Here is what happened last week. I was on campus when I left the Bible building with Jeremiah to head back home and a woman in the hall stopped me to check him out (he is a cute baby, so I get stopped a lot:) The lady asked me how old he was and went on to tell me she had a 15 month old. She than, sort of out of the blue, told me how she had been diagnosed with cancer and that the Drs had given her just 6 months to live but now it had been much longer than that and she felt great. Of course, out of happiness for her I rejoiced by saying "Praise God" and she answered:
"Yes, I have faith, lot of faith, and lots of prayers."
My chin dropped. It was like a knife cut straight through my heart.
You see, I prayed too, many people prayed, we had faith, I had faith, a lot of faith as well. However....my daughter wasn't healed. She died, in the womb, at 24 weeks gestation.
We had faith, we had lots of prayers...just like this woman, but I did not have the outcome she had. But when I hear her and many, many others like her recount their own stories or stories of others, it would seem like THAT is what made the difference, what brought on the healing, or the positive answer to a request, a blessing one was hoping for. That it is FAITH and PRAYERS OF FAITH performed by people that gives the positive outcome. Why not for us?
Here is another hard question to ponder. A woman from my Hannah's Prayer support group wrote about this. She was wondering what to think about God and His faithfulness in the light that she might not ever carry a child to term. She said "I know that for those who do indeed become pregnant and who carry a child to term, or for those who are able to adopt and become parents that way, God is faithful to them. But how is God faithful to those who do not ever have any children?
This is a real issue for me and others like me who are struggling spiritually and in church. We hear other Christians use these pharses all the time "God is faithful because he answered (yes) my prayers and now I have_____(fill in the blank)." It isn't that I don't rejoice with them. As you saw before, I immedietly rejoiced and praised God for this woman's healing. I was genuinly happy for her and thankful to God for her healing. But when she added that last statement, I was hurt. Possibly because the way it sounds is that it was HER FAITH and the FAITH OF OTHERS that made the healing possible. Of course we know it was God. But God sometimes says no. Is faith that which determines the outcome? What about Job?
And is God faithful only when we receive, even after years and years of prayers and suffering, the ultimate thing we had prayed for? And is He no longer faithful when He doesn't?
I know we know the answer, but when we speak what do our words say, what do others hear? There is nothing WRONG in thanking God for the good things in life, in praising him and thanking Him for healing, for the blessing of a child, for a prayer answered YES. We did that just not too long ago with Jeremiah! And I will thank Him again! Praise you God! It would be sin not to thank Him. He is the one who made it possible, but when we say things like "You see, I told you God is Faithful" it links the positive (to us) outcome with God's faithfulness and only the positive outcome.
Have you ever heard someone say "God is faithful" even when they are going through the worst possible, when it seems God has abandoned them, when their loved ones suffer or have died? How often do you hear God's faithfulness in that kind of setting?
What makes God faithful, I mean really Faithful...what does it consist of?
As you see I have a task set before me. I must seek and find out this answer. I must ask God to guide me and show me Who He really is, and show me His Love and Faithfulness.
If you'd like to see what my dear hubby wrote about God's Love and how we associate it with our blessings, I would encourage you to read it here: http://jnmthw.blogspot.com/2005/12/gods-love-language.html
It is really succint, not as long as my posts! God Bless you!
9 comments:
You said it it perfectly. No one needs to go to my blog at all. These are such good questions and ones I believe everyone should explore in their own lives. Thinking about these things may give us a more realistic picture of God. It seems like the Christian American culture of today paints a picture of a God whose #1 desire is to wait on us hand and foot. Like He is just waiting around for us to give Him something to do.
Anyway, great post! I love you!
I admittedly didn't read your post, Miriam, but I will soon. I just wanted to welcome you to the wild, wonderful, wacky world of blogging.
Love,
Amy
I think that the questions you ask are questions we need to ask, but sometimes don't want to ask. Is God good only when He's good to us? Is He faithful only when we get the answer we want? His greatest desire for us is for our hearts to be drawn into His heart. Only He knows why sometimes that takes tragedy and other times it takes joy. A very important part of growing up in love with Jesus is being able to define a blessing as anything that causes your heart to grow greater in love with Jesus, whether it's joyful or painful. Keep pressing into the love that Jesus has for you. It's the best place to find all that your heart needs.
You have perhaps asked the unanswerable, but that never stopped me from wondering or having an opinion!! 8^)
Bob will tell you that his muscular dystrophy is a gift from God. It has made him a better and more understanding physician. It has put him in a position to minister to more people than he ever could as a 'whole' person.
Our DD Katie is better now. I know that MANY folks were, and are, praying for her. Was it an answer to prayer? I like to think so, but I also have to admit that 'no' could have been the answer as well.
One friend told me that she no longer looks at healing as an answer to prayer. She thinks that the healings described in the Bible are a portent of what God can and will do in heaven...make us whole and pure with one tiny touch, a whisper, a breath. I am fascinated with this idea! It puts all the power back in God's hands, where it really is whether we acknowledge it or not.
Rather than pray for physical things, Bob & I often pray that a person remain faithful in whatever circumstance....that each can remain faithful and open in showing God to the world around us. We can be thankful in what we perceive as 'bad' because God is often strongest in us in our 'weak' places, those areas where we are fragile and vulnerable, IF we allow Him to be shown through us.
Simple really, huh? NO it's not!!! But it would be if I had a heart totally surrendered to God. I'm still working on that. Satan uses self in a powerful way to separate us from God. Where's that armor????!
I wish you guys could visit. We could sit around and just talk and talk. I'd like that!! 8^) And thanks for blogging! When someone is active in their blog I check it often!!
gk
Miriam, thanks for writing this and making the distinction between praising God for a YES answer to prayers of faith, and linking that answer with God's faithfulness. After being in the German concentration camps in WW2, losing her father and sister there, Corrie ten Boom went on to write and speak about her experiences of God's faithfulness and her lessons there. Years later a man visited her at her lovely mountain home back at home. He commented on her lovely home and good cirumstances, and said "Isn't God faithful?" Never having been rude or hurtful to him, Corrie became very serious and bordered on anger, and answered, "Do not imply that my physical blessing are what mean God is faithful. God was faithful back in the concentration camp when my sister lay dying. Don't forget that!" (My paraphrase--I don't have the book in front of me at the moment). I think she made your point very well. Those of us who have considered this have a responsability to point that out (gently of course)when people make this incorrect conclusion.
OK, read the post! I can really relate.
Over the summer I did a Bible study and the teacher discussed experiencing infertility, praying that she would give that over to God, and when she did - voila - she conceived and carried three children to term. Was God faithful to her? Yes.
Enter little old me thinking, "Oh yeah, so I guess I never surrendered." This thought lasted a brief minute when the Holy Spirit showed me that God was faithful to her in that way, and faithful to me in other ways. Just as all of us are different, our walk with the Lord is different, and our prayers are answered, well, differently.
That's easy for me to say now that we have our sweet son, I guess, but it seems to still be true. True faith says, "I have faith that Your will be done for me, Lord, whatever that looks like to you."
I want to thank you all for your comments. It means so much to me, because this topic is so much on my heart these days. Well, always really. So thank you!
What a thought provoking post.
I found you through Sandi Glahn's blog, and I love this post about God's faithfulness.
I am really "there" right now, too, as I deal with infertility, and the possibility of never having a biological child...I know in my head that God is still on His throne, and that He is still faithful, but it is harder to believe it in my heart :-)
I have to confess, I am COMPLETELY NEW to blogging! I have NEVER done this, but am admitantly intrigued! Who wouldn't be by all the deep thinking; I LOVE IT! Sorry this is so long, maybe I should create my own blog :)
I hope I can pose an attempt at some kind of piece of an answer to God's faithfulness.
My DH & I talked about this last week when I was faced with caring for a 4 yr old child with a 30 yr old dying mother. The once, stay at home mom has 32 brain tumors. The children are ages 4 & 2.5. The husband is an officer in the armed forces...not childcare. The family moved from TX back to Memphis (while Dad still works in TX) so that mom can undergo HEAVY chemo/radiation. The family does not know Christ.
What is healing? Should I pray, "God please heal this woman so that she can continue to live" ... I wonder.
I love my husband, for MANY reasons of course. I talked & cried with him the night after caring for the 4 yr old and he said in so many words..."Pray that this woman come to the knowledge of Christ...Pray for "Healing".
So then I ask: What do you pray for when the ill-struck is a believer? Pray for healing, right? That statement fills my heart with fear. I wonder if we realize what we ask God for when we ask Him to HEAL us! For when we are taken HOME to be with the Father, are we not healed? Are we essentially asking him to bring us home?
It makes me sick knowing that this stuff happens to people. I don't understand it and it breaks my heart. It kills me with fear knowing that I am just as "susceptible" (spell?) for lack of a better word, to death. I have never been one to be afraid of death, until I had Noah. God fill my heart with love, not fear, so that I can better serve YOU!
What I do KNOW: God is faithful through LIFE & DEATH; the good, the bad, & the ugly. God is faithful when we are sick. God is faithful when our bills are paid or unpaid. God is faithful when we sin and look away from him, God SEEKS US! God is faithful when we love him, and God is faithful when we hate him. Thank you Lord, may we learn faithfulness from your sacrifice, Christ!
I like what one commentor said on Jon's site: "in the end the only thing that remains is Jesus & and his sacrifice. And that is so simple that it's hard!!"
-Amen
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