RESPONSIBILITY

For each will have to bear his own load.  Galatians 6:5

As they were discussing unanswered prayer, one of the group members added that he and many of his friends had spent years praying for another one of their friends.  They had watched helplessly as their friend vacillated in his spiritual life, up and down, hot and cold.  In the end, he broke fellowship with them all and left to pursue his own aspirations.

Watching our friend quietly speak of his disappointment, the weight he carried was obvious.  He went on to say that he often wondered what more they could have done and why God hadn’t intervened when so many were trusting him for an answer.

This wasn’t a time for a pat memory verse.  “All things work together for good” wouldn’t suffice for such a deep wound.  Several things began to emerge from the group.  Someone said, “You aren’t responsible for the decisions someone else makes.”  Another group member said, “God doesn’t force his will on us, and he allows us to do as we please.”  Then someone submitted, “We can’t expect ourselves to have known in earlier years what we know now.”  Finally, “God is the God of the past as well as the present and can walk with you through that time to bring healing and understanding.”

It appeared that perhaps God was also in the dock.  Where had he been when he was most needed?  Additional thoughts began to pour forth.  Moses went to Pharaoh several times asking that he let God’s people go.  Initially, Pharaoh agreed but later changed his mind and hardened his heart.  The Scripture then states that, after repeated rejections, “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27, 10).  Pharaoh had an opportunity to listen to God and suffer little damage to his throne and country, but his recurring disregard finally resulted in his inability to choose rightly.  He lost everything.

How can we presume to know what God is working in any man’s heart?  And because we see no outward evidence of God’s presence, may we arrogantly charge him with negligence?  Are we aware of the people God is sending?  The angels unawares?  The dreams and visions?  The written and spoken messages that are being transmitted through varied sources?  How can we charge God with failure when “his ways are higher than ours” (Isaiah 55:8), and “he speaks in different ways” (Job 33:14).

Our friend dropped his burden of many years, repented, and once again allowed God to be God.

Father in heaven, thank you for your mercy.  How awesome that you do not defend yourself against false charges but stand ready to receive the one whose eyes have been opened.  Thank you.

CATCHING UP

For we live by faith, not by sight.  II Corinthians 5:7

We were headed for Hawaii to meet my brother who was flying in from Viet Nam for R&R.  My parents had been told by the Army that Jack was due for a break from the unrelenting fighting in the jungles where he and his men had spent the last six months.  On this weak assurance, my dad bought airline tickets for us all in expectation of reunion.

I’ll never forget the oppressive mixture of fear and anticipation as we awaited Jack’s arrival at the international airport in Honolulu.  There had been no guarantee Jack would even be on the plane, but we had come in hope.*  The first bus unloaded its cargo of expectant soldiers as their eyes scanned the crowds, looking for familiar faces, but our soldier was not in the crowd.  Then the second bus came, and still no Jack.  As two more buses emptied their precious load, Mom was on the verge of despair.  At the end of the line a final bus slowed at the curb, and the jostling men made their way through the folding doors.  Still that beloved face wasn’t to be seen until from the very back of the bus my brother emerged to his family who had come in anticipation, just hoping he might come.

I’ve often thought of that experience through the years as I’ve trusted God through difficult times, just praying he’d be present.  To intervene in situations where no one else could make a difference.  I’ve trusted his Word that he would be faithful to make a way where there seemed to be no way.  And sometimes, like my mom, I’ve despaired that maybe, just maybe, I had acted in presumption.  Maybe the promises were not to be claimed for this situation.

It’s taken years to learn that we DO live by faith, not by sight.  God presses us to move out of that familiar comfort zone into a more dangerous place of trusting him in circumstances that only he can resolve.  And in moving, living by faith, we often must move ahead of feelings that threaten to wash over us in waves of panic telling us we were expecting too much of God.  We were trying to live too far beyond ourselves and our predictable existences.  Sometimes when we indulge fear, we fall back where it feels more comfortable and breathing is easier.

But then the time comes that we finally push beyond fear, and we get ahead of emotion, saying, “My God can…”  We trust him to do what he said he will do.  And we wait.  And wait.  And trust.  And the waiting and the trusting are excruciating, but now we can do nothing else.   And then, in his time, he appears. 

And our feelings have to catch up.

Father, I’ve lived too long being pulled and jerked around by my feelings.  I’m ready to live by faith.  In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.

*We learned after the fact that Jack wasn’t supposed to be on the plane after all because he had been wounded in Cambodia, and the military typically didn’t allow soldiers to go on R&R with wounds.  When he returned to Viet Nam, he was checked into the hospital and recovered.