One of the biggest challenges (and blessings) to the Christian faith is the fact that we as humans don't have it all figured out. I am currently reading The Praying Life by Paul Miller; one of the reasons I'm reading it is because I am still having a bit of a prayer/faith crisis. It's been a long ongoing mental battle with the Lord prompted by two adoptions and the loss of my mother-in-law. I am easily distracted by thoughts of "why does this happen?", "why aren't certain requests granted when they seem to be so pure in heart?", and "what is the point of prayer?" It's not a crisis of faith where I doubt what I believe. Rather it's a crisis of faith like Job's or David's, where I feel like I am constantly having to measure what I believe is true about God's character against the events of everyday life. I'm not even sure crisis is the right word; it's more like a faith challenge. But, I believe in a lot of ways that these crises are actually blessings because they force your roots to dig deep as they seek out nourishment and truth.
The Haitian earthquake is an event that brings out these kind of thoughts in lots of people. People want to know how God could put millions of people in danger and why families were broken apart by death. People say blame voodoo as a reason for Haiti's suffering. People say how this earthquake was such a blessing because it united adoptive families. In short, people want to know what on earth is up with God. If He's really all powerful, why didn't He just stop the earth from shaking? If He's really all loving, how can He allow children to suffer from lack of food and medical care? If He's really just, why did all but 3 prisoners escape from the national jail while hundreds of thousands of normal citizens died? I really don't know any of these answers. And it's very hard to watch what will happen next, because I know that this tragedy has just begun. Once the rains come, life in Haiti will be very miserable. I can't even imagine.
I also can't imagine being someone who calls Haiti home. I care about Haiti deeply but I don't live there and am not involved in a daily basis with ministry there. Those who live there are struggling with how to reconcile what they've seen with their faith. The Livesay family recently posted about their own emotions. They also posted a response that they received, a response from a fellow worker in Haiti, Corrigan Clay. His response was beautiful. It truly sums up what I believe about my own inability to figure all of life out.
God had a mixture of actions & responses to a whole bunch of things with great complexity. A near infinite number of things happened on Jan 12, not just one earthquake with the same impact on everybody. Lots of peoples' stories came to very different transition points, plot twists and turns, and sometimes, tragic conclusions. There were things that happened that were just, there were things that were unjust, there were supernatural forces and natural ones, there were things that God wanted to happen and things that were not His desire, but part of an unfinished spiritual war. There was grief and redemption all in a swirl, because this is not yet the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. There were plates shifting and prayers answered and there was evil. The only reason we look for ONE particular answer for it all is that it was ONE shared experience. But our stories aren't truly all the same... they just intersected. So finding ONE reason or one reason NOT to talk about reasons is just not whole enough of a response. God acted, resisted, allowed, rejoiced, grieved, and withheld in response to a million different things on Jan 12, like He does everyday, only I imagine this day he grieved much more. (Corrigan Clay)
It left me amazed at the diversity of my God. How He must experience so many emotions in each second. How I am only capable of placing the events of life on a continuum based on time and place (usually within the context of how a moment in time affected me) but how God must be able to transcend that and, much like a 3D movie, see things with extra dimensions. How God is orchestrating this massive thing called life every day, where He carefully balances evil and justice, love and fear, sin and conquences, free will and spiritual life or spiritual death. What an amazing absolutely mind boggling, so-scary-I-need-to-be-protected-from-it scene.
I'll also share the titles of some books I've read these past few years, books that I picked because I thought they would give me some comfort or insight as I've thought about my faith and prayer.
Disappointment with God by Phillip Yancy
The Shack by William Young
For the Tough Time by Max Lucado
The Praying Life by Paul Miller
I have to say I appreciated all of them. Even The Shack which I usually do not care for Christian fiction. And I wasn't all that excited about it while reading it. It was a book that rolled around in my head for months after I read it, and eventually I came to see how much it challenged my thoughts about who God is, what His character really might be like if He took on human forms, and how He relates to us. So if you start it and find it a bit out there for you, I encourage you to keep reading; it might grow on you.
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