This is a long post, I know. In fact, let's not even call it a post. This is a short essay.
I suppose I've been negligent in my updates regarding my health for several different reasons. On one hand, I had to learn to protect my time and not become overwhelmed with blog posts as I had been for awhile. Life goes on, bills need to be paid, need to see my 'real-life' friends, and not spend all of my time pulling a Doogie Howser by sharing my feeling online at the end of each and every day. But nevertheless, I want to keep you updated as to what has been going on because so many of you have been, and continue to be, so faithful to pray to our Lord on my behalf. For that, I can't thank you enough. In the meantime, I want you to know that His grace has indeed been more than sufficient for me.
In August of 2010, Amy and I went back to University of Michigan to get another MRI. So much had been happening before and during that time of year. Amy and I (as well as friends, family and most likely strangers) had been so focused on praying for physical healing before this check-up. We knew that God was in the middle of doing something big. Strange events had been happening that I won't go into detail on right now. But we could feel God was by our side, going through this event with us, preparing us for the next MRI. We had been praying intensely with such childlike faith that we simply expected the doctor would come back and tell us that... 'I have no idea what happened, but the tumor is gone!". And we wouldn't even be surprised. We would say... "Well, of course it's gone, our God is a healing God, duh?"
The Dr. came back with the MRI results and told us that everything was looking just about the same. Hmm. While some minor shifting had occurred, it didn't appear to be growing or shrinking or doing anything for that matter. Just hanging out in my head. Amy and I were obviously pleased because things had not worsened, but there was definitely a feeling of (and I feel strange saying it) but... disappointment.
Was I disappointed in God?
Faith In Healing & Doubt In Timing...
Now, I can't speak on behalf of Amy. She is dealing with all of this on her own terms and she'll share with you her own feelings when it's right for her. But I must keep working through my own experience, and when appropriate, share with you what I'm feeling. I like writing on Jump David Jump. It's an opportunity to clarify my thoughts instead of them just boucing around in my head. Thank you again for taking a small amount of time to keep in tune with Operation 55 Zebra.
This entire process has been a new lesson in faith or as Hebrews 11:1 says, "hope in that which is not seen" and that's what we're doing. Having faith that God that can and will deliver healing to my body. He is a God who has healed, can heal, does heal, is healing people right now, will heal people tomorrow and the day after. So many other people have experienced similar stories of healing, sometimes instant and other times gradual healing. It's simple. Miracles happen.
So on this day in August, I was so positive about the fact that God heals that I was expecting a Doctor's report to confirm it that day. Looking back, I can't quite explain the details of my thoughts, but I was completely 100% ready for an MRI that showed physical healing, black and white, right there on the x-ray. I was ready for evidence that the healing hand of God fixed my brain. But it didn't happen like I imagined.
Now, before I go on, I must jump in here and declare something I've shared before. I'm already healed. That may sound strange to many of you, but because of my belief in Jesus Christ and that He died for my/our sins. I believe in His deity as the messiah declared through the Old Testament, the virgin birth, a sinless life, a horrible crucification that ended His life as He took on our sins, His resurrection from the dead three days later and, upon the completion of His work, His ascension into Heaven to sit at the right-hand of God. In addition to this belief, I make continual choices, through dying to my human desires, to stop sinning so I can abide in and follow the example of Jesus Christ with my life right now. By doing this, I / we become children or heirs of God. Because we are His heirs, we are promised an inheritance full of blessings which includes complete victory over death. That means that one day, I will indeed physically die, as will you and as did Jesus did when He came to this earth. But after we die, we'll be resurrected and receive a new body where no disease / sin can live. So, yes... death will one day strike at my heel, but just as Jesus finalized victory over Death through His resurrection, so will those who believe in and follow Him. Praise God!
When you look at Ephesians 1:11-14, this spiritual inheritance that has been sealed for us by the Holy Spirit is often revealed to us right now by God. It means that there is someone who is in control of the situation and chooses the right time to 'reveal' the inheritance to the praise of His glory. I see it like a magic trick. In order to display a magic trick, the magician waits for the perfect moment to 'reveal' to the audience at the right time. I know it's always horrible to compare God to a magician, but it just seems like a simple example of how I personally think God works. His job is to give glory to Himself and He chooses to do that by including us, but He is smart enough to do it at the right time and in the right way so that we cannot boast in ourselves. This is where miracles come into play. What we already own in the eternal perspective is brought down to this earth and offered to us in order to bless us, but moreso to point those who witness the miracle back to God and His goodness. And it's true that we receive much of our spiritual inheritance right now on this side of death, but we recieve it only according to when God chooses to reveal it to us for His own glorification.
Are you still with me? Please don't make me reference the country song, "Thank God for unanswered prayers", but this is essentially where I'm coming from. What I'm saying is that what WE think is best for us, is trumped by what God knows is best for us according to His sovereign will.
All that pretty much means three things to me:
- From an eternal perspective, my spiritual inheritance is sealed. I'm already healed. Death has lost it's eternal power over me.
- From a physical perspective, I believe there is a God who can choose to heal me (no tumor on MRI) according to His good and perfect will.
- But also, from a physical perspective I'm not afraid to die when that day comes.
So, back to the story.... "Was I disappointed in God?"
I realized that my physical healing (not my eternal healing) did not arrive that day in August. Now, to be brutally honest, I went through a phase of sitting back in my chair and saying... "Wulp, God is in control. He knows the day of my healing so what point is there to wake up day after day praying for my healing? It's seems somewhat pointless because God is in control and my job is just to play the waiting game."
But that's not the case at all. All throughout the Bible, we are called to get our hands dirty and participate in the work of God. Jesus displays how to in the Lord's prayer and then asks us to continually pray for the will of the Father to be accomplished here on earth, pray for healing, pray for transformation in the lives of others, pray for unity in marriage, pray for our children, pray for people to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, pray for the gifts of the spirit to edify the church. Not only are we called to pray, but we're called to 'fast' as well! This doesn't sound like a God asking us to sit back in our recliner and wait. We are asked to pray for these things and expect, with childlike faith, those prayers will be answered at any moment!
To believe that God is sovereign and 'does as He will no matter what we do' doesn't really make sense with how the Bible asks us to live. Yet on the other hand, to expect that our prayers, our efforts, our wisdom, our contextually and culturally skewed knowledge of the scriptures, etc... will be the 'deciding factor' that God responds to is extremely self-aggrandizing, extremely based in self-control over our life circumstances and completely removes the work of grace Jesus Christ completed on the cross. If this view of God is true, then it puts all the control back into our hands and now it appears God is in the recliner just waiting patiently to see what WE do...
You sense that awkward feeling between these two elements? I do. I've heard that explained before as "divine tension". And there's a good reason we feel this way... because that's exactly what it is. It was set up by a divine being and it makes us feel tense because we (or at least I) simply can't understand it.
Can we, in our simple, self-oriented human minds, accept the fact that we simply cannot wrap our arms around every aspect of God? Even King David, a man after God's own heart, in Psalm 139 was blown away by 'not understanding' the depth, breadth, wisdom, spatial discombobulation, all-knowing, love-filled God who knows both the number of hairs on our head and the day we will die. But even David wasn't saying this as an, 'Oh well...' type of statement but as worship to God because he understood that he didn't understand!
So why do we expect to get it? I know that the Spirit reveals all truth to us as we continue to learn about God through the revelation of the New Testament and the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. But to be honest, I feel silly not openly and loudly admitting that His ways are higher than my ways. That His wisdom is deeper than my wisdom. That His view of time is more advantageous that my view of time. And that no amount of my human effort will solve all of those mysteries. Maybe I'll learn more and more as my wisdom grows, but I don't feel it's up to me to understand every possible aspect of God's unfathomable love and wisdom right now, in this phase of eternity, in my decaying body and on this dying earth.
So I feel that I'm slowly coming into a better understanding of what can and cannot be understood. To trust in the divine sovereign will of my Father in Heaven, yet also participate daily in the work that He is doing. To participate in the mandate given to me to pray and fast for His will, yet understand that nothing happens outside of His will. No, I can't understand it all, but that doesn't mean that I give up and find the nearest recliner. I think it means that I can take solace in a God who is smarter than me and humbly admit to follow Him, even when this physical world doesn't make sense with what I would prefer to see happen. Even Jesus taught us to pray this way when He said, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" and as He said in the Garden of Gethsemane, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will".
However, I must say this... It is much much easier to trust in the divine sovereign will of God than it is to pray with childlike faith. What I experienced on that day in August was a new feeling for me; true childlike faith that God is a God who can heal. While I must admit I shouldn't have been disappointed, I'm actually glad my response that day was a state of surprise. I think that is what faith is. True childlike faith is being surprised that what we are praying for hasn't been answered yet! The real question that I have to deal with now is, "Did I wake up today expecting that today is the day God is going to heal me?" Honestly, I didn't and THAT is a problem.
Each and every day I should wake up filled with the faith and the hope that today is going to be the day that God is going to heal me. In fact, I would rather be surprised at the end of each day that no healing occured, then be content with myself that each day my expectations were met when nothing happens. Does that make me sound silly and childish? Yep. I think that's the point.
If we move forward in childlike faith, we should be somewhat surprised when God delays what He promised is rightfully ours. Yet we should never be disappointed, because we know He reveals His will in due time to the praise of His glory. However, we should be able to rest during this delay because we know this experience is carefully being watched over by our sovereign God who is above all creation and time and is using our situations to contribute to our own long-term sanctification.
This process continues to teach me. I thank the Lord for it and I praise Him because He loves me enough to discipline me through these difficult life lessons. A good Father disciplines those He loves.
I encourage all of you to think about your pendulum swings between sitting in your recliner and humbly (or lazily) submitting to the sovereign will of God vs. balancing our mandated responsibility to your hands dirty and take a part in His work by participating just as Jesus did, continuously praying that not our will, but the will of our Father in heaven would be done on this earth.
I encourage all of you to be continually obedient to the scriptures praying fervently for the will of God to be revealed, yet patient enough to let God reveal it in His due time and for the praise of His own glory.