The BandAid
Life crisis definitely create an unsettledness but it's the faith crisis that threaten to rock my world. They've shot down all the comforts of religion, burst the safe little bubble I've felt secure in and made me question everything I ever thought about God. I realize that I'm not the first one to ask these questions about God nor will I be the last. I find some comfort in that fact. Even C.S. Lewis struggled with his view of God when times got tough. He wrote, "Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, "So there's no God at all" but "So this is what God's really like, Deceive yourself no longer." No matter what, I can't believe there is no God. I can try all I want to deny him in my head but in my heart I know the truth of his existence and my responsibility to live accordingly, as a result of knowing that. What I can't understand is why he seems so distant at times and so close other times.
I visited a friend in Chicago at the beginning of the summer. One morning, while reaching for a brand new razor in the shower, I managed to take a nice chunk of flesh off my finger. My friend was in a meeting somewhere so I couldn't contact her to ask her where she kept her BandAids. I started looking in what I thought were the obvious places but didn't find one anywhere. I was in a hurry to get ready to meet her somewhere but I couldn't seem to get my finger to stop bleeding, so I resorted to prayer. I began praying that God would help me find a BandAid somewhere. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was to pray for a BandAid. Why would God answer such an insignificant request? It seemed so childish. But I really needed one! I walked into the kitchen to get a paper towel to wrap around my finger and noticed a drawer wide open. It was a "sixth sense" moment (Only since moving in with my new roommates have I accepted random open cupboards and drawers as the norm). I went over to shut it and, in doing so, discovered the drawer was full of BandAids - all shapes and sizes! I'm sure Carrie left it open in her rush to leave the house that morning but it seemed a little more than coincidental to me at that point.
In answering my prayer for a BandAid, my faith was restored and I was reassured of God's love and concern for every area of my life. At the same time, if God hadn't answered my prayer, would that have made me question his love and care for me? Wouldn't his silence indicate an indifference to my need? Whether a prayer is answered or not doesn't change the fact that God is alive and working but answered prayer "...does touch an emotional need within us that is perhaps even deeper than the intellectual one: the need to know that what we are going through and the way that we are feeling matter; the need to know that our requests have been heard; the need to know that God—in whom we have placed all our hope—is near and He truly cares." (God on Mute)
That answer to prayer was a reminder to me that God is aware of and able and willing to alter the circumstances of my life. But in other more significant areas of my life, he remains silent. In areas that I passionately ask him to intervene, he seems hands-off. What does that leave me to believe about him? I refuse to be one of those people who throw out their faith in God as soon as he doesn't react or intervene in the way they think he should. "When we look at situations of unanswered prayer and conclude that there is no God or that if there is a God, He is either a powerful sadist or an impotent but kindly old uncle, His removal from the equation of our suffering solves nothing. However problematic His existence may seem, without God—this bankruptcy, this broken marriage, this four-year old with leukemia, this congregation killed by lightening, this mother mowed down by a drunk driver—the tragedies of life are reduced to meaningless losses in the great evolutionary casino. Without God, we are hopelessly alone in a twisted reality, contorting without spiritual comfort and without the hope, however distant, of supernatural intervention." (God on Mute)
I always try to remain aware of the spiritual warfare we are in. It brings things into perspective when I remember, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12) There are a number of reasons that things don't go my way. Sometimes my own ignorance brings me pain; sometimes someone else's selfishness. There are also forces of evil that are working against God's plan for me. Daniel prayed for 21 days before the angel arrived to deliver him. He faced the resistance of Satan which held him back from responding to his cry for help. "Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia." (Daniel 10:12,13) God wasn't unresponsive. There was a spiritual warfare going on behind the scenes. God isn't playing us like a game of cards. God gave us the gift of freedom. Things that look like they are caused by God are just results of that freedom or the results of living in a fallen world. We are free to make choices that heal or choices that harm us and others. As long as we have that, there will always be pain. More often than not, we make the wrong choices; self-centered choices, and, as a result, there will always be heartbreak, severed relationships, and prodigal sons.
I recently finished reading "God on Mute" by Peter Greig. In the book, Greig recounts the a story from "The Magician's Nephew" (part of the Narnia Series) in which a boy named Digory asks the great lion Aslan to heal his mother. Digory says, 'May I–please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make Mother well?' He had been desperately hoping that the Lion would say, 'Yes'; he had been horribly afraid it might say, 'No'. But he was taken aback when it did neither. He thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out: 'But please, please won't you—can't you give me something that will cure Mother?' Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself."
This simple illustration changed my view of God. After months of grieving a lost relationship and feeling that God was indifferent, I suddenly realized that I really didn't know my God if I truly believed that he wasn't weeping with me as I wept through my heartache! What kind of loving God couldn't be touched by my pain? My prayers changed from that point on. I'm no longer trying hard to persuade God to give me something that I want. I realize He isn't holding out on me. I've reached a point where I can trust that God really does care, even when I don't feel his presence and influence immediately. I know that he SEES. That he FEELS. That he is MOVED. And sometimes a little empathy is all I'm really looking for.
I visited a friend in Chicago at the beginning of the summer. One morning, while reaching for a brand new razor in the shower, I managed to take a nice chunk of flesh off my finger. My friend was in a meeting somewhere so I couldn't contact her to ask her where she kept her BandAids. I started looking in what I thought were the obvious places but didn't find one anywhere. I was in a hurry to get ready to meet her somewhere but I couldn't seem to get my finger to stop bleeding, so I resorted to prayer. I began praying that God would help me find a BandAid somewhere. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was to pray for a BandAid. Why would God answer such an insignificant request? It seemed so childish. But I really needed one! I walked into the kitchen to get a paper towel to wrap around my finger and noticed a drawer wide open. It was a "sixth sense" moment (Only since moving in with my new roommates have I accepted random open cupboards and drawers as the norm). I went over to shut it and, in doing so, discovered the drawer was full of BandAids - all shapes and sizes! I'm sure Carrie left it open in her rush to leave the house that morning but it seemed a little more than coincidental to me at that point.
In answering my prayer for a BandAid, my faith was restored and I was reassured of God's love and concern for every area of my life. At the same time, if God hadn't answered my prayer, would that have made me question his love and care for me? Wouldn't his silence indicate an indifference to my need? Whether a prayer is answered or not doesn't change the fact that God is alive and working but answered prayer "...does touch an emotional need within us that is perhaps even deeper than the intellectual one: the need to know that what we are going through and the way that we are feeling matter; the need to know that our requests have been heard; the need to know that God—in whom we have placed all our hope—is near and He truly cares." (God on Mute)
That answer to prayer was a reminder to me that God is aware of and able and willing to alter the circumstances of my life. But in other more significant areas of my life, he remains silent. In areas that I passionately ask him to intervene, he seems hands-off. What does that leave me to believe about him? I refuse to be one of those people who throw out their faith in God as soon as he doesn't react or intervene in the way they think he should. "When we look at situations of unanswered prayer and conclude that there is no God or that if there is a God, He is either a powerful sadist or an impotent but kindly old uncle, His removal from the equation of our suffering solves nothing. However problematic His existence may seem, without God—this bankruptcy, this broken marriage, this four-year old with leukemia, this congregation killed by lightening, this mother mowed down by a drunk driver—the tragedies of life are reduced to meaningless losses in the great evolutionary casino. Without God, we are hopelessly alone in a twisted reality, contorting without spiritual comfort and without the hope, however distant, of supernatural intervention." (God on Mute)
I always try to remain aware of the spiritual warfare we are in. It brings things into perspective when I remember, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12) There are a number of reasons that things don't go my way. Sometimes my own ignorance brings me pain; sometimes someone else's selfishness. There are also forces of evil that are working against God's plan for me. Daniel prayed for 21 days before the angel arrived to deliver him. He faced the resistance of Satan which held him back from responding to his cry for help. "Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia." (Daniel 10:12,13) God wasn't unresponsive. There was a spiritual warfare going on behind the scenes. God isn't playing us like a game of cards. God gave us the gift of freedom. Things that look like they are caused by God are just results of that freedom or the results of living in a fallen world. We are free to make choices that heal or choices that harm us and others. As long as we have that, there will always be pain. More often than not, we make the wrong choices; self-centered choices, and, as a result, there will always be heartbreak, severed relationships, and prodigal sons.
I recently finished reading "God on Mute" by Peter Greig. In the book, Greig recounts the a story from "The Magician's Nephew" (part of the Narnia Series) in which a boy named Digory asks the great lion Aslan to heal his mother. Digory says, 'May I–please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make Mother well?' He had been desperately hoping that the Lion would say, 'Yes'; he had been horribly afraid it might say, 'No'. But he was taken aback when it did neither. He thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out: 'But please, please won't you—can't you give me something that will cure Mother?' Up till then he had been looking at the Lion's great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion's eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory's own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself."
This simple illustration changed my view of God. After months of grieving a lost relationship and feeling that God was indifferent, I suddenly realized that I really didn't know my God if I truly believed that he wasn't weeping with me as I wept through my heartache! What kind of loving God couldn't be touched by my pain? My prayers changed from that point on. I'm no longer trying hard to persuade God to give me something that I want. I realize He isn't holding out on me. I've reached a point where I can trust that God really does care, even when I don't feel his presence and influence immediately. I know that he SEES. That he FEELS. That he is MOVED. And sometimes a little empathy is all I'm really looking for.
posted by Rachel | 12:37 AM
6 Comments:
Wouldnt be faith if we allways had a bandaid in the back pocket ;)
First, I totally understand what you've been experiencing in your relationship with God that past few months. It's hard to understand why he seems to distant sometimes. But the feeling that comes when he shows up and surprises in the smallest ways far surpasses his seeming absence.
Second, would you like to volunteer to write an article for the new magazine in January? You have a great way with words. :)
thank you for posting this. i really needed to hear it. or read it, in this case.
i got chills when i read about finding a bandaid. literally. that gave me chills. knowing God is there and hearing a prayer for a simple thing such as a bandaid gives me peace. so thank you for sharing. :) i need to check out this book....
Your posting is very touching. It has given me a sense of clarity that God is always with me even if I don’t feel His presence. I’ve been praying for a certain thing in my life to happen for years and so far God hasn’t answered my prayer. Your posting reminded me that just because God hasn’t answered my prayer, it does not mean he doesn’t care about the situation or that the answer is “no”. It might not be the best time in my life right now for God to give me what I want.
Thanks for reminding me not to be so selfish in my prayers. I need to thank him for the things He has already done for me.
Rach, that's beautiful...thanks for sharing your heart. It was something I really needed to hear.
I had the same experience recently...couldn't find a place I really needed to find, and all I had was the address. After about 20 minutes, I was really frustrated (and almost late for the next place I needed to be). I said, "OK, God, where is this place?" Turned down what I thought was my "turn-around" road, and there was a big sign with the address written on it in big letters. Which is the only thing that would have helped me because I didn't even know what the place was called. How many places have their address posted hugely on the sign? God is good.
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