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Faith Wrestlings

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My dad died of pancreatic cancer the week before Christmas.  Knowing that he is in Heaven, and has moved on to so much more, we are trying to move on in the New Year as well.  So in keeping with a good start to a New Year we did our usual devotional before school this morning. Today’s devotion was on how a little faith, like a little grain of mustard seed, can make a big difference.  According to the devotional, when we have a problem too big to handle we can take it to God with faith that He can do what we cannot. I agree, who better to take it to? What the devotional failed to address, is where we go with our faith when we take it to God and He does not do what we hoped He would do.  When as far as our short-sightedness can see, He does nothing at all.  

 

My 10 year old explained her faith wrestling this way.  “Mom, I don’t understand. I prayed that God would help Grandpa to get better, but He didn’t.  It would be the same as if Grandpa was falling off a cliff but dad was there too, and I asked dad to help,  but he just stood there and didn’t do anything.”  

 

I want to wrestle her faith for her, to swoop down with theology that not only nails it on the head, but nails it right to the heart.  I want to give her an answer that once and for all settles the question about how God can be good and also sovereign in our pain. But I say nothing,  because I do not have the answer. While I have faith that God is good and that He is sovereign, I wrestle with my own pain. She put into words the question my heart has asked a thousand times. 

 

“I do not have an answer” I tell her, “but I do have a hug”.  She takes it. It does not satisfy the question that still remains, but in the absence of a great answer sometimes you will take what you can get.  And sometimes, it might just be enough. Enough to help you hold onto the thread of faith that love is real. And if love is real, it must come from somewhere, and if God is love, maybe God is real too.  

 

Where was God on the three day long journey which Abraham took with the intent to sacrifice his beloved son?  Where was God when Joseph, already imprisoned for some time, was forgotten by the butler who promised to remember him when he was restored to his rightful position?  Where was God when a man named Saul found satisfaction in seeing Stephen finally stoned to death? He was where He always is, on His throne. It is easier to picture God on His throne when He provides a ram, and the sacrifice we are called to is subverted.  It is easier to picture Him there when the butler remembers, and deliverance comes. It is easier to picture Him there when we see the Heavens open for Stephen, and when we see the cold heart of Saul miraculously changed for the glory of the gospel. But most of life is not lived with God’s sovereign plan in our sight.  It is lived in the midst of the three day journeys, in the midst of our forgotten darkness, in the midst of senseless tragedy. Here, we cling to the hope we have which has not yet been made fully sight. Here, we hope for a hug, that we might feel that the love of God we dare to claim, is real.     

 

Maybe touch is not your love language.  A hug does not have to be a hug, it can be a meal, a note of encouragement, five words “I am thinking of you”, four words “You are not alone”, three words “I am here”, two words “So sorry”, maybe it isn’t even a word, maybe it is a cup of coffee or a kind deed.  It could be you will be the avenue through which God makes known His love to someone who longs for it. It could be your prayer will be the nerve that moves the mighty hand of God as He orchestrates circumstances to make Himself known.   

So long as there is life in this broken world, there will be hard questions.  We wrestle, not with hope to win, but with the hope that Jesus has already won.  We share in His suffering, so that we may share in His glory. (“and if children, then heirs- heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also  be glorified with him.” Romans 8:17 ESV)  We think, we pray, we give, we trust, not because we think we can do anything, but because we believe He can do in us and through us more than we can think to ask (“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21). May we look to Him in our wrestling for the strength to carry on.  May we wrestle like Jacob, till we find His blessing (Genesis 32).  And may we rest in the love that nothing can separate us from, not even our questions.  (“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:38-39). 

 

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