"Raise your eyes upward, and look to the heavens. Who created all these? The one who brings out the host of stars, and calls them each by name. Because of God’s great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden, my cause is disregarded by God"?
Do you not know? Have you not heard? God is the Creator of the ends of the earth. God will not grow tired or weary; but no one can grasp the magnitude of God’s understanding. God gives strength to those who are tired, and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young people will stumble and fall; but those who hope in God have their strength renewed. They will soar on wings, like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
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A man was out walking in the mountains, enjoying the scenery, when he stepped too close to the edge and fell. On the way down, he was able to grab a limb of a gnarly old tree hanging from the side of the cliff. He was about 100 feet down, on the side of a sheer cliff, and about 900 feet from the floor of the canyon below. If the tree gave way, he'd fall to his death. In fear he cried out, "Help me!" Again and again he cried out, but to no avail.
Finally he yelled, "Is anybody up there?"
A voice replied, "Yes, I'm up here."
"Who is it?"
"It's God"
"Can you help me?"
"Yes, I can help."
"Help me!"
"Let go."
Looking around the man panicked. "What?!?!"
"Let go. I will catch you." said God.
"Is anybody else up there?"
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There’s another story I wanted to put in here. It’s the one which has gone around about a flood, and a man who won’t evacuate when others do because he believes God will swoop in and save him. As he is huddled on the roof of his house someone comes by in a canoe and offers to take him to dry land. “No” replies the man “God will save me.” A while later someone comes by in a rowboat, and offers to take him off the roof. Again he replies “No, God will save me.” Sometime later a helicopter comes by, and the man waves it off. Hours later, huddled on the roof as the waters rise and the house begins to go down, the man cries out to God “Why didn’t you save me? I’ve had faith and I have been waiting.” And God replies “I sent you the canoe, the rowboat and the helicopter and you refused them all. What did you expect?”
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Some of you know that from time to time I do a blog on the Wondercafe website at the United Church. This week, a person asked why, when they are reading scripture and studying the Bible and trying to live life properly, why do they not get an answer from God which they can recognise? My question to this person was, what would it take? What do they mean “...and answer I can recognise.” and suggested that perhaps they are looking so hard for something they can recognise, that God’s answer is going right on by and they aren’t seeing it.
I think all these stories are pretty typical, and they have nothing to do with our age or maturity - but much to do with our frailty and humanity. We pray to God and want an answer to our prayers instantly. We want God to come to us the way WE want. We want some Damascus road experience, something which grabs our attention, like thunder and lightning and a voice out of the clouds - we want the answers we want, and forget that perhaps God knows the answer we need.
The people of Judah must have felt the same. They were living as slaves in Babylon, hundreds of miles from their homes. The temple had been destroyed, and God seemed to have forgotten them. They felt, literally, God-forsaken.
Unfortunately we have been taught to believe that God will come and help us solve our crises, heal our diseases, turn our mourning into joy, mend relationships, end hardship, and dry all our tears. And I believe God does all those things, in our lifetime - but just maybe not the way we want or expect it to be done, and in God’s time.
We are impatient if God doesn’t act on our prayers right away, partly I think because we are a society not known for waiting for things. Everything is now at our fingertips. Book a plane ticket, a cruise, on the internet; got a pain, some big pharma company has just what you need; got a medical problem, need to lose weight? Got a headache? Got a heartache? Just call a dating service, find your perfect match. All the way down to the most mundane - instant noodles in a cup, just add hot water. In fact, now in Japan you can buy little freeze dried packs of instant miso soup. How many people have we seen on the cellphone before the plane even gets to the gate, or talking while they drive? Information, goods and services, virtually everything comes to us faster and faster, and we expect instantaneous response. If people don’t respond to us the way we want them to, we start imagining what they are thinking, and then assume it is the truth about how they and we relate. There is no space for waiting, or for working at something.
So we try to squeeze God into that instant response mold; but not only that, we want the answers we want, in the format we want, so that they are easily recognisable, instantly identifiable as God, right here, no doubt at all. And God just doesn’t work that way.
I want to ask you this. Is there something about those “god-forsaken” moments which might be of benefit to us? Is this a life test? Is it that in fact we have to do some spiritual work here, to *discern* - there’s that word again - *discern* what God might be adding to our lives, or where God *is already* in our lives? Is it that we have to take on faith that God *is* present, and not expect some neon sign flashing which says “Yes, God is here!”?
The message from Isaiah *is* that God is here, now. Perhaps we haven’t seen, perhaps our hearts are so weary and our sight so darkened that we cannot see. Nevertheless, if we believe in a God of Creation, a God who names stars and who names us as well, then we cannot say we have been deserted by God. God is constant, we are the inconstant factor. Perhaps sometimes our lives seem to wander and we aren’t able to see clearly into the future, when we desperately want to be able to see. Perhaps we want to scrunch God in there with the life assurance - there’s a hilarious term - and the GIC’s and the investments....so it can all be mapped out with no questionable parts at all.
I believe that God is always with me. God heals the wounds, and sets my feet on the path I need to travel, and I in return have to walk it with trust. That doesn’t mean I just turn everything over to God and sit there waiting. I do have to do something too. I have to get into the boat, or the helicopter, or set out on a different path. I have to learn to look and see where God is, and grasp that connection. God is there, God never leaves. - and for each of the ills which wounds us in this life, God heals. Thanks be to God.
Our hymn is one of my very favourites -
“Healer of our every ill, light of each tomorrow,
Give us strength beyond our fears, and hope beyond our sorrow.
In the pain and joy beholding how your love is still unfolding,
Give us all your vision, God of love.”
Sources:
1. Rev. Frank Schaefer “Strength in the Desert”
2. “Healer of Our Every Ill” Words and Music by Marty Haugen 1987. C. GIA Publications 1991.
3. Isaiah 40:27-31 paraphrase
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