The Secret Things

Tragedy is one of the hardest things Christians deal with in terms of theology.  How do we reconcile a loving, and all-powerful God, with the terrible sadness we see all around us.  The problem gets worse the more personal the suffering is.  Whole books have been devoted to explaining suffering in this world.  Whole books have been devoted to tearing down those theories in those other books.  I’ve read plenty of them, myself, trying to find the answers someone would eventually ask me for.  More often than not I am left disappointed in what I read.  One writer will give one answer that is what they see as the one reason for all the evil and suffering in the world.  But upon reflection, it fails to explain more than a few scenarios.  Another writer will work hard to point out all the flaws in several theories and conclude that God is not all-good, or not all-powerful, or that God is not the God we thought He was.  But He is, so that doesn’t work for me.  At the end of the day all I really have to hang onto is a loving, all-good and all-powerful God.

            I read once, in a book written by a pastor of some 25 years or so, that as a minister walking into a tragic situation you had better have answers.  “I don’t know” cannot be an option.  I think that’s a lot of bunk.  I think people are looking for ministers who are real, who have faults, who don’t pretend to be know-it-alls, and aren’t afraid to not know, and to simply cry with them.  I remember when my uncle died in a car accident and my aunt put her arms around me asked “why”, over and over.  I said nothing.  Nothing at all.  Not because I didn’t have the answer (I didn’t), but because that was what I felt the Spirit directed me to do.  Just be silent.  So, sorry folks, but I don’t know.

            The problem of suffering is complex.  On the one hand suffering is suffering and pain is pain.  On the other hand there are many things that cause suffering and so there are many types of suffering.  Or at least many reasons for it.  It truly is a case -by-case kind of thing.  It could be a matter of consequences.  It could be a matter of free will.  But so many times it seems that there cannot possibly be a reason.  That’s when it seems the most unfair.  We ask why God would do such a thing.  I don’t believe that God does these things. But then the question changes to why He allowed it.  Even if He didn’t send it, then He must have allowed it.  Sometimes there’s an easy answer.  If you chain-smoked three packs a day for 30 years and got lung cancer that’s probably not God’s fault.  But so many times, it’s so much harder than that.

            A friend of ours recently gave birth to a little boy.  He was extremely premature and weighed less than a pound.  It was a difficult pregnancy and the doctors were worried about a several things before he was born.  I prayed, my wife prayed, our church prayed.  But the little boy died when he was 14 days old.  So I got to asking “why”.  What happened to “ask and ye shall receive?  Where was all this “hedge of protection” stuff all the motivational preachers are writing books about?  Why would God allow this family, this baby, to go through this?  I found myself feeling angry with God.  But then I thought:  perhaps instead of looking for God in this little boy’s death, I should be looking for God in this little boy’s life.

            I spoke about God being all-good, all-loving and all-powerful.  But I had forgotten all-knowing.  Perhaps God wasn’t in the death, but in the pre-mature birth.  Perhaps God knew the alternative outcome and wanted to give this family as much time as was medically possible.  It sounds like cold reasoning and maybe it is, but it’s all I’ve got.  And isn’t ALL life precious?  Infinitely precious?  Aren’t even two weeks of life more precious than not existing at all? But it certainly doesn’t answer all the questions. It doesn’t answer the question of why He allowed the conception, then.  Infact, it doesn’t answer a lot of questions.  But how far back could we go with that?  Probably all the way back to creation.  The first word in the Bible, in Hebrew, is B’reishit. The first letter of that word (and therefore the Bible) is a Hebrew character that looks something like a backwards “C”.  And, since Hebrew is read right to left, the “C”’s open end faces the rest of the sentence, with the closed end facing the margin.  The sages taught that from this we are to learn that what came before creation is closed to us.  That we are to focus on what is ahead of us.  These are the only things we can change anyways.  So I think at some point we need realize that we can only go so far with our questions.  That at some point we have to accept the “I don’t know”.  And in accepting it, maybe we can begin to look for God in the miracles and not so much in the tragedies.  Maybe.  I don’t know. 

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Patches? We Don’t Need No Stinking Patches!

The tenth anniversary 9/11 has come and gone (I meant to write this about a month ago), and with it has come and gone another important day in the lives of every American: opening Sunday of the NFL regular season.  And we almost had a good scandal to make the day a true American holiday.  It seems that several of the players were planning on violating the NFL’s strict uniform code.  Chicago Bears linebacker Lane Briggs had specially made gloves, shoes and other gear to wear in commemoration of 9/11 and was expecting a fine in the neighborhood of 15K.  The NFL believed that it’s official pre-game ceremonies, the commemorative ball-caps for the coaches and the little sleeve patches for the players were enough.  (The NFL eventually gave-in and allowed the players to wear their custom gear).

            It kind of reminded me of the way a lot of us wear our faith, and how we compartmentalize it.  For many Christians our faith is something between us and God.  Don’t mention it outside of church on Sunday.  Outside of that you should look like everybody else. But if you want to wear a small cross around your neck, we will authorize that.  I used to be that way.  The problem is that the enemy has worked through the media to create a public image of a Christian that looks a lot like Ned Flanders from “The Simpsons”.  That irritatingly chipper, Kumbaya singing, holy rolling Jesus freak.  And of course we’ve all met a few real life Ned’s to reinforce the image.  We hide the lamps of our faith under a bowl because we don’t want to be that person that everybody is avoiding and laughing at.  But it really doesn’t have to be like that.  I have found that I can weave my faith into the fabric of my everyday life in a way that isn’t pestering, or showy and self-righteous, or a media caricature.  It can be real, be pleasant to be around, and I can look like a perfectly normal person.  Once I figured out how to do that, and did it, I found something amazing:  I had been surrounded by people who NEEDED that.  There were people all around me who needed someone who could provide a different perspective on their problems.  Who needed to see that it was possible to stay calm in the midst of a storm and know almost without asking what the persons anchor was.  They needed someone they knew they could go to who would counsel them when they needed it without judging them or looking down on them or preaching at them.  There were even church-going people who had questions about spiritual things that they had never learned in church before.  I wasn’t a laughingstock.  I was a light.

            Putting on your faith like this is like looking into one of those abstract pictures that has an image hidden inside of it.  You know – the kind that you have to really look at for a while, look past the surface and into the depths of it?  And suddenly the image jumps out at you.  And once you’ve seen you always see it.  The first time I tried to see one of those pictures it took me forever; after the first couple I saw, I could start to see the images in other ones almost right away, without even working at it.  When you put on your faith, God will reveal to you those shadows that he needs you to bring your light too.

            My faith is not a piece of jewelry to hang around my neck, or an abbreviation to hang on my wrist, or a little patch for my sleeve.  It is a coat of many colors that covers me entirely.  It should be pants, shirt, jacket AND tie.  And maybe a great pair of shoes.

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