Writers In The Storm

I’m tired today: tired of the news, the people making it, the people reporting it, the people ignoring it. Some days, I want only to skim the surface, to delve no deeper that my personal reach. Being light and salt in this world is hard work that requires constant vigilance. I’m not up for it today. Today I’m better off staying away from others, so my inadequacies won’t reflect on my Savior.

Humanity is a messy, cranky, ill-tempered, fickle lot that defies my understanding. I wonder why God bothered with the Ark to save eight. Ultimately, it served His good purpose. But if I were God, I probably would have gone to plan B.

Individually, it’s a different game. Plucking a person out of the crowd requires glimpsing life through their eyes, if even for a moment. Up close, one-on-one, personal, that is where God wants us. That’s one of my prayers. I ask God to let me see others as He sees them.

Through His eyes, in His strength, I can imagine the soul behind the short temper, snotty remarks, or blazing glare. Let me see that person, that human being, created in His image, let me see that person as God see him, then my only response can be love. Even when I’m tired.

Poor Jonah. We sometimes laugh at this pouting prophet, but I’m probably in his company more often than I would want you to know. Perhaps we all share a similarity to this comic-relief specimen of humanity. Maybe we should go a little easier on Jonah.

God had a plan for Jonah’s life-a specific mission to deliver a warning to Jonah’s enemies about God’s coming judgment. Jonah didn’t like his assignment; he knew that sounding the warning might cause the Ninevites to repent and then God wouldn’t destroy them. He preferred to see God annihilate his enemy. (I suppose mercy wasn’t one of Jonah’s spiritual gifts.) So Jonah ran. God redirected him-that’s the part where the whale comes in. God eventually used him to deliver a message Jonah didn’t want to deliver. God showed mercy on Jonah’s enemies-that’s the part of the plan Jonah didn’t like (can’t you just hear Jonah saying “@!#%! I knew it!”). So Jonah was mad at God. God challenged his thinking by questioning Jonah’s anger and using the illustration of caring more for something stupid like a plant (the plant enriched Jonah’s life at the moment) than showing compassion for the lives of men, women, children, and even animals.

God’s questioning resembled the tongue-in-cheek kind of questioning that parents do with their kids when the parents already know the answers and the kids are inventing outlandish explanations to nonsensical behavior. I’m sure God must’ve had a private laugh at his clueless prophet’s expense while Jonah crossed his arms, stomped his foot, and jutted out his bottom lip. Jonah was mad and by-golly he had good reason.

I understand. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been in Jonah’s position. In my earlier years I snickered at Jonah’s childish pouting, but I really can’t be that hard on Jonah-he thought God hadn’t delivered on the promises of deliverance and retribution. Jonah felt like God let him down. God hadn’t behaved the way Jonah thought a deity should-these people had mistreated Jonah’s people and justice demanded that the Ninevites be punished. It wasn’t fair. God’s ways confused him. God’s sovereignty left Jonah grasping for a world set aright. This didn’t look like anything Jonah had envisioned for his world. Not at all.

I chuckled at Jonah’s silliness until I encountered my own undesirable God-assigned missions. Then I joined Jonah’s ranks. Okay, now I get the pouting thing. God is asking too much of me. This just isn’t fair. Like Jonah, I’ve had days when I preferred the belly of the whale to carrying out God’s divine task.

Does God ever roll His eyes at us? I wonder if He sighs and groans that I’m a lost cause or shakes His head at my inability to “get it.” How many plants-the material creature comforts of life-do I pout over? Do I even care that there’s a lost-and-dying world needing a message of hope? And do I prefer revenge to compassion? Really?

I’m quick to choose His mercy for myself-why not for others? Maybe I should consider how quickly God withered Jonah’s plant. Or how consistently He extends mercy to me.

I have to admit-given the chance, I’ll take the easy way. The path of least resistance. I really don’t like to struggle. Just give me that big red easy button and life is good.

Don’t you ever wonder why God made life so hard? Why does He put us in difficult circumstances or allow us to experience pain? He spoke the world into existence in a matter of days-couldn’t He have devised that kind of system in developing our characters, in planning our lives? He’s obviously able-so why didn’t He?

I know, I know. It’s a mystery. That much I understand. I just haven’t been able to figure out why He chose suffering as a part of His wonderful plan for our lives. (Other than the trite clichés and well-worn platitudes that well-meaning friends offer us when we’re drowning-it builds character, it makes us stronger, it’ll help someone else along the way.)

My friend Sandy buried her husband of thirty-five years last week. My brother-in-law cried over his eighteen-year-old son’s casket last month. Last Monday I celebrated my mom’s seventy-second birthday without her. (I can’t imagine her with wrinkles-she’ll always be forty-three to me.) Each of our goodbyes were wrapped in more pain than any of us wanted to experience, yet God was involved in our heartache. He made the decision for each of our loved ones to return to Him and to be absent from us, knowing His decision would inflict suffering.

And still, He is good, and He intends the pain to work His goodness into our lives.

That’s where I want the easy button. I’d be just as appreciative if He’d deliver “good” into my life another way-probably more so, certainly with less distraction, if I wasn’t struggling with the bandages on my heart. I’m not always satisfied that He offers His grace instead of an easy fix.

His word assures us, though, that suffering is our bond-we’re children of God, fellow-heirs with Christ, and somehow He links sharing in His suffering to the process of glorification with Him. Mystery magnified.

But the story isn’t over. The time of the unveiling of His glory hasn’t arrived yet. When the time is right, He won’t need an easy button to make us understand. We’ll sigh in relief and understanding. We’ll even smile. Until that day, we trust. And we wait for our faithful Creator to do what is right.

(Romans 8:16-39; 1 Peter 4:12-19).

The first time I read the bible in its entirety, I started in the book of John, at my wonderful sister’s suggestion, and kept going until I came around the horn again to John. My background held little bible reading, so the book contained many surprises for me. People got mad at God.

Subsequently I’ve learned that many people are mad at God, for various reasons, but at the time, it was a singular shock for me. I’ve been known to have a temper, so that wasn’t the salient point. But mad at God? The maker of the universe? What hubris? What temerity? What intimacy. And I was jealous.

It took awhile to sort my feelings about this. I encountered the first fist-clenched railing against our Lord with fear and trembling, expecting to read about lightning bolts clattering from the heavens to leave only the burnt remains of the complainer. But God let him rail. He indulged the pain, anger, and disappointment, and He answered.

Why did he bother to answer?

The complainer was one of His own. The two were on a first-name basis, so to speak. That’s when my muddle turned to jealousy. I couldn’t get mad at God, because we weren’t yet intimates. I kept Him outside my personal inner circle. Mind you, my inner circle at that time was more of a dot.

Many walk around angry at God, but they won’t take their anger to Him. They turn from God, because they refuse to leave their pain in His care. He invited us to lay all of our concerns at His feet. We can either trust him with it, or wear it like the chains of Jacob Marley. Honestly, who else wants it?

So I prayed that I might be able to get mad at God. Not that I had a ready list. But it implied an intimacy and that elusive “personal relationship” with God, that I wanted, but never before understood. I could also give Him my fears, my frailties, and my failings, and He would answer me.

So I prayed each day, all day, as things arose. An awkward conversation. An unsure decision. Running late, anxious for an appointment. In every case, He met me to stand in the gap and smooth my soul.

My path had its share of crooked turns, pitfalls, and mismarked trailheads. God led out of my own personal wilderness. I like to think I love much, because I have certainly been forgiven much. How can I get mad at that? But if I do ever find a reason, I know He will allow me an intimate setting in which to state my case. And I will never lose His love.

When we face overwhelming, painful circumstances, we typically don’t see our “Lazarus rise from the grave”-our loved one doesn’t sit up in his coffin and walk away from his own funeral, our illness worsens, and our dreams may shatter into a million tiny pieces. We believe. We ask. But whatever miracle we’re begging from God doesn’t happen. And we find ourselves groping for a God we don’t understand. How do we respond to the disappointments we face when Jesus doesn’t perform as we wish-when He doesn’t rescue us?

Disappointment with God is the place where our journey with Him begins. It’s at this place of resignation where we take the broken pieces of our life and lay them at His feet. Disappointment is where I no longer have expectations of the way my deity should behave, and my dreams are no longer punctuated with “Lord willing” because I’ve already discovered that He hasn’t been willing-at least not now, not my way. This place of broken emptiness is highlighted only by the certainty that God is faithful and God is good-and God defines what that goodness is. This is the place I begin a walk with Him, a walk where He tells me He is enough, and yes, He holds my hand even when my grasp fails.

Jesus invites us to bring our disappointments to Him, just as Jesus welcomed Mary’s disappointment and accusation-”If You had been here, this wouldn’t have happened.” In other words, “Where were You when I needed you?” Sometimes He is silent. (Mary heard no word for four days after Jesus was contacted.) Other times, He gently points out truths along the way. He cares, He is always present, and He’s doing something good. My responsibility is simply to trust Him.

When I’m disappointed with God, it’s usually a tip-off that my heart is clutching an expectation, or I’ve elevated a wish to the position of entitlement-God owes me. I’m continually amazed how graciously God woos my heart to Him when I become discouraged, when I begin to lose heart in my struggles.
Mary got her miracle. Thanks to Jesus, Lazarus walked out of the grave. But I’m convinced that Mary would’ve anointed Jesus’ feet with the most costly perfume even if Lazarus had remained in the grave, because we see evidence of her devotion before Lazarus rose-she fell at Jesus’ feet when He finally showed up. In the midst of her most overwhelming disappointment and in spite of the pain, her faith remained intact.

Mary reminds us-don’t sit in the chair of disappointment long. Move to the place of worship, first in laying the disappointment at His feet, then to sacrificing the most costly possession of our lives to Him-the broken pieces of our hearts. Three times we see Mary at Jesus’ feet: as she listens and delights in Him, then pours out her grief to Him, and later anoints Him with costly perfume as an act of worship, devotion, and sacrifice. Disappointment is a part of our journey with Him, the path that ultimately leads us to worship.

(John 11 and 12).

Go to JaymeDurant.com to see “Disappointment With God, Part 1″ and “Disappointment With God, Part 2″