measure. Surely, there’s another way? I am submitted to Your will in this as in all things, yet may I ask You: Is there another way we could go? If not, then, so be it and grant us all the peace and the faith to undergo Your will. But, if this must be the way of things, I would yet ask for this one favor: Help me to understand. I don’t ask You to justify Yourself, for You are Just. I ask that You would grant me the wisdom to perceive the justice in such things as this, to perceive the good as You define good, for I am surely in no position to define it for You. Yet, even if You will not grant me this wisdom (but, of course, You said, ‘Let him who lacks wisdom ask for it’) I shall yet trust You, knowing You are Life, my Life, and my hope in You shall not disappoint.
