...there is something about God’s rescues that make them a little less timely than dialing 911. He leaves Abraham with his knife raised and ready to plunge into Isaac’s heart, and Isaac waiting for the knife to descend; he leaves Joseph languishing for years in an Egyptian prison; he allows the Israelites to suffer four hundred years of bondage under the Egyptians and leaves those same Israelites backed against the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s chariots thundering down on them. He abandons Jesus to the cross and does not rescue him at all. And then there are those of us who, along with the saints under heaven’s very altar, are groaning under the weight of things gone wrong, waiting for that same Jesus to return and sweep us up with him in power and glory. “How long, O Lord?” we whisper in our weariness and pain.That last line grips me. We wait and groan and cry out...and all of it fits into a small sliver of a scene that will and does bring everlasting glory to God. We battle with faith and pain, but all for beautifying His name. How do you accept this and still trust in God's goodness?
Indeed, God calls us to battles where the deck appears stacked in favor of those who are his enemies and ours, just to increase the drama of the play. And there is the clear picture, even from God himself, that he does so to enhance his own glory.
March 14, 2007
Trusting the Good and Unsafe Lion
This piece from The Sacred Romance struck me today and caused me to struggle with God.
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I heard a sermon today on the most important aspect of faith. It is often said that faith is belief in something happening - we often hear preachers proclaim how we must have faith that something will happen. Yet, if great faith is defined in this way many of the great men and women of faith in the Bible died without faith - as things promised they never saw. If however, faith is belief in someone (God) and not something happening - then faith becomes powerful. If our faith is in something happening, we will in time see God as having let us down and feel God to be unfaithful. Yet, we know this to not be true, but what we experience then contradicts it. As Daniel said My God will save me, but if he doesn't I will still serve Him. If faith is based on results of what we want and trust God for then this statement would not be one of faith, it expresses his faith is not great enough to be certain God will save him. If however, faith is faith in someone, that being God, then this statement is true. The promise of the messiah went unanswered for many great men and women of faith...at least for a time. They however died with faith in God, not in events coming true in their life time and Jesus went to take those who were waiting to enter Heaven then - thus their faith in God - which was credited to them as righteousness resulted in what they hoped for in terms of events (the messiah) coming true. Had they trusted in events coming true and not in God, they would have not really had faith. If we fail, if things do not go as planned, even if not in this life - God will bring about that which is better than the events we had hoped for. This I know myself is not always the easiest to accept, we want answers here and now and yet we have all experiened things don't always happen as we had hoped. Yet, when our faith is in God and not in things happening in time the world begins to change. I think only in perhaps the last year or so have I for the first time began to see how creation gives evidence to the creator. I read the sacred romace a few months ago, it had sat on my shelf for about 4 years and I was not able to read it many years ago as I could not get into it. God brings us to a place in our journey where we are ready for certain things, I have began to see that the great valley's of splendor in life are often surrounded by valleys of hard times. These Valley's are avoided at all costs by people and those who fall into them often spend their entire life trying to climb back out (which is very hard and destroys the heart) instead of walking with God through them. Upon making it through that Valley there is another Valley that is pretty amazing. Some how I suspect deep in my heart that this is only the begining - there is even more splendor ahead and that as I walk with God in this journey my glory will begin to shine more. And I believe this is the thing of which God desires of us, as our glory begins to shine - it brings glory to God. You are on I think such a journey yourself - only God knows where you are at on it...but do not give up or loose hope. A greater joy awaits you ahead.
People should read this.
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