You would think...

For someone who has been a follower of Jesus for as long as I have, I dwell way too much in the land of the humanly possible, the physically believable. Those things which are provable and measurable by human and earthly laws.

But for someone who believes in a God—

        who created everything from nothing

        who made a walking path through the Red Sea

        who gave a donkey the words someone needed to hear

        who arranged a ride for a wayward prophet in the belly of a whale

—you wouldn't think that I would get so hung up on the challenges of my own life.



You would think that I would trust more in a God—

        who used a little mud to cure blindness

        who walked on water

        who raised his friend Lazarus from the dead

        who raised Himself from the dead

—than in my own logic and only that which my eyes can see.


You would think...

A Clock of a Different Kind

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. {2 Peter 3:8,9}

It doesn't look like we humans have changed all that much since Peter wrote those words shortly after Jesus' death. We still want what we want, when we want it. And if we have to wait longer then we deem necessary, things begin to fall apart.

The folks Peter is writing to are waiting. Waiting for God to keep His promises. Waiting for Him to move, and to fulfill that which some of them heard from Jesus' own lips.

But nothing happens.

Well, not exactly nothing. Life still went on, but what they were waiting for didn't happen.

And while they are waiting in the nothingness, questions and doubts walked right in through the open door.

But Peter reminds them—and us—that God has a different kind of clock and calendar than we do. A different plan. He does things His way, and is not limited by human understanding, or merely what His eyes can see.

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 higher than your thoughts. {Isaiah 55:8,9}

It's not my job to understand and to know the full timing of God's plan in my life or in the world. My job is to trust. To be faithful. To love justice and mercy and to show them to the world. To believe that regardless what my eyes see, God is still in charge, will keep His promises, and has a plan that isn't for me to worry about.

My job is to be faithful...

doubt + faith {#159-177}

Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum.

(I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am.)

—Rene Descartes

I've known the second half of this quote forever. I think, therefore I am. Even quoted it in some of my more 'existential' moments. But only last week, when I was working on collecting quotes about doubt for work, did I discover that it was only half of the equation. That I was missing the first part.

The part about doubt.

Doubt isn't something I tend to think a lot about, until it is staring me in the face. It's one of those things that creeps up on you. If you're anything like me, you might even be able to convince yourself for a period of time that what you're feeling really isn't doubt, but something more a bit prettier... skepticism, perhaps.

But then comes the moment when you wake up in the middle of the night, and the thing sitting on the edge of your bed is none other than doubt himself, and he has no plans to let you go back to sleep.

Recently, I told my small group that my favorite person in the Bible is the father in Mark chapter 9 who brought his son to be healed of an unclean spirit by the disciples. But the disciples were unable to cast the spirit out. Jesus, after the father explained the situation to him, tells the father that anything is possible for the person who believes.

The father's response is one I have echoed in my heart so very many times, especially in the last six months:

I believe; help my unbelief! {vs. 24}

Too often, I forget that we humans are bundles of paradoxes. That we are capable of multiple and contrary things simultaneously. This father's desperate words on behalf of his son reminds me that the mixture of emotions that runs through me is perfectly normal. And this prayer has become one of my most frequent.

Sometimes I get lost in the intersection of knowing that my omnipotent God can do everything and anything, but just because He can doesn't mean that He will. Just because He is limitless, it doesn't mean that my desired, preferred, suzi-approved solution will be the one that God in His infinite and perfect wisdom will choose... especially given that my wisdom tends to be more of the selfish and human variety.

Is this doubt? Sometimes I think so, sometimes not. Most days, I think it is just the oh-so-slippery surface of faith.

“We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us;
we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

—C.S. Lewis

But even in the midst of all that is, and all that could be, there are bright spots. Gifts from God that shine through all the stuff that I would rather forget, illuminating them in a way that I don't believe I would have ever seen them.

It is these gifts that I continue to count today...

159:: a new hair color & the absence of gray!

160:: a quiet, restful day on the sofa to nurse a cold.

161:: that even after days of not writing down the gifts, they are still there, waiting for me to notice them.

162:: a plane ticket to Calgary, and a chance to hang out with my favorite little people for a whole week in June!

163:: closing my office door behind me at the end of a long week, knowing I worked well, and everything is ready for Sunday.

164:: that no matter what happens—or doesn't happen—God is love.

165:: that I was born in a free country, into a family that loved and protected me.

166:: for my mom.

167:: the fact that you don't have to be a biological parent to make spiritual investments into the next generation.

168:: laughter at work.

169:: a quiet, peaceful morning.

170:: for a niece and nephews that I couldn't love more if I had given birth to them myself.

171:: that doubts are not fatal.

172:: friends who seek me out to pray with me when my heart is breaking.

173:: the perfect cafe Americano.

174:: that after the tickle-torture part of the pedicure, the massage part comes.

175:: khaki-colored toe nails.

176:: the knowledge of eternity, and how things here are hardly the end.

177:: that doubt and faith can co-exist, and that faith can win.