Tension (Graces and Mercies)

If you're reading the Caring Bridget site (link above), then you know that he had a brief moment of hope, then found out that our situation had not changed. Deb and I were praying that Ian would be healed now and that he wouldn't have to go through the radiation treatments, but at this point it does seem to be God's will that he does.

We keep praying the God's will would be done, because we believe that it is good and perfect. We may not understand why he is doing this, but we trust Him. The truth is that we know part of God's will, but we're waiting on the other part. He's given us the setup, or the question. Now we're waiting on the follow through, the answer. It's the time in between that's a pressure cooker. There will be and answer, obviously; we are just waiting for it to come in God's timing, not ours.

It's our desire to race ahead, to escape the tension and pressure as quickly as possible. But during these times of waiting, of not knowing what God will do, is when His work in us is performed best. During these times, we are more apt to humble ourselves and seek Him. We are more likely to allow ourselves to be examined for sin and are more open to God's correction. Only recently has this been encapsulated to me in a single saying: God's will is best seen in hindsight. When we're in the furnace, enduring hardship, we care about God's will only so we can get out. When we look back on those times, we can more easily see what God did in our hearts and our lives. Rather than try to escape the tension, we need to pray that the Lord would receive glory, and that God's will would be completed in us.

The obvious Biblical parallel is from John 11:1-44, when Jesus heals Lazarus. Mary and Martha had no problem believing that Jesus could heal Lazarus. Jesus had done that many times before, so that was less faith for that to occur. The Father had something bigger planned that none of them (save Jesus) had thought of, even though Jesus says in verse four "This sickness will not end in death." Sometimes I feel like Thomas (how appropriate) from verse 16 in this situation: "Let us also go, that we may die with him." Fatalistic, yet committed. I'm not abandoning you, Lord, but I don't see how this can end in anything but tears. He wanted to escape the tension as well, but instead of seeing Lazarus healed, he wanted to give into what he saw as the inevitable.

Actually, when the I first heard that there was no change to Ian's condition, I thought of the the passage in 2 Kings 4:8-36. Here, a woman who had been kind to the prophet Elisha was without a child. Because of her generosity to Elisha, the Lord granted her a boy. The boy grew, and one day he died suddenly. She called for Elisha to come to her. There was no question in her the God could heal the boy. Elisha also knew that God could heal the boy. When she reached him, she started beseeching Elisha to intervene on her behalf. Elisha's servant tried to push her away, but Elisha said, "Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me why." Elisha was in the pressure cooker as well, since he had no clue what God was up to in her situation.

When Elisha gets to the woman's house, the first thing he does is pray alone, with boy's body. That seems like the obvious first step. When that work, he tried what his predecessor, Elijah, did in a similar situation. He laid on the boy to transfer warmth, and to get closer to the situation. He didn't pray from far away, he drew as close to the boy as he could. And the boy's body grew warm, but there was still no life.

But it didn't work. So, he did what I would do; he paced. That shows a definite concern for both the woman and boy. Elisha was there with them, not a disinterested bystander. Also, he knew that the name of the Lord was involved. Elisha knew how precious that is, and that he was responsible to not drag it through the mud. God, I did what I believe you wanted me to do, and it didn't work. Now what? So, he tried laying on he boy again. After the second time, life was restored to the Shunammite woman's son. Why didn't God revive the boy immediately? Why didn't God restore him the first time Elisha laid on him? I don't know. God left them in the tension longer than our limited minds think that He should have, especially when I realize that God gave Elisha a double portion of Elijah's power. If anything, we would expect that the boy would have been raised from the dead more quickly.

There could have been a spiritual battle going on, a fight more intense that anything we can imagine. The enemy wants to besmirch the name of the Lord, and could easily have done so by taking the child from the woman after God had granted him to her. The message would be that God is cruel, not good, or that God is weak, not powerful. The earlier text says that she was well-to-do, so she would have had some influence in her community. The enemy saw an opportunity to defame the Almighty, and probably fought tooth and nail for that chance. In the end, God's true power and character was shown, and I'm sure that the woman's city heard about how kind and mighty Elisha's God was, and faith grew.

So, Deb and I remain in the tension. I understand that there is more going on here than the life of my son. In my humanness, I want the tension to go away. The future looks bleak, with little room for hope, at least from the doctors. And yet, if I am given the opportunity to escape, and take it, I would be interrupting what God has planned for His glory and my greater good. If a piece of pottery was able to leave the kiln, it would never become what the potter has planned for it. Please join us in prayer, that God would sustain us in the tension, that His perfect will would be done and that His name would be glorified.