Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands

When Knowing is not the Answer

Ethan’s Dad:

HERE’S A STORY ABOUT UNCERTAINTY. In the early 20th Century, technology kept improving and the instruments kept improving and the instruments used for scientific measurements kept growing more precise. So did the clocks, to the extent that train schedules could finally be synchronized across Europe. That different trains in different places could leave their stations at the same time — well, that was very important to the patent office in Bern, Switzerland. But it was also very curious to a clerk who worked there.

‘Albert Einstein said, we used to think we knew what ‘at the same time’ meant,’ says Hans Halvorson, a professor of philosophy at Princeton. ‘It meant “simultaneous.” And the whole relativity revolution was Einstein saying, “Wait, when we have really precise measurements, what we thought of as being the same time breaks down.” We don’t really know what it means to say something happened in New Jersey at the same time as something happened in Sydney, Australia.’

It turns out to be the driving force of the breakthroughs that define modern physics. ‘What happened,’ Halvorson says, ‘was that experimental techniques kept getting better and better so they could pin down things more and more. But what they were finding was that as one thing was pinned down more and more precisely, it was making other questions harder and harder to answer.’

This seeming paradox — more knowledge leading to less certainty — pertains more to quantum physics than it does to relativity. But according to Halvorson, the underlying philosophical questions have never been settled, ‘because there are people who very much hope that this is a temporary thing and we’ll eventually figure out how to beat it and others who think it’s telling us something about how we’re embedded in our reality. We have to figure out what it is about human beings that makes us think we can without limit make our knowledge more precise. Because that turns out not to be true.’

Tom Junod: How the Dez Bryant no-catch call changed the NFL Forever

Why am I starting a post by quoting from a sports article that was all about the vagaries of instant replay in the NFL? Because it unexpectedly contained an exposition about the human thirst for knowledge and, conversely, how that thirst seems cursed because it is never satisfied. To be sure, the philosophy professor quoted in the article does not say humanity is cursed; he describes it in terms of a scientific conundrum because “educated” people are not supposed to invoke primordial ideas like a “curse.” After all, we have evolved beyond such thinking, haven’t we? That was what the scientific revolution was all about as far as the post-modern world is concerned: ridding the world of religious superstitions.

Unless, of course, the “curse” is describing something inherent in the human condition. In the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, there is a story about how the first humans, Adam and Eve — who were special creations made by God in his image and likeness — destroyed their relationship with their Maker. (See Genesis 3). It is a story that, even in our ever-increasing religiously pluralistic society, nearly everyone knows. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. With some encouragement from Satan, who was disguised in the form of snake, Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Satan had told Eve that when she ate the fruit “your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5, NIV). That was partially true: Adam and Eve did obtain knowledge they were previously unaware of, but they did not become “like God” because they did not become all-knowing — far from it. Of course, it was not the fruit that imparted knowledge; it was the act of disobedience, which deprived them of innocence and opened the door to forsaking the good that God intended for them.

It turned out that knowledge of evil was not a good thing. The knowledge Adam and Eve gained caused them to feel guilty, to cast blame rather than assume responsibility, to lie and thus become less trusting of each other, and to feel scared of God rather than feel enveloped by His love for them. Just as menacing, they passed this knowledge on to their offspring, and that knowledge led to anger and jealousy by one brother toward the other, who then conceived the idea of murder as a solution to the problem. (See Genesis 4). People have lived with the terrible consequences of this knowledge ever since.

Thus, one of the lessons of that story from the beginning of human history is that more knowledge is not necessarily the panacea we like to believe that it is. We like to believe that inevitably the more we know, the better off we are; that the answers to our problems are just around the next bend, if only we can see a little further ahead in order to gain more information; that if we seek knowledge, it will reward us with ever-increasing benefits. But deep within ourselves, or at least the more years we spend on this earth, we start to doubt this belief about knowledge.

I write all of that because for a while now I have been pondering how certain situations in my life have been characterized by a lack of knowledge. As Ethan’s Mom wrote in a recent post, I had an accident a little over six months ago that was caused by falling off a ladder. I sustained a severe concussion, I had to go the emergency room (which brings painful memories in itself — especially on this day), and apparently I had multiple seizures while I was unconscious, which was a completely new phenomenon for me. The concussion initially caused some unpleasant after-effects such as sensitivity to noise, extreme tiredness, and some confusion. The fact of the seizures meant I was put on preventative medication and was not permitted to drive at all for six months. On top of all of that, a neurologist showed me an MRI scan that seemed to indicate that there are some potential problems in my brain.

So, throughout this entire period after the accident I have been wondering why it even happened. I do not remember the fall itself, but I know it is likely that the ladder became unstable and I simply lost my balance. I then had the misfortune of hitting the back of my head on something very hard. But that is just the physical explanation for the accident. What I really want to know is why did I fall, on that particular day just before my birthday; why did I have to sustain a severe concussion? Why did I have seizures that prevented me from being able to drive members of my family anywhere for six months? Why did there need to be all those physical scans performed on my body that raised the specter of several things being wrong with me, including with the one instrument I use the most: my brain?

It has been more than six months and I still do not know the answers to those questions. It has felt like a metaphorical parallel to the “dream” I had of me falling backwards off a ladder into nothing but darkness: no ground, nothing visible, just a pit of darkness. There is nothing. No explanation. No clarity. No ah ha moment revealing a purpose for this drastic event that came out of nowhere.

Of course, that scenario has happened to me before, in the worst way imaginable, six years ago today. That event of March 10th, 2017, is one I could never forget. And when it happened, all I felt was agony, darkness, and confusion. It has been six years since Ethan slipped away, and there has been no genuine clarity, no ah ha moment, no revelation of why God allowed that to happen. Oh, our knowledge has increased. We know that Ethan’s heart condition was a factor in his death. We know he was weaker than the doctors thought. We know that something the night before was off with him even more than usual. But those are just bare physical facts. They are not real answers to why our precious boy would be robbed of his life and why we would be robbed of his presence for the rest of our earthly lives. I have no such answers despite immeasurable amounts of time spent pondering, praying, and wondering about it all.

It is not because of insufficient effort that I lack the knowledge. It is not because of a lack of reading or learning or listening that I do not have an answer beyond the fact that some tragedies occur because creation is torn and shattered by a scourge of evil. And because of that, I have been wondering if the notion that having that knowledge will make it better is simply not true. Maybe I do not have the answer because it is best I don’t.

So, maybe those philosophers who say that it is inherent in our existence that further knowledge breeds more uncertainty are right. Perhaps the fact that things become less clear the more we know does speak to the human condition. Every time we look further into space we find there is more there than we thought and less we understand about it than we theorized. The further we probe into the smallest particles of existence, the less predictable the behavior of matter seems to be and the less certain we are of how that unseen world operates. As Bono sings in the opening of U-2’s City of Blinding Lights “The more you see, the less you know, the less you find out as you go, I knew much more then, than I do now.” What if that uncertainty itself is purposeful?

To go back to Genesis 3, I believe it is possible that the reason God commanded Adam and Eve not to desire knowledge for its own sake (not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil) was because knowledge is a false god. It tempts you into believing that all you need is to discover the right answer and everything will be okay when the reality is that further probing often just produces futility because there is always another permutation out there. I am not saying that exploration and discovery and learning are bad or pointless. I am talking about treating knowledge as an end, rather than as a means to the right end — as if the answers to life’s fundamental questions lie in obtaining more knowledge, or that if we can just be precise enough, work hard enough, study enough, the answer will reveal itself. I think God was trying to tell us that is not true: In essence, He was saying: “Do not seek knowledge, seek Me. I am the answer you are looking for because you are dependent upon Me.” Adam and Eve were tempted to “be like God.” (Genesis 3:5). In contrast, Paul tells us that Jesus, even though He was God, “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7, ESV). We do not need to be God; we need to be with God.

I ask why Ethan died because it is natural for me to pose the question. I know God does not condemn the inquiry. He expects it. But what He does not want me to do is to assume there is an answer that I should be able to find out or understand this side of Heaven. We look for answers because it is inherent in our nature to seek knowledge. We want to solve the problem. But what if we are not meant to know the answer, or even, what if there is no good answer beyond that evil exists and wreaks havoc upon this world? What if we are supposed to sit in that void of uncertainty where knowledge is forsaken because we are meant to be dependent upon the Lord?

That thought is why I despise the saying “don’t waste your suffering.” I certainly believe that God’s purpose in the grand scheme of our lives is to bring us closer to Him — to make us more like Jesus — and that suffering can move us in that direction. But not everything that happens to us occurs for that purpose. When a phrase like “don’t waste your suffering” is glibly thrown around — especially to those who are in the midst of tragedy — it not so subtly implies that there is some “higher purpose” for every kind of suffering a person endures, that we should be striving to ascertain that purpose, and that, if we do not discover that purpose, perhaps we are just not listening to God closely enough. However, God tells us:

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.
‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.’

(Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV). Given that disparity, we do not — and dare I say cannot — know all of the answers for why some things happen as they do, and we put ourselves in God’s place, as Adam and Eve sought to do, when we persistently assume and seek such answers.

In fact, Ethan’s Mom pointed out to me earlier this week that the whole concept of “don’t waste your suffering” is a very American way of viewing this issue. It assumes that pain and suffering are some sort of self-help program that we are supposed to be availing ourselves of in order to improve our character. We Americans particularly view ourselves as problem-solvers. Every question has an answer if we just put our minds to it. There is nothing we cannot accomplish if we just keep trying. But that attitude is the exact opposite of what our spiritual lives are supposed to reflect. We are supposed to comes to grips with our constant need for dependence on God. We do not save ourselves: Jesus does. Isn’t that void of knowledge the place where faith resides?

And even if such mysteries bring us to that place of dependence because of unimaginable loss, it does not mean that God intended for that loss to happen. Just because we learn something does not mean that is why it occurs because correlation does not necessarily equal causation. We can thank God for blessings that come out of tragedies while still lamenting the awfulness of the events themselves. Being thankful in our troubles does not mean we must forget about them. After all, the Psalms of lament are just as much a part of Scripture as the Psalms of praise.

We always want this neat little bow on everything, to somehow make it “happily ever after” in the here and now even though God clearly says in both Isaiah (25:8-9) and Revelation (21:1-5) that such happiness will not come until the end of this age. It is the materialist, not the Christian, who desperately strives for and clings to happiness now because for him there is nothing else.

So, to me the proper spiritual response to real, heart-rending pain is not “don’t waste your suffering”; it is “don’t despair in your suffering” because God grieves about it with you and His Son experienced it, and precisely because of that, one day it will be made right. Hold fast in dependence upon Him until then. Do not buy the lie that all is lost because you do not see the good in your suffering. Because sometimes there is no good in an evil thing, which is why we need the One who not only redeems situations while we are here, but who also will restore situations when we are all at last with Him for eternity.

Later in that same U-2 song I referenced earlier, Bono sings: “And I miss you when you’re not around, I’m getting ready to leave the ground.” Every day, and especially on this day, I miss you not being around, Ethan. And through Jesus’ sanctifying work, I am “getting ready to leave the ground” of this physical world where, thankfully, I will see Ethan again. “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

Posted on by walkingintheshadowlands

What is in a Name?

Ethan’s Dad: We are studying the book of Matthew in Bible Study Fellowship this year, and right near the beginning when Matthew is relating the angel’s revelation of Christ’s birth to Joseph, the angel commands Joseph to name Christ “Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21). This signified God’s plan from the foundation of the world to enable humanity to spend eternity with God. Matthew then comments that Jesus’s birth also took place to fulfill a prophecy (from Isaiah 7:14) about the Messiah which said: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means ‘God with us’).” (Matthew 1:23). This indicated that Christ would walk among us and experience our humanity in all its highs and lows.

This idea that Christ is both with us and saves us is a vital truth. A lot of times we tend toward either/or thinking: things are all one way or all another. We do this because it is easier than seeing nuance in the people who cross our path and in comprehending the issues that confront us in our lives. That is one of the many reasons this COVID thing has been so difficult; there are no clean answers to how we live with it. But Jesus is sufficient for our needs, and that is reflected even in His names.

The fact that Jesus came to save His people from their sins demonstrates that the here and now is not everything. The people who live as if it is misunderstand the purpose of this life, which is a staging ground for eternity. So much of what Christ talked about referred to His Kingdom, which is not of this world (John 18:36), and which must be comprehended through the lens of eternity. For example, when Jesus said “the meek will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5), He did not mean they would possess this earth; indeed, if anything, the truly humble are mocked for their refusal to “get while the getting is good.” No, Jesus meant that the humble will inherit a place of honor in eternity. The same is true for several statements in the Old Testament. Many Christians like to quote Jeremiah 29:11, which says in one translation: “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future.'” This verse is so popular that you see it on t-shirts, on coffee mugs, on bookmarks, and on Bible covers. There is an assumption among some Christians that this passage somehow means that God is going to make sure your life on this earth goes swimmingly. Some even use it to claim that God intends to make them rich. But if you read Jeremiah chapter 29 in its entirety, you discover that the Lord says this to the Israelites at the same time He is telling them that they will be in exile in a foreign land for 70 years. So, why would God make a promise like the one in verse 29 if most of the Israelites were going to be in captivity for the rest of their earthly lives? It seems obvious that a life of captivity in a foreign land was not a recipe for a prosperous life. But that is because God was not just talking about the immediate here and now – which in itself required patience for those who would live beyond the 70th year — but the future: God did indeed have a plan to prosper His people — for all eternity. And so on it goes for many of the promises in the Bible. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). In other words, our comfort for troubles in this world is knowing the Jesus has ultimately defeated sin and death, and we can look forward to that triumph.

But that does not mean this life is nothing, or an illusion, or not worth investing in. Jesus, Immanuel, came to be with us, in this life, on this earth. This part of life has significant meaning too. “By His will we live, move, and have our being.” (Revelation 4:11). We are purposefully here, living these lives to become more like Christ and to bring others to a saving knowledge of Him. I am reminding myself of that in writing it. Sometimes I want to fly away to Ethan, to leave behind the questions, the difficulties, and the drudgery that accompanies this existence. But “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who dwell in it.” (Psalm 24:1). So as much as salvation for eternity is a gift, this life is a gift as well. This is why Ethan’s life being cut so tragically short is so immensely hard to live with and to understand. Yet, the fact that Jesus is “God with us” proclaims that presence on this earth — no matter how short — is a treasure. Thus, Ethan’s conception, his birth — as crazy as it was — his short two-months of frail, struggling presence with us, mean more than just the bare facts of their happening. They mean God wants him, that Ethan is a part of the vast image of God we all reflect, that we are meant to be part of Ethan and he of us, and that Jesus was, and is, with Him too.

“Great are the works of the Lord, they are pondered by all who delight in them.
Splendid and majestic is His work, and His righteousness endures forever.
He has caused His wonderful acts to be remembered, the Lord is gracious and compassionate.” (Psalm 111:2-4).

I confess that sometimes I can get so wrapped up in Ethan’s death that I forget the loving kindness of his life. The name “Ethan” is Hebrew, and it means “strong,” “safe,” “solid,” and “firm.” We did not pick it because of its meaning, but I truly believe that Ethan was strong to stay with us as long as he did. I will always long for his presence and wonder why he could not have stayed with us. But because he was here, he was a splendid and majestic work, and he is remembered. And because Jesus is both “God with us” and the One who “saves His people from their sins,” that is not all there is to Ethan’s story. In Jesus’ arms he waits for us, where we will continue life in the Kingdom, together.

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The Futility of Going Back to the Future

Ethan’s Dad: Have you ever noticed how much people are obsessed with time? The common observation is that ours is a fast-food culture, which means we want/demand everything to happen as instantly as possible. But the obsession doesn’t stop there. Countless stories, television shows, and movies revel in imagining that we could manipulate time — whether that entails traveling backward to remedy tragedies and mistakes or jumping forward to discover what awaits us, and they posit questions about the consequences of moving either way on the timeline. We long for this power over time even though there is no realistic indication that we could obtain it.

But that does not stop people from thinking about the possibility of time-travel. In this vein, I recently read a news story about the paradox of time-travel. The paradox of time-travel is that if a person was to travel back in time in order to fix something that went wrong in history — like trying to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit that caused the fall of humanity into sin — fixing that problem would mean that the problem would no longer exist when that person returned to his or her own time, so there would be no motivation to go back in time in the first place. Put another way, things happen the way they happen, and if they unfolded another way than was intended we could never know it because we are creatures of the time we are born in. However, a prolific young scientist in Australia claims to have demonstrated through mathematics that the paradox of time-travel does not exist. The young man says that if you were to go back in time and fix a problem, events would conspire in such a way that the problem would occur anyway. In the example I just referenced, if you stop Adam and Eve from eating the fruit, someone else would still disobey God, and we would still have sin. So, the motivation for going back to fix the problem would still exist for the time-traveler, and thus there is no paradox. Of course, if the Australian mathematician is correct, the lack of a paradox also means that even if humans could go back in time, they could only change a particular variable of time, not what ultimately happens in the timeline. In other words, there is an inevitability to the unfolding of events even though human agency makes deliberate choices about how to do things.

You might think this is a strange topic to explore in this blog. But to me this theory sounds an awful lot like God’s planning of time in this world. We know choice exists because without it love would not be real. However, we also know from the Bible that God has had a plan from before the beginning of time as to how humanity’s arc, and God’s salvation, would unfold. One of the verses I recite every time I visit Ethan’s grave is a paraphrase of Titus 1:1-2: “The faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of truth are a faith and knowledge that rest in the hope of eternal life which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.” The prophet Isaiah proclaims: “O Lord, You are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness You have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.” (Isaiah 25:1). Ecclesiastes 3:11 (my all-time favorite verse) informs: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time; He has also set eternity in the hearts of men. Yet they cannot fathom what He has done from beginning to end.” These (and many other) Bible verses point to God setting up time as an unfolding story and yet planning for eternity even before He started the clock of history. People often wonder how these two things can be simultaneously true. But if time operates in such a way that we are able to make deliberate choices and yet the grand sweep of history unfolds only one way, i.e., we cannot manipulate the timeline (because we are not God), then it seems to me that we have at least a partial answer to the mystery. God has designed our timeline in such a way that our billions of variable choices impact us, but they do not affect the destination of history, which culminates with salvation through Christ for all who believe.

Pondering such a model of existence is both mind-boggling and awe-inspiring. The question that often arises from such pondering about time and eternity is: why would God set all of this in motion if He knew about all of the atrocities that would subsequently transpire? Or, as Fyodor Dostoevsky famously asked in “The Grand Inquisitor” chapter of The Brothers Karamazov: How can God say that all of this is worth the suffering of even one starving child? The consequences of the abhorrent evil Adam and Eve brought into this world are enormous, some would say, incalculable.

I think the answer to The Brothers K question lies in coming to appreciate that there is no reason that we should exist at all apart from God’s grace. God was here before all of the creation we see and that we are still discovering: Absolutely nothing required Him to make all of this and all of us in the first place. He never had to say “Let there be light.” He could have left Earth formless and void. Nothing mandated that He create creatures in His image. Yes, there is a whole lot about this world that is evil and dark and relentlessly unforgiving; viruses are part of that, as are the unexplained deaths of infant children, and seemingly a million other cruel things. But before all of that there was God. And by His own choice, first there was light, and then there was the gift of life. And all of that was immeasurably good. Moreover, beyond the irreplaceable gift of existence is the fact that God accounted from the beginning for humanity’s going astray, and His solution to that immense problem entailed sacrificing His own Son. If we stop and think about all of that first, before all else, it should produce a profound sense of gratitude and thankfulness. As the Psalmist said: “It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, and your faithfulness in the evening.” (Psalm 92:2). Such an attitude of thankfulness as a starting point can change our perspective of what we see before us. It does not erase evil, but it reminds us that the good, that life itself, is not a brutal fact of necessity, but is truly a gift from God.

I always lament (and forever will) that Ethan did not get to live more of this life, but I am thankful that He lived at all, and I should remember that the same is true for me and everyone else. As the Psalmist also reminds us, “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.” (Psalm 36:9). The light of life is sparked by thankfulness to the God who gave us everything. Can we honestly say that never existing would have been better than the evil that plagues the world, especially given what God foreshadowed in the Garden of Eden and brought about through Jesus? The Lord declares: “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'” (Isaiah 46:10). That end is this:

“The Lord God will swallow up death forever.
He will wipe away the tears from all faces;
He will remove the disgrace of His people from this whole earth.
For the Lord has spoken.

And in that day it will be said: ‘This is our God;
We have waited for Him and He has saved us.
This is our Lord;
Come let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.'”

(Isaiah 25:8-9).

The inexpressible hope of this end to time-bound life is why God’s answer to Job in chapters 38-41 of that difficult work is not as heartless as it can seem from our perspective of sympathizing with Job’s immense suffering.

“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.

“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.

“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!

“….

“Do you known the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

“….

“Who endowed the heart with wisdom
or gave understanding to the mind?

“….

“Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

“….

“Then Job replied to the Lord:

“‘I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, “Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?”
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.

“‘You said, “Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.”
My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.'”

Job 38:1-20, 33, 36; 40:9; 42:1-6.

God was not saying to Job that He did not care about Job’s suffering; after all, He was very careful to curtail Satan’s desire to destroy Job. But God was saying that He has existed from before the beginning of time and that He created this world with His own rules and intentions. For some reason, God did not (fully) reveal the end of history to Job, and, as with Job, He does not reveal all of the reasons for the shattering events of our earthly lives. Yet, for us to question God’s ways without accounting for the entire picture is to approach sophistry. The Lord does not despise heartfelt questions: God did not stop Job from asking his questions over and over again, and the Psalms are full of questions to God for why He allows things to occur the way they do. But God desires that we not assume a position of authority as if we have the knowledge and power only He possesses.

Accepting that we cannot fully comprehend why events unfold as they do, and that we cannot actually alter God’s plan, can bring some peace in the turbulence of life. For one thing, from these truths it follows that just because we cannot fathom a reason for an occurrence does not mean that there is no reason for it (a mistake often made by atheists). For another, it means that no matter how terribly we screw up, we cannot throw God for a loop because events will inevitably culminate with Jesus’s return, God’s victory over sin and death, and eternal life in glory with Him for those who believe. We must always keep this end in mind as we traverse our story in time because there will be life events we desperately wish we could do over.

For instance, it is only natural that I wonder about that March night and morning in 2017: that maybe if I had done just one thing differently Ethan would still be alive. But I cannot go back because, for whatever reason, this is how the story unfolded, and I am a part of this time, not outside of it like God. Moreover, as his mother and I know by now (though a part of each of us will always struggle to admit it), nothing we did caused Ethan to die. For a combination of reasons, unknown to us and to the medical world, his little body could not hold on anymore. He spent one last night and early morning close to us, and then he left and was welcomed into the arms of Jesus. And as painful as Ethan’s absence always will be during the remainder of our time here on earth, we must always remember that this catastrophic event is not the end of story. God, at the end of time, will, in a sense, undo time’s scars.

From His Word, we can see that God’s love overcomes this wretched evil and that the evil ultimately will be wiped away. This means that there is something in this time-bound life that is vital to our lives in eternity. Part of the importance is obviously God’s demonstration of His love for us, which had to physically unfold in order to be truly appreciated.  I have been saying that God is outside of time, but perhaps even more wonderous than that is the fact that God actually chose to enter our time in order to ensure its glorious ending.  God not only set time in motion; He marked its defining moment with His own presence, and then sacrifice.

But I suspect that part of the importance of living this life is the idea Andrew Peterson suggests in his song Don’t You Want to Thank Someone for This

“And when the world is new again
And the children of the King
Are ancient in their youth again
Maybe it’s a better thing
A better thing

“To be more than merely innocent
But to be broken then redeemed by love
Maybe this old world is bent
But it’s waking up
And I’m waking up”

There is some way that experiencing this life, both in its immense joys and wrenching sorrows, heightens our lives in eternity in a way that would not have been true if all of this had not occurred. We cannot know exactly how that is; our charge is to trust that this is true because of what we do know: that God so loves us that He gave His only Son to die for us, that Jesus rose again, and that one day we will spend eternity with Him. Those are the timeless truths for our time-bound lives.

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Acknowledging the Paradox of God’s Control

Ethan’s Dad: Those who read the last post know that I now want to embark on a deeper exploration of what we Christians really mean when we say “God is in control.” I have had much of what follows written for a while, but I have hesitated in committing it to this space because, frankly, this whole area just isn’t easy, and the last thing I want to do is make any Christian feel stupid for holding to a different understanding of it. But Andrew Peterson says in his book Adorning the Dark that in the creative process intention matters more than execution, by which I think he means you should not let the fear of expressing your thoughts imperfectly keep you from expressing them at all. With that in mind, I am going to press forward, in the full knowledge that the waters into which I am about to wade are much more vast than my mind is capable of navigating with any degree of precision. I do so anyway because, for me, what happened to Ethan demands that I confront it.

I mentioned in the last post that the callousness of the statement “God is in control” is one reason you should not repeat it to a person who has just suffered a tragic loss. Another reason is that it isn’t true — at least not in the sense that many Christians mean it when they say it. Rather than be pejorative, I will illustrate the viewpoint to which I am referring by quoting from a book I read called You Can Trust God to Write Your Story by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and Robert Wolgemuth. I use this book not because it is unique in its view; on the contrary, there are many works that express the same notion. This just happens to be the latest I read which espouses this view.

The authors begin one chapter in which they discuss their view of what “God’s providence,” i.e., control, means by quoting with approval from someone else:

“‘How unspeakably precious and sweet it is when we can believe that God our Father in heaven is absolutely directing the most minute circumstances of our short sojourn in this wilderness world. That nothing, however trivial, takes place, whether it relates to the body or the soul, but is under His control, that is ordered by Himself.'” Mary Winslow

Later, they pick up this theme with the following explanation:

“The word [providence] also speaks to His wise, sovereign rule over every detail of His creation. Now, this is admittedly a subject that can stir up animated arguments. But there are basically two options. Either 1. God sovereignly causes, and or permits, everything to happen that happens in our lives and in this world, or 2. God stands by and watches passively and powerlessly unwilling or unable to do anything about what happens. … Where would we be without the certain knowledge that He’s got the whole world in His hands and that every detail of our lives and days is ordered by our all-wise, all-knowing, loving God? … To be helpless victims of chance, tossed about on the storms of life; that would be forever disconcerting and tragic. Thank God, it is not the case.”

As this excerpt shows, when some Christians say “God is in control,” they mean to be precisely that black-and-white about it: that literally EVERYTHING in our lives is absolutely controlled by God. To these people, when Jesus said, “There isn’t a sparrow that falls to the ground apart from God’s will” (Matthew 10:29), Jesus was actually saying that God caused the sparrow to fall.

What is entirely left out of that explanation (and essentially makes no express appearance in You Can Trust God to Write Your Story) is the existence of evil. “When the enemy comes like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19). “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8). Evil is real; Satan has genuine power; the whole world has an unnatural aspect to it. To minimize, ignore or even deny this is to contradict a clear message from the Bible.

To me, you cannot have an honest discussion about God’s providence unless you frankly face the existence of evil in this world. Glossing over evil shortchanges God’s justice, Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, and people’s pain.

If what I have just said is true, then why would some Christians hold to what I would call the robotic view of God’s providence? I believe it is born from a good intention: to acknowledge God as all-powerful. But the view is driven by a false dichotomy. As the passage from the Wolgemuths’ book above indicates, such Christians think you must pick between a God who stages every minute of life like a marionette player controls puppets or a God who lacks the ability to do anything in the face of natural chaos. If that is really the choice, then it’s no wonder they pick the first option.

But the logical conclusion of this view of providence, to put it in stark personal terms, is that God killed Ethan. I reject that notion as an outrageous and unnecessary slander of God. Ethan died because we live in a sinful world in which life is sometimes senselessly cut short. However, if God controls absolutely everything, then the presence of sin in this world cannot be explained.

By definition, sin is rebellion against God. It is the reason humanity is condemned by God and it is the reason Jesus had to come and be the perfect, sinless sacrifice to save us from eternal damnation. It is one thing to say that God planned Jesus’ redemption of our sin from the foundation of the world; it is entirely another thing to say that God wills us to sin. The former is true because God knows everything that will happen before it occurs and so He planned a way to rescue us from ourselves. The latter is not possible because God cannot desire or will us to do that which is against His will, i.e, to do evil. The reason we can be condemned for our sinful actions is because we bear responsibility for our own choices. But that is not possible if there is no real choice, if God actually plans and controls every minute detail of our lives. The only way Jesus’ sacrifice has eternal meaning is if there is real choice: choice for humanity to follow or reject God, and choice for Jesus to lay down His life or not. Otherwise, the Garden of Gesthemene is a joke: what kind of struggle is Jesus having in the Garden if He has no choice in the matter? Jesus prays: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42). Luke goes on to obverse that “being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” (v. 44). Isn’t this what true obedience to the Lord involves: foregoing our own desires and submitting to His will? That type of obedience isn’t possible if the only will in existence is God’s.

I completely understand why people have a difficult time comprehending how it is possible for God to be all-powerful, but that He allows things to happen that are not what He desires, or to put it another way, God’s sovereignty and our liberty coexist. One verse that well-illustrates this paradox quotes Peter in his speech at Pentecost to a large crowd of Jews saying: “This man [Jesus] was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men [the Romans], put Him to death by nailing Him to a cross.” (Acts 2:23). There is no doubt that the crucifixion of Christ was a wicked act perpetuated by those who willingly succumbed to evil desires, and therefore deserved condemnation for for their deeds. But of course it had been God’s plan for forever that the Messiah must suffer and die. The one does not negate the other. This is why Jesus would say on the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). Those people were in need of forgiveness because what they had done was wrong, outside of God’s will for them, even though the crucifixion was part of His plan, and, in fact, was the very reason Christ could seek forgiveness for them.

As head-scratching as this paradox may be, if faith teaches us anything, it is that the truth is not limited by our understanding. Indeed, throughout the story of God’s redemption of humanity, simplicity and incomprehensibility co-exist. We know that humanity was given a choice, but we do not fully know why God offered one. We know that God came into our world as a human baby, but we don’t completely understand how God could be fully human. We know that Jesus came to save us, but we cannot fully comprehend why He would be willing to do such a thing given who we are in comparison to Him and our repeated rejections of God. We know that Jesus died on a cross, yet we cannot fully grasp how the eternal God could cease to live. We know that in His death Jesus was separated from God the Father, but given that Jesus is fully God we cannot conceive of what this separation could entail. We know that Jesus rose from the dead, but in our own experience we have never known or seen anyone come back from death. At a certain point, we have to accept these things on faith even though we cannot fully understand or explain them.

So, is it really asking too much to believe that it is possible for God to know all and to be able to orchestrate the grand design of His will without His controlling every single thing that occurs in this world? In other words, I am simply saying that God allows things to happen that are not within His immediate will. If this wasn’t the case, why would Jesus command us to pray “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? (Matthew 6:10).  When we pray this, we are asking that this present evil age would pass away and that all creation would come into conformance with His will (and that we would be His instruments for ushering this new creation into existence).

Those things outside of His will do not catch God off guard; they do not throw Him for a loop and force Him to drastically alter His ultimate plan for humanity. But those things do grieve Him. God certainly desires that people would not make the wrong choices He knows are coming. It hurts Him to watch us experience the tragedies that are inflicted by the cruelties that mar this fallen world. Such hurt and pain, and the desire to see us make better choices — to follow His will more closely — would not be possible for God if all of what occurred was controlled and purposed by Him.

To be a Christian is to believe that there is immense evil in this world and in us which requires a Savior beyond ourselves to rectify, and that Jesus is that Savior because He is is God in the flesh, who bore our sins on the Cross unto death, and then overcame death by rising again, thereby confirming that He is greater than the evil in this world. Thus, God is, indeed, sovereign over evil, but He is not a party to it.

There is no perfect way to explain how this could be, but one way to think of it is the idea of relinquishment of control. Jesus repeatedly called Satan the “prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). In one of those passages, Jesus says “the prince of this world is coming. He has no power over me.” (John 14:30). In Job 1:12, God tells Satan: “Everything [Job] has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” God didn’t tell Satan what to do, but only the limit of what he could not do. Thus, although God’s Power is clearly greater, and the power Satan has is dictated by what God allows, Satan has real power and control in this world. I believe that the same is true for people. God has granted us a certain amount of control over our own lives; it obviously is not ultimate control because we are subject to so many other forces: natural, satanic, and heavenly, but there is control.

As human beings we cannot help but ask: but why would God allow such horrendous evil? Why must some children die so young? Why are there viruses that wreak havoc without warning?

I cannot give a truly satisfying answer to that perpetual question. But one possibly helpful analogy, though not a perfect one by any means (no analogy related to God can be), is democratic government. In that theory of government, the people have ultimate political power to govern how they live their lives, but they cede some of that power to a central governing authority so that certain tasks, like security for society, can be better accomplished. Well, it just might be that the reason God relinquishes some of His authority to Satan and to human beings is because it is the best way to achieve some of what He seeks to accomplish with His creation. If we return to that passage in John that I quoted earlier, after Jesus observes that Satan has no power over Him, He continues: “But [Satan] comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” (John 14:31). So, Satan had a role in testing and torturing Christ, and those actions would illustrate Jesus’ love for God the Father and for us. What if God’s willingness to cede control, which allows for the existence of evil, helps manifest His love for us and our love for Him?

In fact, at least in this existence, there cannot be love without choice. God chose to create us; He did not need us to sustain His existence. He desired our existence: creating us was a labor of love. Love, by its nature must be freely given, and freely received. And if love is a choice, then there must be an alternative. So, there can be no choice if there is no evil.

Because God loves us, we must trust that there is a purpose behind this evil. I don’t mean a purpose to the evil thing itself, but a purpose to the experience of suffering. As in, there must be something we are meant to gain from this painful life that will make the next one more meaningful than it otherwise would be. After all, surely you have wondered why God doesn’t just skip this part and take us all to Glory so that we can avoid this whole mess. This chaos causes us immeasurable pain, and seeing us suffer grieves Him more than we can know, so that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through given that He is all-powerful and could just hit the fast-forward button, if you will, and take us to our true home. But think about what else we would miss if He did that — if he removed any experience of evil from our lives. We would miss the full extent of His love demonstrated through Christ, and we would miss countless opportunities to display love to those who are suffering (I miss too many as it is) and so to experience love at a level that is otherwise not possible.

And I think there must be even more that we would miss without experiencing evil that we cannot comprehend on this side of Heaven. The Apostle Paul hints at this in 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 when he says:

“God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in my heart to give me the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But I have this treasure in an earthen vessel to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from me.”

Would we truly understand that we need God, and how much we need Him, if there was no evil? God knows that our greatest joy comes in being with Him because we were made for Him and in His likeness. But in order for us to come to that understanding, perhaps it takes really strong medicine, a cure that from our perspective feels far worse than the disease. It is a little like a parent telling his or her child what the wise choice in a situation would be, but the parent knows he or she has to let the child make his or her own decision, so that he or she can truly learn why the wise choice was the best one — even if it means watching the child choose poorly. Maybe God has to allow evil to unfold so that we learn what life without God really means.

As I said at the beginning of this post, these reasons absolutely should not, dare not, cause us to minimize evil and suffering in our own lives and in the lives of others. But in the long term, we have to trust that even this pervasive evil and suffering is ultimately, eternally for our good because God is all good and all creation was first good before it was marred by evil.

So, is God in control? Yes, but at the same time He allows us to decide whether He should be in control of our lives. What we do, because of sin, is do things our own way. In His grace, hopefully at some point we notice that we are not really in control of a lot (hello coronavirus) and that even in the things we do control we tend to screw up. That way, it becomes painfully obvious that we are in need of a Savior. If we accept Him by understanding that He is able to accept us, even with all of our flaws, because of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice, and we truly desire to live for Him, then the rest of our time on this earth is about continually relinquishing control of our lives to His Spirit’s leading. For our goal is to be “crucified with Christ, so that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us.” (Galatians 2:20). In a very real sense, then, God relinquishes some control to us in order for us to learn that it is best to relinquish control to Him.

Relinquishing that control does not mean you will have no more trouble. Jesus makes no such promise; instead, His promise is that “in this world you will have trouble, but fear not because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33). In other words, do not believe the lie that because bad things happen, He will not make it right in the end. He will because He has defeated sin and death. We have to have the faith to wait, to persevere, to see what He already knows.

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A Purpose in Prison

File:1627 Rembrandt Paulus im Gefängnis Staatsgalerie Stuttgart anagoria.JPG

Ethan’s Mom: This summer, I was contacted by the leader of our BSF chapter after being recommended for consideration as a group leader for this year’s study. For those unfamiliar with BSF (Bible Study Fellowship), it is a worldwide interdenominational Bible study that follows a specific format in all of its local chapters. Members interact with scripture in 4 ways each week — personally answering questions regarding a scripture passage, discussing their answers in a small group, listening to a lecture from the local teaching leader, and reading notes on the passage published by BSF. The study usually concentrates on a single book of the Bible over the course of a school year. I started BSF in 2016, and my first study was on the book of John. I could write a whole separate blog post on the ways I have seen and heard God work in my life through the blessing of BSF over the past 3 years. If you have read any other blog posts, you have heard us mention it before. I truly love BSF, and in many ways, attending small group and lecture has been easier for my broken heart than church services on Sunday morning.

But nowhere in the world is totally safe for a mother who has lost a baby. A sight, sound, or comment can bring me right back to the trauma resulting from Ethan’s death or the twins birth in a heartbeat. (Case in point — even typing the phrase, “in a heartbeat” carries such painful connotations for me, and I tried for a minute to come up with another phrase.) This is also true of BSF. Our class has many wonderful older or middle aged women in attendance and leadership, but a significant proportion of class members are young mothers who come and bring their infants and preschool children, who attend an excellent children’s program while the ladies are in group and lecture. After losing a baby, it can be very painful to see and/or interact with pregnant women or those with babies. Sometimes the things “normal people” express anxiety over or complain about seem so trivial in the shadow of the tragedy we’ve experienced. I see those moms that bring twins to class and think how I should be able to chat with them about the unique struggles of raising multiples, but I’m not technically doing that. I admit that it is difficult not to resent that those moms got to keep both of their babies.

Because of this, I prayed and discussed my concerns with Ethan’s dad before committing to lead a small discussion group. I felt like this was something that God wanted me to do, and truthfully, I was very excited about being involved with the leadership team and attending their weekly meetings in addition to our class meetings.

Then I received my class list. 13 young moms, 11 who had registered babies or preschoolers in the children’s program. When I called to introduce myself, I found out at least 3 will be bringing infants to group with them. In my mind, I started picturing these cute, stylish young moms with their perfectly delightful babies and toddlers in tow while I bring two boys and the shadow of someone missing.  These moms don’t need me and my messy theology.

The next day I attended the BSF Summit leader training simulcast with the other area classes. The day was filled with prayer and teaching, and at the very end, they showed a video. I admit, when it started, I wrote it off as cheesy BSF propaganda. The video was a dramatization of Audrey Wetherell Johnson founding BSF in the 1950s. Ms. Johnson had been a missionary to China, even suffering as a prisoner in a Chinese concentration camp during WWII. The video shows her in the camp, sick and cold, explaining to a fellow prisoner that all she wants is for people to love the book in her hands (the Bible) as much as she does. Then it flashed forward to a speech she gave to a ladies mission society after she had returned to California. She frets about what to wear, noting that she didn’t have to worry about being stylish when she was teaching pagans. After the lecture, five women ask her to lead them in a Bible study.  She returns home and complains to a friend that these women didn’t need her, they already knew the Bible. However, her attitude and demeanor betrayed her heart — she didn’t think those California housewives really needed her when so many others had “real” problems. “Why am I to give more to those who have so much?” she asks. The answer comes in a flashback to the concentration camp — a Chinese woman says, “I thought all you wanted was for people to love that book.” So she says yes, still unsure why the setting of her story changed from prison to the suburbs.

But God had a bigger plan. He grew the small Bible study into a worldwide movement that now has over 350,000 class members in more than 40 countries, including her beloved China. She couldn’t see the outcome in her lifetime, but God was faithful to honor her heart’s desire for the Chinese people as a result of her obedience.

My heart’s desire is for Ethan to be remembered, valued as a person and part of our family, and used in God’s kingdom, just as I pray that my living children will be. I don’t see how sharing him with people “who have so much” accomplishes that, but maybe I won’t know in my lifetime. Maybe God will use Ethan in ways that no one could even imagine today.

As He tends to do with important things, God brought this point home again soon after the summit. My mother-in-law gave me a wonderful book, “Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian” by Sarah C. Williams, a professor at Oxford. The author’s daughter, Cerian, received a life limiting diagnosis of skeletal dyspepsia at a 20-week ultrasound. Near the end of the book, Sarah describes an eye-opening moment after Cerian’s loss at a lecture on “the gift of self” given by a Catholic theologian. She had intentionally avoided inviting a colleague who had earlier insisted that not terminating the pregnancy was irresponsible and questioned if her husband was pressuring her to give up her “right to choose.” Sarah runs into the woman on the way to the lecture, and she decides to come along. The lecture sparks an intimate moment between the two women, in which Sarah realizes the reason her colleague no longer believes in God. She goes on to say:

“I realize looking back that I was in danger at that time of getting locked in my own sorrow and grief and cutting myself off from other people. My colleague showed me something important, and her friendship drew me out of myself. Everyone hurts. We all hit the boundaries of our capacity at some time or another.”

Honestly, it can be tempting to cut myself off from other people. Many times it actually feels like I was cut off from people through no choice of my own. Grief is incredibly isolating.  People have avoided us and made ridiculous small talk to avoid mentioning anything about Ethan’s death. I have found this to be true of acquaintances as well as close friends. But I know that refusing to acknowledge the joy or even the pain in others’ lives is no way to live. It is hard not to play the my-pain-is-bigger-than-yours game, but who wins?

I was starting to feel pretty good about all of this when I found out through a seemingly random chain of events that one of my original group members had twins. I asked the leadership team for details, saying that sometimes twins are hard and I would do better if I was prepared. Turns out, this lady has twin boys almost the exact same age as mine. I had to grab onto the counter to steady myself when I received the message. This was my biggest fear – that someone in my group would have twins, 2 year old boy twins at that! The leaders offered immediately to change her to another group without anyone knowing why, so all that was resolved before I talked to her. After the initial rush of emotions that brought up, I realized that God brought that to our attention prior to class time because it was beyond what I can handle at this point. “A bruised reed he will not break” (Isaiah 42:3).  I am pretty sure that would have broken me.

This whole roller coaster was leading up to this week, when our actual first BSF group Tuesday. My mental pictures weren’t too far off, actually. I’m sure they all graduated high school after Y2K and have never heard the distinctive sound of a dial up modem. I felt so old!

It was awkward to introduce myself as the mother of 5. One other woman has a child in kindergarten this year, the rest have kids 2 and under. Two women had babies with them. Two are pregnant, and both are also the mothers of toddlers so the statement was made that they would just be lining everyone up for diaper changes. Before I knew it, I commented that it wasn’t terribly long ago we had three in diapers. Adding in my head, “but that only lasted two months and then we had to donate the stockpile of size 1 diapers.”

So I came home again feeling the weight of balancing being honest and real vs. sharing too much with these women. I’m sure they don’t want to hear about a baby dying of SIDS; it just hits too close to home. I thought I had softened my heart towards them and was ready to be a shepherd to this group, but I didn’t feel very shepherd-y later that afternoon.

I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the funk. People asked how it went — OK, not great but OK. It was a comfort to pull out the familiar format of notes and questions to start on at home, just like always. Then I read this in the very last paragraph of notes:

Ask God to grip your heart with the truth that He is fully in control and fully good. When trials come, remain in God’s Word and with God’s people. Ask Jesus to draw you close to Him and turn you outwards to others. How might your “prison” be part of Gods plan to make Jesus known and loved to the ends of the earth?

The prison reference is in regard to Paul, but it stopped me in my tracks. One of the comments I made several times in the early days of overwhelming grief was “I feel like I have been given a life sentence in prison for a crime I didn’t commit.” The rest of my life stretched out in front of me like an endless march of identical dark days. There was no time off for good behavior. There was no hope of freedom.

Knowing that, read the quote again. It starts with that tricky tension in reconciling God’s goodness with his sovereignty, a persistent theme in our blog posts. I knew the part about staying in God’s Word; that is what I thought the structure and in-depth study of BSF brought to me. I hadn’t considered that BSF is also a way to remain with God’s people. My experience may indeed feel like a prison, but prisons didn’t stop Paul from shepherding his fledgling churches. The only way I can proceed to turn outwards to others is with God’s provision, one day at a time. That is a recurrent theme as we walk in the Shadowlands, but provisional grace is a lot easier to write about than to trust. So I will leave us with this song/prayer for tonight:

“Give us faith to be strong
Father, we are so weak
Our bodies are fragile and weary
As we stagger and stumble to walk where you lead
Give us faith to be strong
Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it’s hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

“Give us peace when we’re torn
Mend us up when we break
This flesh can be wounded and shaking
When there’s much too much trouble for one heart to take
Give us peace when we’re torn
Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it’s hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong

“Give us hearts to find hope
Father, we cannot see
How the sorrow we feel can bring freedom
And as hard as we try, Lord, it’s hard to believe
So, give us hearts to find hope
Give us faith to be strong
Give us strength to be faithful
This life is not long, but it’s hard
Give us grace to go on
Make us willing and able
Lord, give us faith to be strong
Give us peace when we’re torn
Give us faith, faith to be strong”

Faith to Be Strong by Andrew Peterson

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On the Road to Emmaus

Road to Emmaus

Several weeks ago a pastor at our church gave a sermon based on the story of the Road to Emmaus. For anyone who might be unfamiliar with it, the story can be found in Luke 24:13-35, and it is about who two followers of Jesus encountered when they were walking to a village about seven miles from Jerusalem on the day Jesus rose from the dead — before that news had widely spread. There are many fascinating aspects to the story, but this time when I was reading it one particular fact struck me in a way it had not done before. The story begins like this:

“That same day two of Jesus’ followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. As they walked along they were talking about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them. But God kept them from recognizing him.

“Jesus asked them, ‘What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?’

“They stopped short, sadness written across their faces. Then one of them, Cleopas, replied, ‘You must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about all the things that have happened there the last few days.’

“‘What things?’ Jesus asked.

“‘The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth,’ they said. ‘He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people. But our leading priests and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.

“‘Then some women from our group of his followers were at his tomb early this morning, and they came back with an amazing report. They said his body was missing, and they had seen angels who told them Jesus is alive! Some of our men ran out to see, and sure enough, his body was gone, just as the women had said.

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?’ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

What struck me was the line: “But God kept them from recognizing him.” (Luke 24:16). The immediate question that comes to mind is why? Why did God prevent these followers from recognizing Jesus the moment He appeared to them? As the story relates, the men were clearly distraught by the events of the crucifixion. As I attempted to convey in my last post, His followers’ whole worlds were turned upside down when Jesus was killed. These men tell Jesus that they had “hoped he was the Messiah,” and then those hopes were seemingly dashed by Jesus’ sudden and gruesome demise, which they probably witnessed. So, why in the world would God prevent these grieving men from recognizing Jesus standing in the flesh before them?

Of course, you start to get some sense of the answer as the story unfolds. First, the men honestly told Jesus what they believed: they thought Jesus was a great prophet and teacher, but they were unconvinced that He was the Messiah. Jesus then explained the Scriptures (what we today call the Old Testament) to them as they were meant to be understood, with Jesus at their center. His teaching was so powerful that the men literally begged Him to stay with them longer even though they still didn’t actually know who He was.

“By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus acted as if he were going on, but they begged him, ‘Stay the night with us, since it is getting late.’ So he went home with them. As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And at that moment he disappeared!

“They said to each other, ‘Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?’ And within the hour they were on their way back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven disciples and the others who had gathered with them, who said, ‘The Lord has really risen! He appeared to Peter.'”

After the encounter, the men didn’t sit around or go to bed; they got right back on the road back to Jerusalem to tell the Disciples what had happened to them. They were practically bursting with the news. These men, who had been followers, were now true believers in Jesus as the Savior of the world because now they had to tell people about Him.

Thus, by the end of the story, it becomes clear that God kept the men from initially recognizing Jesus for their own good. Their belief needed the uncertainty, and, dare I say, the pain, that came from not understanding what had happened to Jesus. It needed those prompting questions from a seeming stranger to bring their honest doubts to the surface. The men also clearly needed guidance from Jesus to traverse this spiritual journey from anxiety to exuberance about Jesus, but they did not really know that was their need. In short, in order for the men to experience a progression from factual knowledge about the Bible and Jesus to genuine understanding and faith in who Jesus really is, the men had to be kept in the dark for a little while. Timing was crucial to a correct understanding of the answers they sought.

So, you might be thinking: “That’s all very interesting with regard to how people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, but why are you writing about it in this blog that is dedicated to Ethan?” And the answer is that I think God can be telling us more than one thing through the stories He has preserved for us in the Bible. I have no doubt that the story of the men on the Road to Emmaus is about a journey toward faith in Jesus. But it also can have something to say about how God raises His children.

No one knows us better than God because He made us. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13). He knows what we need, and, just as important, when we need it. So, when this story says, “God kept them from recognizing Jesus,” it suggests that there are times that God purposefully does not reveal to us the answer to a question we ask — even when we desperately want an answer for good an understandable reasons — because the timing is not right for us to receive that answer. For reasons we cannot fathom at the time, we must walk through a period of pain, uncertainty, inquisition, and spiritual guidance from the Lord before we are prepared to fully grasp the import of the answer.

If you think about it, we do the same with our own children. Children ask questions all the time that we know the answers to, but for a variety of reasons we do not provide them with an immediate direct answer. In many cases, we do not reveal the answer because the child is not ready to understand the answer. It is better for the child that the answer waits for a more appropriate time. This can be true for something as simple as a birthday surprise or as profound as how they came to be. In fact, there are even times when we will tell them the true answer because it is unavoidable, but they will not come to grasp the full import of that answer until many years later. I know this last one to be true from telling our other children when we came home from the hospital on March 10, 2017, that Ethan was not coming home. Our other children are still too young to really understand what his absence means.

The question I always ask God is Why? Why would You let our Ethan die so young, before we could see all he was meant to be? Why would You perform this miraculous work of creating so precious a creature inside his mother — together with his brother Noah — and then let that “wonderful work” die in our arms? (Psalm 139:14). Why would You allow this harrowing experience of twins being born in the back of an ambulance in an ice storm, only to then watch one of them expire after being raced to a hospital in another ambulance? Why would You have him be born with a hole in his heart, so that each of his days before a necessary (but supposedly common) surgery were a painful struggle for him, only to have him leave us before he could have that operation? Why? Why? Why?

Aside from the cold reality that evil really does exist in this world, God has not given me an answer. And to be honest, I believe that I am going to live the rest of my life — however long it is — without receiving an answer. I know that sounds depressing. And again, to be honest, there are a lot of times that the silence that surrounds that pleading question is just that: depressing, forlorn, dark — much like I imagine those men on that Road felt two days after Jesus had cried out from the Cross “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” before He breathed His last. (Matthew 27:46).

But it is also good to remember that this does not mean there isn’t an answer. The answer to Jesus’ question from the Cross came the moment He took His first breath in that tomb Sunday morning. The answer to those men’s questions was standing right in front of them even though they did not yet know it. It is a mistake to be believe that just because you do not receive an immediate answer to a heartfelt question that no answer exists -– or that you will never receive it. Sometimes the when is just as important as the what.

And I believe that there is a reason I have to wait for the answer to my question. I am well aware in saying this that it means God is purposefully allowing me to travel this road of uncertainty, doubt, and yes, even pain before I receive the answer. That is not an easy thing to accept, but the truth is often not easy; it is, however, necessary. And, by the way, that does not mean it is easy for God to make me wait, just as it is sometimes hard for me to keep an answer from my own children. God knows that I ache, and grieve, and wonder, and I believe that it rends His heart to watch me go through this experience. (Psalm 56:8).  But if sometimes what is best is not what is easiest, then that is as true for God as it is for us. So, in His infinite wisdom, He keeps the knowledge from me even though it pains Him to do so.

But please do not misunderstand: I am not saying that God thought Ethan needed to die in order for me to experience some kind of spiritual progression in my life. Some well-meaning Christians, in a round about way, say things like this to fellow believers who have suffered excruciating losses in an attempt to offer meaning for a senseless event. It isn’t true. What these people do not realize is that what they are really saying is that the loved one the fellow believer lost was just a pawn for God’s work in that believer’s life. That is an insult, not a comfort. How could this be if Ethan, like all of the other precious ones who are tragically lost through no fault of their own, is “fearfully and wonderfully made?” (Psalm 139:14). Pardon me for the bluntness, but this idea that all things occur for your own betterment is an extraordinarily selfish view of life. There is a distinct and important difference between understanding that God can produce good from the ash of tragic circumstances and saying that tragic circumstances are for our good. The former is Biblical truth; the latter is nothing less than the denial of the existence of evil.

What I am saying is that for some reason, I am not ready for the full answer to this question of Why. I think it is likely that at least part of the reason is simply that my finite existence is incapable of understanding it. Regardless, what is important for me to grasp is that sometimes God does not give us an immediate answer, not because it doesn’t exist or because we don’t deserve one, but rather because it is absolutely necessary for us to wait in order for the answer to have the meaning it is intended to have. And so I must wait. But I do not wait as one with no hope:

“It is wrong to say that the Almighty does not listen, to say the Almighty is not concerned. You say you cannot see him, but He will bring justice if you will only wait.” (Job 35:13-14).

One day I will have an answer, but it will be better than just a mystery revealed; it will include setting this wrong aright again.

“Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in power. He will rule with a powerful arm…. He will carry His lambs in His arms, holding them close to His heart.” (Isaiah 40:10-11).

I will not just get to see why; like the men on that Road, I will get to see Who is the answer. And I will see Him holding Ethan in His arms . . . waiting for me.

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The Silence of God

GethsemaneEthan’s Dad: “Silence is golden.” Except when it’s not. You might think that when there are four children 8 years of age and under running around you, you have more than enough noise, and you long for quiet. But when you know there is a voice missing, jabbering from another two year-old that you should be hearing in the din, the chaos isn’t enough. Instead what you hear is a sound of silence that pierces your soul.

As Ethan’s mom hinted at in her last post, lately I also have been thinking about another kind of silence: the silence of God.

“It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God.”

-Andrew Peterson (The Silence of God)

There seems to be an impression among some Christians that God is only silent when we are distant from Him. That is to say, the only times we don’t hear from God are when we are enmeshed in deliberate sin or when we don’t like the answer we are getting about a request we have made to God. But this is, at best, only a half-truth.

To begin with, unless you are so distant from God that your conscience is dulled, the fact is that a Christian does hear from God quite loudly in the midst of deliberate sin. God lets us know in no uncertain terms that what we are doing is wrong. That’s why it is a deliberate sin. And if we don’t like what God is telling us when we ask for something, then He isn’t actually being silent, is He?

But I think in a way what these Christians are really saying is that God is never actually silent; we are just turning a deaf ear to Him. Now, this might sound like good theology to you, but as well-meaning as it may be, it is flat wrong. The silence of God is a very a real and agonizing experience for believers the world over.

“It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.”

Moreover, the Bible does not shy away from this fact.

Job suffered with excruciating pain and loss for a stretch of time before God spoke to Him, and even when God broke the silence He did not fully explain to Job all of the reasons for his suffering. (See Job 38-41).  When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were sentenced to die in the fiery furnace, Scripture records that the three of them stated that “even if [God] does not [save us from the blazing furnace], we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:18). The clear implication is that the three men were not told by God beforehand what would happen to them when they were thrown into the fire. In the period of time between the Old and New Testaments, the people of Israel lived for over 400 years without any revelation from God about their salvation through a Messiah. John the Baptist passed time in prison under Herod without hearing anything from God as to whether his ministry had made any real difference. Finally John — in apparent desperation — sent some of his followers to Jesus to ask Him whether He really was the Messiah. (See Matthew 11:2). The Disciples spent the Saturday after Jesus’ death in despondency and silence (a period worth pondering in a future post).

Are we to write off all of these people’s recorded experiences as false impressions about God? If those examples are not enough, how about Jesus himself, who exclaimed from the cross: “My God my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

“Oh,” you say, “that was different because Jesus was taking on the sin of the world in that moment. God had to turn away. The same is not true for us.” But I think Jesus’ question was expressing the culmination of His entire experience during the crucifixion. It’s likely that God’s silence started the moment Jesus was led away from the Garden of Gethsemane by the Sanhedrin’s guards. Jesus came to earth and experienced what we experience. Did He bear more pain that we ever will or could during the crucifixion? Absolutely. But Jesus’ experience with the silence of God — perhaps more than anything else could — reflected His humanity.

“And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God.”

In asking this question — “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” — Jesus echoed the words of David as recorded in Psalm 22. So David too experienced this silence. And, in fact, the Psalms are full of reflections on the silence of God. For instance, David in Psalm 13 inquires:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

“Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.”

Psalm 42, the beginning of which is often (and I believe wrongly) quoted in a happy fashion, says:

“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?'”

Psalm 77, which to me is one of the best passages in all of Scripture, pulls no punches:

“I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.

“I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.
You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.
I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;
I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

“‘Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?'”

And then there is Psalm 88, which is perhaps the most depressing expression of God’s silence in all of Scripture. It contains lines such as:

“You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.

“….

“I call to you, Lord, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.
Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
“Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction?
Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

“But I cry to you for help, Lord;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Why, Lord, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?”

Why would God include these expressions of anguish in Scripture if the experiences were not real, and, perhaps more importantly, appropriate? God does not shy away from His silence, so why should we? The expressions of silence are there often enough that we are almost forced to face the prospect that the silence is purposeful. So why would God sometimes choose to be silent in our most painful moments, the very moments when you would think we need Him the most?

When we ask the question “why did this happen?” what we really mean is: Why weren’t You there, God? Why didn’t You stop it? Isn’t that, in part, what is behind Jesus’ haunting question: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

Yet, so often when we ask that question, what follows is silence. In our case, we screamed the question, over and over: Why did Ethan die? Why did you not tell us earlier that he wasn’t breathing? Why didn’t you stop this? Why couldn’t the paramedics save him? Why didn’t you bring Ethan back, like you did the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17-7-24), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:40-42, 49-56), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44). We received no answer, no comfort, no reassurance. Just cold, dark, silence.

It has taken me a while to realize, as I indicated above, that perhaps this silence was intentional. In fact, I think the “Why” questions might be important not so much because of answers you hope to receive, but instead precisely because they are accompanied by silence. It does not seem so at the time, but if God is not going to supernaturally intervene, then silence is really the only appropriate response in a horrific moment like that because there is no answer that will satisfy other than “I will give you your son back.” Yet God has already chosen, for whatever reason, not to provide the satisfying answer. And He is no fool. God knows that when that is the case, the response from His child will be anger, disappointment, confusion, and despair. The truth is, in that God-forsaken moment — and for a while afterward — if His answer was not “I will save Ethan,” I did not want to hear from God and He knew it.

I think that the silence occurs because the answer to “Why?” will not satisfy if it does not include an immediate fix to the brokenness. And when you sit in the silence what you start to realize is that God is not who you thought He was. This may sound like a negative thing, but that is only the case if you think you have God figured out. And if you think that, then your God is too small because He fits into your finite mind. He stretches far beyond that.

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,’
declares the Lord.
“‘As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The unvarnished truth is that God is a lot more concerned with how we answer the “Who” questions of life than He is with answering our “Why” questions. For one inquiring mind, Jesus answered the question: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29-37). The answer is: everyone. On another occasion, Jesus asked His Disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” And Jesus approved Peter’s answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:15-17).

And in the silence of God, this last question is the most important question of all: when your world comes crashing down around you, when the unthinkable tragedy is your reality, when you weep until you have no strength to weep anymore (1 Samuel 30:4), who do you say Jesus is? If He is just some friend or spiritual mentor or great teacher, He is useless in that moment. But if He is who Peter said He was, then He makes all the difference in the world.

Because that person, that Savior, cares for you beyond all measure and He proved it by dying for you. He didn’t just tell us He loves us, He demonstrated it in the most agonizing way conceivable to our finite minds, by dying on an instrument of torture. And beyond that, if He is who Peter said He was, then Jesus isn’t even just some martyr who died a horrible death in our place. He is alive, meaning He overcame death, and He is capable of extending, and eager to offer, that same gift to us — and to our little ones whose lives were so tragically cut short.

This is what real faith is about: it is about foregoing the “Why” based on the “Who.” If we can accept that, then we can keep on living — if not in complete peace — then at least in genuine hope. “And this hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who God has given to us.” (Romans 5:5).

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Weep Until You Have No Strength to Weep

Ethan’s Mom: This week was pretty weird in our BSF study of People of the Promised Land. The assigned chapters in 1 Samuel included Saul meeting with a medium (1 Sam. 28:3-25) (that is a whole other post for a different day, and probably not one written by me) and the study questions included one about experiencing the silence of God (also a tender subject with my husband and I). Ethan’s dad had an intense conversation in his small group for that portion of his discussion last night, speaking up about how the silence cannot always be explained by unrepentant sin driving a wedge between you and God. My group did not take that direction in answering that question, but I had my own moment of “is this really how we are going to answer this question?” a little later on in our discussion.

Here’s the background (1 Sam. 30): David and his men were between a rock and a hard place – they had been living in Philistia, hiding from Saul and deceiving the Philistine king Achish into thinking they were allies against Israel. For a minute, it seems David is going to be conscripted into fighting against Israel, but God mercifully provides away out of the bed that David has made before he has to lie in it. His men return to their home base at Ziklag to find that an enemy clan has burned it to the ground and kidnapped the wives and children of all the soldiers, including David. Verse 4 says, “So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” That verse is what I wrote down to answer the first question on that section: “Describe the scene at Ziklag. How did David and his men respond?”

No one immediately jumped to field that question, and my group leader tried rephrasing it. “What was the first thing David does when he returns to this scene?” she asks. I replied, “wept until he had no strength to weep.” She seemed a little surprised and said, “Well, yes, but… what was next? What did he do? In verse 6?” Someone else provided the answer she was looking for, that David found strength in the Lord. She follows up with “Then in verse 9?” Someone else answers, “David inquired of God.”

First of all, if someone “does something next” that is not, by definition, the thing that he does first. But I was taken aback by more than mere semantics. Glossing over the fact that David’s initial reaction was to weep until he had no strength left to weep totally discounts his grief over losing his family. Yes, they were kidnapped and eventually rescued, but initially David didn’t know their fate. For all he knows, he will never see his family again, and he is leading hundreds of men who will never see their families again.

Let’s allow them to weep before we are demanding that they find strength in God, shall we?

I firmly believe after my experience, watching my husband grieve, and reading several books/memoirs by fellow mourners, that the tears must come first, then the strength in the Lord, and then the inquiring of God.

In the lecture that followed, the teaching leader made a statement that struck me as she was summarizing the divergent paths of Saul and David. “No one drifts toward God.” While we do not earn God’s mercy or grace towards us, faith does require a conscious choice to seek God. This has never before been so clear to me. Sometimes I feel like not only am I not drifting to Him, I am fighting against a strong current of pain and doubt as I struggle to swim towards Him. But in those initial months of shock, confusion, and disbelief, I could do nothing but be tossed by the waves. I could not even ask why or articulate to God that I was angry or sad or anything.  It was a terrible place to be, but I couldn’t just sit up and say, “let me go and find strength in God.”

Choosing to trust God and find strength in him requires more effort than I had for quite some time.  But eventually, I could.  I think I am just now maybe beginning to move to the inquiring of God stage — to trust that He will not only keep me from drowning in a pit of despair (finding strength in Him) but also guide me into an abundant life as I inquire of Him what to do next (wow, that was even just hard to type, I am definitely just beginning to move into that stage!)

So I want to encourage you, whoever you are, that if you are faced with a devastating loss, it is OK to weep until you have no strength left to weep.  Don’t let anyone rush you through this — the time frame that is right for you is known only by you and the Lord.  You do not have to find strength in God or have stalwart trust that He has a plan for you in the midst of this tragedy.  There will come a time when you will have to look to someone or something for strength to resume your life, and at that point, you will have to make a conscious choice to find your strength in God.  He will strengthen you and eventually you will then be able to inquire of God — looking for redemption in the midst of your tragedy and discerning “what is His good, pleasant, and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2) for your life, including your life after loss.

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Tough Chicks

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Ethan’s Mom: Last week before church started I was visiting with a friend who should be celebrating her first Christmas as a grandmother. Her daughter, whom I remember being in the youth group when we first joined our church, was due in October with a baby girl but is now in “the club” after her daughter was stillborn this summer. Although our stories have some pretty significant differences, we are both believers and mommies to babies in heaven, which makes Christmastime more important and more painful than you might realize. At the end of our chat, my friend looked at me and said “You both are really tough chicks.” I chuckled at first but then said, “You know what? We are.”

One theme that has popped up again in Bible Study Fellowship this year as we are studying the People of the Promised Land is that people play a role in God’s plan for their lives. God promised them the land, but they had to go take it. They had to take the first step into the Jordan River, blow their trumpets outside the walls of Jericho, and show up for battle when they were completely outnumbered. Last year when we studied Romans, we learned that salvation is the same way. It is not by our own will or volition we are saved, but there is some kind of mystery of how God enables us to receive His salvation through faith — not the absence of doubt but the presence of faithfulness. I remember one of the teaching leaders illustrations was about a man who walked (or maybe rode a bike?) on a tight wire across Niagara Falls. He asked the crowd if they believed he could carry someone across with him, and the crowd went wild with cheers… until he asked for a volunteer. No one came forward to show their faith in his ability by the action of volunteering.

There are days I literally have no idea how I made it through, and I know there was something supernatural going on. But even on those days, I have to choose to get out of the bed. To be honest, nearly two years later, the days where that is a sacrificial choice are fewer but not gone. Just today I had two conversations (with my friend and my husband) that basically ended in us shaking our heads as we said “It’s just really, really hard.” Sometimes there is just nothing else to say.

I didn’t sign up for this. It is my honor to be Ethan’s mom, but it is a really, really hard job.

Which brings me to the actual point of this blog post — there is a woman, really a girl, who signed up for the toughest mothering gig ever. When the angel showed up to tell Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will call his name JESUS,” she didn’t try to find out exactly what would be involved before saying yes. She had one (understandable I’d say) logistical question but quickly came to “I am the Lord’s slave, may it be done to me according to your word.”

I can remember in 2016 sitting in the Christmas Eve service, 34 weeks pregnant with the twins, thinking how amazing Mary was for traveling to Bethlehem. At that moment, if Greg had told me we needed to take a trip to his homeland of Ohio, I would have pointed at my huge belly and declared that “we” would not be making this trip with him. Even still, nine hours in the car cannot be compared to a few days on a donkey. Mary is a rock star, I thought.

Two weeks later, there was an ice storm in Birmingham, and I went into labor with no way to get to the hospital. A fire-rescue truck came to our aid and attempted to get me to the only accessible hospital, which I had never even seen before much less planned to go to for delivery. There was no room for my husband in the back with me, so he watched  their births as best he could through the small window up front. There was no one to hold my hand, no technology to monitor the babies, no nurses to coach me through the contractions, and no mom standing nearby with a camera and moral support.

After we got to the hospital and they asked me a million registration and medical history questions, one of the nurses asked if she could call my mom for me. YES! If there is ever a time when a daughter wants her mom, it is when she herself becomes a mom (or becomes a mom again).

Back to Mary — she makes this crazy trip on a donkey. I have always wondered whether or not she expected to make it back before the baby was born. It is not inconceivable that the difficult trip contributed to premature labor and the baby took everyone a bit by surprise. Either way, whether she knew she would be away for the birth or not, she was. No mom or familiar midwife to coach her through her very first delivery. No familiar and safe home in which to welcome her baby.  She was probably in the last place she would have thought she would deliver the Son of God.

This is a far cry from the typical nativity scene played out in churches and yard displays. We just went to the live nativity at our church, and I think ours is typical of most of these programs. Mary and Joseph walk straight to the stable. At best, Mary looks about 6 months pregnant and is moving pretty well. Lights go out. Lights come up. Mary and Joseph sit beaming at a baby doll either in Mary’s arms or the manger. Shepherds and Wisemen arrive, and everyone just looks goo goo eyed at the baby. Curtain.

Now, don’t misunderstand me — I am not advocating that we all bring our children to watch an actress screaming in pain with bloody rags around the stable. I just think maybe we should all realize that was part of Mary and Joseph’s experience as much as the goo goo eyes.

Yes, Joseph found that kind innkeeper. But how many doors did he knock on first? How close were the contractions when they finally found the stable? Did Joseph deliver Jesus and if so, how did he know what to do? Did Mary think “oh how charming this little manger is, full of nice clean hay” or did she cringe as she put Jesus down in the feeding trough because her arms were too tired to hold him another minute? When Mary said, “Let it be done to me as you have said” could she have imagined this? Did she think “this is not what I signed up for as the mother of the Messiah”? What an amazing honor, what a really, really hard job.

Andrew Peterson’s song, “Labor of Love,” conveys the real scene well:

“It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David’s town

“And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother’s hand to hold

“It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

“Noble Joseph by her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
On the streets of David’s town
In the middle of the night

“So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

“For little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love.”

I was really upset for weeks about how the twins came into the world. Turns out, having twins (one breech) in the back of a moving ambulance in an ice storm is a walk in the park compared to burying one of them two months later. It didn’t get any easier for Mary either. When Simeon tells her “a sword will pierce your soul,” he is not kidding. She gets to see the miracles, but she is there at the foot of the cross, watching her baby cry out in terrible pain. She watches him die.

At the retreat I went to in September, the counselor handed out small cards with a picture of Michelangelo’s Pieta on them. I had never seen this sculpture before. Mary is holding the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. She has one hand cradling him and the other open and pointed up, as if she is both holding on and letting go at the same time. According to Catholic tradition, Mary was the first person to hold Jesus and the last. That was her holy and sacred duty and privilege as his mother. Mary, blessed among women, is my new #1 hero in the faith. She isn’t just a smiling, well-coiffed new mother in a charming, rustic stable. She is the toughest of all tough chicks.

If you are reading this as a mother of a baby in heaven, hear me say this — you are a tough chick. God has promised to see you through to heaven where He will wipe all the tears from your eyes and reunite you with your sweet baby. Keep choosing to fight the darkness, and know you are winning the battle even if all you can do is take your next breath. If you can’t take it day by day, back up to hour by hour, or even minute by minute. I am praying for you as I write this, and I think you have a special place near to the heart of the Mary as well. After all, she is in “the club” too. But most of all, you are seen and known by the God who was faithful to strengthen Mary for her very unique mission and is able to strengthen you for yours.

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When Love Refrains: What Else the Story of Lazarus Tells us about God

Lazarus 1Ethan’s Dad: My wife has mentioned in this space before that sitting in church can be a trying experience for us. We never know when a song, a prayer, or a statement made in Sunday School banter might open the floodgates of sadness that reside within us from losing Ethan. Of course, this is also true in everyday encounters, but we have found that the likelihood of it occurring is magnified in church because mortality and miracles are topics of discussion in church much more often than in everyday life.

One of those occasions occurred this past Sunday when our pastor was giving a sermon titled “Who is Jesus.” It was part of a series he has been doing in which he has listed three descriptions of Jesus in each sermon and expounded upon them. The first of those descriptions this past Sunday was that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life.” This is a description Jesus gave about himself that is recorded in the book of John, chapter 11, that tells the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  In one part of the story, Jesus has a captivating conversation with Martha, the brother of Lazarus.  Just after Martha informed Jesus that Lazarus has died, Jesus said:

“Your brother will rise again.”

“Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He would believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’

“‘Yes, Lord,’ she told him, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who was to come into the world.’” (John 11:23-27)

Our pastor was, of course, right that Jesus’s pronouncement about himself in this passage is foundational to the Christian life because it revealed to Martha (and all who would later read those words) who Jesus was in the grandest eternal sense and what they must do to inherit eternal life, which was simply to believe in who He really was. My problem was not with the pastor’s reference to this exchange or to the story of Lazarus in general. My issue was with the pastor’s use of something Martha said right before this part of their conversation.

When Martha first heard that Jesus had arrived in Bethany — the town where she, her sister Mary, and Lazarus had lived — she said to him, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (v. 21). To fully understand this comment, you have to know that several days earlier Martha and Mary had sent Jesus a message informing Him that Lazarus was sick, and they no doubt had expected Jesus to come quickly to Lazarus’s aid.  Instead, Jesus arrived in Bethany four days after Lazarus had died.  Jesus’s delay piled confusion on top of the crushing grief Martha was feeling because of her brother’s death.

Our pastor chose to focus on those two little words near the beginning of Martha’s statement: “if only.” The pastor did a riff on how we all have “if only” times in our lives, i.e, times when we believe that things could have been different if only God had acted or if only we had made a different choice. He made some statement about how, in thinking this way, we are often more focused on temporal things while God is concerned with eternal matters. Again, that is a true statement in itself (to a degree). And I believe the pastor’s point was that whatever those “if only” moments might be in our lives, Jesus is the ultimate answer to them because He is the resurrection and the life.

Now, as I have said, I had no theological problem with any of this in the abstract. My issue was that as soon as the pastor started talking about “if only” moments, my mind (and my wife’s) immediately veered to March 10, 2017, and that horrific period when we literally screamed for God to save our precious Ethan. We begged; we pleaded; we cried oceans of tears. . . . And nothing happened.

So, here is the thing about Martha’s statement that the pastor chose to gloss over: she was right. If Jesus had been there before Lazarus had died, He could have saved Lazarus from death. Indeed, in all likelihood Martha had seen Jesus do it before for total strangers. All she was wondering was: why didn’t Jesus come earlier and save His friend Lazarus? And is that really such a bad thing to wonder about?

I don’t think so. For one thing, Jesus did not rebuke Martha in any way for her implied question. In fact, if she had not wondered about it, I think it would mean that Martha did not really believe that Jesus was who He said He was. But we know this isn’t true because Martha gave not one, but two great statements of faith. Right after Martha made her “if only” statement, she said: “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” (v. 22). And then when Jesus asks her if she believes that He is the resurrection and the life, Martha responds unequivocally: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who was to come into the world.” (v. 27).

As one who has been where Martha was, in the throes somber grief, I have to say that this is a wonderful testimony on her part. The Holy Spirit must have encouraged her, but it is truly admirable that Martha did not let her deep sorrow swallow her faith in Jesus at that moment. The sincerity of Martha’s faith practically explodes off the page because of the palpably desperate moment in which she expresses those statements. It is not unlike that moment when a thief hanging on a cross, in the midst of excruciating agony, expressed his faith in Jesus even as Jesus was on a cross right beside him (Luke 23:40-43), or when Stephen asked the Lord to forgive his executioners as they stone him and he proclaimed that he saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand in heaven. (Acts 7:54-60).  To proclaim Jesus as Lord when doubt has enveloped the heart and darkness is one’s sole companion: those are the testimonies that speak most to me because I know first-hand how difficult it becomes in that lonely place to cling to this truth.

But as commendable as Martha’s faith is, do not lose sight of the fact that, at the same time, she questioned Jesus’s timing. For faith and questions are not incompatible; they are, in a sense, inseparable. We do not continue to learn about who Jesus is if we do not keep wondering about why things must be the way they are. For Jesus is “the author and perfecter of our faith,” (Hebrews 12:2), where “perfect” really means “finish” or “complete.” Our faith must mature, and it only does so when we probe and ask Jesus to show us who He is, just as Martha did. And I think the answer she received stretched beyond her imagination, because how could one really conceive that Jesus was going to call Lazarus forth out of that tomb, and that Lazarus would actually walk out of it as if nothing at all had happened to him?

So as I sat there in the pew now only half listening to the rest of the sermon, I kept poring over this story about Lazarus, a story like the widow of Zarephath, which inevitably causes a believer who loses someone close to him or her to wonder, just as Martha did: Why didn’t you save him, Lord? And I am not afraid to confess that I did not receive an answer. But what I did see was something I had never noticed before in all my years of being told about and then reading this story. It was this: Doing this was really hard for Jesus.

I don’t mean the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Indeed, the remarkable thing is that that was the easy part for Jesus. For Jesus, raising Lazarus was no different than restoring a blind man’s sight or causing a lame man to walk or walking on water. Certainly, it seemed different to everyone else, but for the One “through whom all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,” resurrection is not difficult. (Colossians 1:16; see also John 1:3).

No, what was really difficult for Jesus was not saving Lazarus before he died. Go back to when Martha and Mary first sent their message to Jesus telling Him that Lazarus was sick. John 11:3 says: “So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’” Martha and Mary knew Jesus would understand that they were talking about Lazarus, which tells us that Jesus and Lazarus must have been extremely close friends. Jesus responded to this message by saying: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (v. 4). This response, though somewhat cryptic at this point in the story, tells us that something bigger was going on than anyone could really understand.

But then John decides to give the reader an interesting side note.

“Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet, when He heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where He was two more days.” (vv. 5-6).

This note drives home the point that Jesus loved all three of these people very much, and yet He did not do what everyone would think He would do and rush to see Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. No, instead, Jesus essentially decided to kill time with his Disciples while Martha and Mary watched their brother suffer and die. Despite appearances, this isn’t callousness; it is the exact opposite: it is unfathomable love. John is telling us that Jesus really wanted to rush to Lazarus’s side, but that for the sake of something greater, He had to wait.

This point is reinforced again when Jesus said to his Disciples: “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” (vv. 14-15). Jesus says He is glad for their sakes, not His own, because if this was just about His personal feelings, He would not have allowed Lazarus to die. Jesus was also acknowledging here that if He had been there, He would have healed Lazarus rather than letting him die. Think about it: where in the Gospels is there a time when Jesus refused an in-person request for healing? He certainly would not have refused to heal if He was standing before his dear friends watching Lazarus suffer. So, Jesus did not go right away because He knew what had to happen — Lazarus dying — and that it would not have happened if He had gone to them sooner.

John decides to make very sure the reader does not miss how difficult this was for Jesus by noting that when Jesus saw Mary and her friends weeping near Lazarus’s tomb, “He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled,” (v. 33). And then he observes that “Jesus wept” when He saw Lazarus’s tomb. (v. 35). The word “troubled” that is used in verse 33 is the same root word Jesus later used in the Garden of Gesthsemane to describe His spirit in its agony before the crucifixion. And yet again, just before Jesus raises Lazarus, John notes that “Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.” (v. 38).

John (God, really) is practically begging his readers recognize that Lazarus’s death precipitated intense pain for Jesus. Jesus understood that allowing Lazarus to die had caused great pain and grief for people He loved very much. Jesus weeps for the real anguish that is present even though He is about to remove the reason for it by raising Lazarus from the dead.

In the same way, I believe that God weeps for us in our sorrow for Ethan’s loss. God knows that Ethan is with Him and that He will raise Ethan again for us to see one day, but He also knows that there is real and genuine suffering caused right now by Ethan’s absence. He knows that torment because Jesus lived it. The fact that Jesus is the resurrection and the life gives us incredible hope for eternity, but it does not erase our reality of agonizing loss in the here and now. God does not ask us to ignore or diminish that reality because He has shared it.

So God wants us to know that He truly understands our pain and grief. But in this incarnation story, God tells us more than just that He felt as we feel. He tells us that there are times when, in His love, He refrains from acting to save even though it deeply wounds Him to stay His healing hand. In the immediate sense it is not what He wants: God does not enjoy seeing our suffering, and it hurts Him even beyond what we can imagine because He knows that He can help us. But sometimes God chooses “to stay away from Bethany for a couple of days” even as He hears our cries. I do not pretend to know why He makes this choice at some times while at others He rushes to save one in need.

Certainly the answer comes easier in the Lazarus story, for Jesus delayed coming so that He could demonstrate that His power extends even over death itself. Further, Jesus’s raising of Lazarus started to bring the conspiracy against Jesus to a head because the miracle caused a great many more people to believe in Him, and, in turn, the religious leaders resolved that Jesus must be stopped at all cost. So His raising of Lazarus became a part of the chain of events that led to the crucifixion, which caused His death, which precipitates His resurrection, and leads to our redemption.

God’s choice to refrain from acting in our circumstances does not portend such heady consequences — at least so far as I can see. I believe that at least in part the answer to why He sometimes stays His healing hand lies in the fact that this world is corrupted by evil, and in many cases God must let the consequences of that evil play out; otherwise, love and choice do not exist. And part of the answer lies in how suffering occasions examples like Martha who proclaim their belief in Jesus even as they drown in sorrow, and by so doing they embolden others to believe likewise. But those are only partial answers. Right now we know in part, but there will be a time when we will know in full. (See 1 Corinthians 13:12).

Yet, as much as I wonder about a complete answer to the why question, even a full answer would not bring Ethan back. Consequently, for me what is more important is the knowledge that God’s failure to act does not equate to a failure to care. God can simultaneously allow and yet participate in our suffering. In fact, this also happens when people sin. Sin hurts the sinner and often those around him or her. But it also grieves God to see His children participate in evil. Thus, whether the suffering is caused by the world’s brokenness or by human rebellion, God permits pain knowing that it will cause Him intense pain as well, all because of His greater purposes.

In the story of Lazarus Jesus tells us that greater purpose is “God’s glory,” (v. 4) and our eternal lives (v. 25). The stories of our earthly lives take places within that context, and so ultimately we can take lasting comfort in the assurance that the tragedies which befall us — tragedies seen by a God who hurts with us as we experience them — will one day be made right again. One day He will call Ethan forth and we will see him again because Jesus truly is the resurrection and the life.