“Sometimes I feel like God is the loneliest dude in the world. Nobody ever asks God, ‘How you doing?’” –The Tao of Steve
The older I get, faith (the ultimate “f” word) seems to get harder. For some strange reason I thought it would be the opposite. I secretly revered the elderly. Somehow, I had this impression that the older you get, the more intimate you get with the Father, and then when your world gets flipped upside down, it will make sense. It’s not that the facts and information change. My beliefs have stayed the same in basic doctrine. Do I believe that Jesus is my savior? Yes. Do I believe He is the only way? Yes. But the more I learn about my faith, the harder it seems to be like Him. (And the more I need His help).
Not because He’s changed. It’s because I have. The more I see of this world, the more difficult is to merely “live” in it without wanting to serve it. Sometimes I sit back and wonder what God must feel like, being able to see/feel/know the entire world.
A childhood friend of mine died in a car wreck this past week. It came right on the heels of my sister getting married. The entire gambit of emotions sauntered their way through my heart. Numbness, shock, anger, back to numb, grief, and to a weird sense of peace coursed their way through my heart this past week. This isn’t a sympathy plea. I’m not looking for a pity party. But there were times this week when I really wondered:
“Jesus… really? Did it have to happen like this?”
There were so many ways that God comforted me during this time when things don’t make sense. I thank you all and Him for the time you have offered me truth and friendship. But strangely, I found a strange peace knowing that Jesus was familiar with grief. I ready a devotion about before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, “He wept”. A few verses later, it says that because Jesus was “deeply moved”, He raised Lazarus.
I always thought, if I were God, I would have skipped the grief .
“No need to be upset…” BLAM-O “No more dead person”. Wouldn’t have that been easier?
Literally the weeks before my friend’s passing, I was given the task to lead the exercise “Ask the Lord”, where we ask in faith and in prayer what we God would like us to do, and we went and watched God lead us to people who needed His ministering touch. While it was an amazing time of seeing faith in action, I realize it wasn’t just for the group I was leading…
It was for me, to keep my faith, in this hour.
God, I know you hear my grief. I know you are familiar with suffering. And even though I don’t understand, I trust that you will resurrect this the perfect way you see fit, in this life, and in the next.
