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Scribbles from...

Is Sisters in Scripture having an identity crisis and who is Terrance McPhee? Many of you were surprised to open the last SCRIBBLES and discover Terrance McPhee and his friends. While quite a different genre than my usual writings, I hope you were able to recognize in my children's book a similar voice. Whether I am writing for adult readers of faith or young ones full of curiosity, it is my hope to bring a sense of wonder and delight into this marvelous life and world that God has given us.

I hope to continue giving messages that inspire, make us smile, and educate us on spiritual journey. I'll probably continue in these next few months, to update you on the progress of this new venture of a children's book. Please be patient as I, like Terrance, try to launch a new creation. Thank you for your support and interest,

FAITH IS A RELATIONSHIP

He jumped out of the way but caught his shirt on a bush, ripping it off his back. At this point, he fell on top of a nest of hornets, which proceeded to sting him unmercifully.

After they had finished stinging his naked back, he rose slowly to his knees, clasped his hands, raised his eyes toward heaven and for the, for the first time in his life, asserted himself.

“Lord,” he said, “this is getting plumb ridiculous.”

Well, it was getting ridiculous. You and I would have raised a few questions with God long before this. Not everything that happens is an act of God. That’s not true. Some things just happen. We live in a universe of cause and effect. If you drop a book, it’s going to fall. If your toe is in the way, it’s going to get hit. If the book’s a big book, your toe is going to hurt. God didn’t cause that. It was an accident. Or, perhaps, negligence on your part. But don’t blame God.

Biblical faith gives God praise even in the midst of adversity not because God caused adversity to happen, but because we know God is with us even when it does.

Philip Yancy, when writing a book on disappointment with God, met with a man named Douglas. Douglas was a successful businessman who was what the bible would call “righteous.” Still, several years ago, things started to happen. His wife was diagnosed with cancer. Surgeons removed the lump, but after two years, the cancer came back in her lungs. Douglas took over the household chores while she went through chemotherapy. Sometimes she couldn’t keep food down. She lost her hair and battled depression. Just when it seemed she was winning, they found more spots. One night in the middle of the crisis, Douglas was driving with his wife and 12-year-old daughter when a drunk driver swerved across the center line and hit the car. Douglas’ wife was badly shaken but unhurt. His daughter had a broken arm and facial cuts from the windshield. It was Douglas who received the worst injury with a massive blow to his head. After the accident, he would get debilitating headaches. Sometimes he was disoriented and forgetful. Sometimes he had double vision.

Yancy asked, “With all that happened to you, did you ever feel that God was not being fair with you?”  Douglas was silent for a long time and then said, “To tell you the truth, Philip, I can’t say I ever felt upset with God.”

Yancy felt disappointed with this answer. He wondered if Douglas was perhaps not being totally honest. He pressed Douglas, “Given that you and your wife have been faithful followers and your child is surely an innocent being, surely you must have questioned God.”

But Douglas went on to explain. Yes, he was as upset as anyone about what had happened to his family. He felt free to curse the unfairness of life and he did, to give vent to his anger and grief which, again, he often did. But he believed that God was just as grieved and angry as he was. He simply didn’t blame God.

Then he gave Yancy a lesson about faith when he said, “My relationship with God does not depend on my current circumstances. If I have a relationship with God apart from my life circumstances, then when life circumstances shift or break down, I still have that relationship to rely on despite the unfairness of life.”

Douglas looked directly at Yancy and said, “All I had to do was look at the story of Jesus. Was life fair to him? For me, the cross abolished for all time the basic assumption that life will be fair.”

Douglas had that right. The cross exposed what kind of world we have and what kind of God we have. We live in a world of gross unfairness. We have a God of sacrificial love. The cross was, perhaps, inevitable. It does prove, however, that we have a God whose love can be trusted regardless of how unfair the events of life might seem at any particular moment. 

We may not understand the trouble that is happening in our lives, and we may be overwhelmed with doubt or think God is not playing by the rules of what we think is fair, but the last word in all of this is the Bible’s call to see beyond the moment. “To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.” (Heb. 11:1)

The Bible never belittles human disappointment or the agony and trouble that we have in this life, but it does add one key word—temporary. What we feel now, we will not always feel. We are here for a while, travelers passing through longing for our real home.

In Jesus, we see the perfect example of what it means to have faith. He faithfully carried out his work in an unfair world, opening the path for each of us to have eternal life. When we are weighed down with worry and our sinfulness and we feel like giving up and feel as though he has let go of us, in truth he has his arms firmly wrapped around us. He will not let us go no matter how faint of heart we become, and he will walk with us until that day when he leads us into the Promised Land. 

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