I remember Friday nights spent driving to St. Louis Family Church, but not before we first made a pit stop at Crazy Bowls & Wraps. I remember nights spent talking about politics and crazy professors and what it really means to say you're a follower of Christ. I remember countless trips to Columbia in a little red sports car whose nickname I have since forgotten. I remember the hard conversations talking about broken hearts and broken dreams. I remember yelling at each other through the doorway of the bathroom that we shared my freshman year. I remember the awkward moment when I woke up one morning and found a friend of hers sleeping on the floor next to my bed and wondering why the heck he's there. (Turns out he was sleepwalking and had zero recollection of any of it happening.) I remember a lot of good times with Kristina.
We actually met online long before I ever left for college in Missouri. In this divinely orchestrated situation, I wound up joining Delta Gamma, of which Kristina was chapter president at the time. She would eventually become my big sis and one of my saving graces my freshman year. We were often each other's only form of sanity and I don't know that I would have made it through my first year of college if she hadn't been around.
But I've been slapped in the face quite often here lately - especially in light of returning from Kenya - with this simple truth: Life isn't fair.
And I feel helpless in the face of that.
Kristina was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer recently. Barely into her thirties and the girl is potentially facing the end of the road. And that's not fair.
I want to get overwhelmed by that thought a lot, this idea that there is just so much bad in the world, so many things going wrong - and no one is exempt. I remember thinking that a lot in Kenya, just looking at all of the poverty and overwhelming sadness and contradictions and disparity and unfairness in all that I saw around me. I sometimes would stumble into this vicious cycle of thinking, while standing in the village kitchen, "Does any of this really matter? Does anything that I do really make a difference? People are dying all around me - and what am I doing? Cutting up carrots? Making paper crowns? What good is that?"
I still wrestle with that thought process, but I remember, too, the words of one of the pastors in Nairobi. He was talking about the next steps the church needed to be taking and he simply asked the question, "What is our community's cup of water?"
In Matthew 10:42, Jesus said, "And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”
I have to figure out what my cup of water is. Jesus isn't asking for the moon here, he's asking for a cup of water. He isn't asking me to save the whole world, he's asking me to see a need and meet it in very simple ways. He's asking me to extend my hands out to those around me, to those in my own family, to those in my community and to those I now call global friends. There's a world of hurt out there and I've got to start somewhere, even when I feel like life is so terribly unfair. If I get bogged down in all that I can't do, then I'm doomed. If I let cancer and rare disease diagnoses and the death of a friend stop me, then I'll never get anywhere. If I get overwhelmed by all that is wrong in this world, then I might as well just lie down and die myself.
"This is my one and only life and it's a great and terrible and short and endless thing...and none of us come out alive." - P.S. I Love You
Yes, none of us come out this thing alive. And yes, life is unfair. And yes, I don't understand God. But that doesn't mean that I'm no longer responsible for going to the well, filling up my cup, handing it to someone who needs it and whispering, "Drink deeply, my friend."
You can continue following Kristina's story over at her blog - http://www.girlonajourneywiththeking.blogspot.com/.
10.18.2012
10.05.2012
Sometimes God Just Does Not Behave
Sometimes God just flat out does not behave like I think He should.
It's so annoying at times.
There have been times in the past when life "just happened" - relationships ended, jobs took a turn, families came undone, school went awry, dumb decisions were made, loved ones died or suffered, pain was inflicted. You've probably got your own list. But they were all things that, if I'm honest, I probably got a little mad at God for and wondered why He was letting it all seemingly unravel when He could have stepped in and done something.
My friends and I have been talking a lot about the story of Lazarus. We've been talking a lot about small dreams and big dreams, small ideas of God and big ideas of God, and how they all get wrapped up in the life of Lazarus.
His story picks up in John 11. The man was a dear friend of Jesus, as were his sisters, Mary and Martha. The short version of the story is that Lazarus gets sicks and dies. I know, sorry to spoil your fun if you haven't read the story. But when Jesus finds out that Lazarus is sick, he takes two days before he decides to go see the man, taking his sweet ol' time. And in the course of that waiting, Lazarus dies.
When Jesus finally does show up, Martha's first words to him were, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died."
If you had been here, Jesus.
If you had just done what I wanted. If you had just done what I asked, done what you were supposed to do, we wouldn't be in this mess.
If you had just been here.
What she's really saying is, "You're not behaving like I think you should."
We walk around with such small views of God, don't we? All Martha could see was that if Jesus had been there, He could have healed Lazarus and he wouldn't be wrapped up in a tomb. He'd be alive. I mean, Jesus had done it time and again, just reached out and healed people, just reached out and touched them. Heck, sometimes He didn't even touch them, He just told them to get up and start walking. And that's all Martha can imagine. She's walking around with this limited view of Jesus and what He can do. Because up until this point, people coming back from the dead just wasn't conceivable, it wasn't something she had ever experienced or witnessed previously. She had no frame of reference when it came to people being resurrected.
And apparently her sister had the same vision problem because along comes Mary and says the exact same thing to Jesus, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died."
There you go, again, Jesus. If you had just done what I thought you were supposed to do, if you had just behaved like I thought you would.
If you had been here, Jesus.
And you know what Jesus says to that?
I was there. I was there all along. I just didn't behave like you thought I should have. I didn't behave like you thought I should have because I am about to do something that your mind can't even conceive. I'm not only going to heal Lazarus, I'm going to bring him back from the dead. You need a bigger imagination, my sweet friend.
It's so like Jesus. Sometimes I wonder if God sits on his throne and laughs at how little I think of Him, how little I think of his abilities and power. I'm busy walking around praying for mere healing or comfort when He's busy plotting the resurrection of the dead. I'm busy walking around praying for safety and protection when He's busy plotting the fiery pillar that's going to lead me straight to Him. I'm busy walking around praying for a few bread crumbs and a cup of water when He's busy plotting manna that falls from the sky and water that turns sweet at the touch of a stick.
Aren't you so glad He doesn't behave? Aren't you so glad that He exceeds our wildest imaginations, doing things that we never could have conceived on our own? Aren't you glad that he comes along and blows our worlds apart by misbehaving? As much as it might terrify me, I don't want a God who does what I think He should do. What a boring life that would be. I want God to be God.
"Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." - Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk
It's so annoying at times.
There have been times in the past when life "just happened" - relationships ended, jobs took a turn, families came undone, school went awry, dumb decisions were made, loved ones died or suffered, pain was inflicted. You've probably got your own list. But they were all things that, if I'm honest, I probably got a little mad at God for and wondered why He was letting it all seemingly unravel when He could have stepped in and done something.
My friends and I have been talking a lot about the story of Lazarus. We've been talking a lot about small dreams and big dreams, small ideas of God and big ideas of God, and how they all get wrapped up in the life of Lazarus.
His story picks up in John 11. The man was a dear friend of Jesus, as were his sisters, Mary and Martha. The short version of the story is that Lazarus gets sicks and dies. I know, sorry to spoil your fun if you haven't read the story. But when Jesus finds out that Lazarus is sick, he takes two days before he decides to go see the man, taking his sweet ol' time. And in the course of that waiting, Lazarus dies.
When Jesus finally does show up, Martha's first words to him were, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died."
If you had been here, Jesus.
If you had just done what I wanted. If you had just done what I asked, done what you were supposed to do, we wouldn't be in this mess.
If you had just been here.
What she's really saying is, "You're not behaving like I think you should."
We walk around with such small views of God, don't we? All Martha could see was that if Jesus had been there, He could have healed Lazarus and he wouldn't be wrapped up in a tomb. He'd be alive. I mean, Jesus had done it time and again, just reached out and healed people, just reached out and touched them. Heck, sometimes He didn't even touch them, He just told them to get up and start walking. And that's all Martha can imagine. She's walking around with this limited view of Jesus and what He can do. Because up until this point, people coming back from the dead just wasn't conceivable, it wasn't something she had ever experienced or witnessed previously. She had no frame of reference when it came to people being resurrected.
And apparently her sister had the same vision problem because along comes Mary and says the exact same thing to Jesus, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died."
There you go, again, Jesus. If you had just done what I thought you were supposed to do, if you had just behaved like I thought you would.
If you had been here, Jesus.
And you know what Jesus says to that?
I was there. I was there all along. I just didn't behave like you thought I should have. I didn't behave like you thought I should have because I am about to do something that your mind can't even conceive. I'm not only going to heal Lazarus, I'm going to bring him back from the dead. You need a bigger imagination, my sweet friend.
It's so like Jesus. Sometimes I wonder if God sits on his throne and laughs at how little I think of Him, how little I think of his abilities and power. I'm busy walking around praying for mere healing or comfort when He's busy plotting the resurrection of the dead. I'm busy walking around praying for safety and protection when He's busy plotting the fiery pillar that's going to lead me straight to Him. I'm busy walking around praying for a few bread crumbs and a cup of water when He's busy plotting manna that falls from the sky and water that turns sweet at the touch of a stick.
Aren't you so glad He doesn't behave? Aren't you so glad that He exceeds our wildest imaginations, doing things that we never could have conceived on our own? Aren't you glad that he comes along and blows our worlds apart by misbehaving? As much as it might terrify me, I don't want a God who does what I think He should do. What a boring life that would be. I want God to be God.
"Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." - Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)