echoes of redemption

I’m blogging right now from the foot of my wife’s hospital bed.

Nothing too serious, and normally it would just be considered just a massive stomach bug, but when you’re 22 weeks pregnant with your first child, it’s a massive stomach but that requires medical attention.

This is definitely not a good thing, but my understanding of faith when bad things happen has changed over the past few years.

Growing up in church, I pretty much understood from the Christian culture that it was best to pray for God to keep us healthy, safe and blessed. When any of these things are compromised, it’s okay to “slip” a little in your faith. To vent in frustration about your life. To be disappointed in God for “letting this” happen. Etc.

Of course, this way of understanding God is why so many people look at those of us that follow him and laugh.

It’s nonsense that the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe’s job is to make my life more convenient by appeasing my every wish and desire. He’s got to be up to something bigger than me in this world – otherwise he is way too small and I have made myself out to be way too big of a deal.

Central to the story of following this God is the change we go through that allows us to live as different people in the good times and the bad. And honestly, I don’t have this worked out yet. But I think that may have been what Paul had in mind when he wrote, continue to work out your own salvation.

God had not let us down because Emily was violently ill. After all, he had provided health insurance, a good hospital, medical staff who know what they’re doing and all the strength we needed to show the hope our faith brings us in the good times and the bad.

When we arrived at the hospital today, we were laughing. Laughing about the green bicycle flag that was strapped to the wheel chair I was rolling Emily through the parking lot and hospital in. Laughing at how there is no cool way to wear a hospital gown. Laughing because we had peace. And hope.

P.S. A little Phenergan and a bag of Lactated Ringers and Em is well hydrated, resting and doing better.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“therefore I will hope in him.”

Following the darkness of the second lament, this verse – right in the middle of the book – is powerful. Hopeful. Enlightening.

There’s something cleansing about suffering. It burns away everything that’s superfluous. And sometimes it’s when everything else is gone that we truly realize our need for God – truly feel our dependance on him.

It shouldn’t be that way. But it is. So we should learn from it.

God as our portion.

God as enough – so much that we don’t have to go back for more. So much that we need nothing else. So much that anything else is an unneeded additive.

How come God can be enough when we have nothing but him, but somehow fall short when things are going well?

Could it be that I add things into my life that are extraneous – and then grow dependent on them?

Could it be that if God doesn’t seem like enough for my needs that I’ve cluttered the pathway I take to get to him so much that I can no longer see him?

Because he is our portion – he is all we need. And it shouldn’t take tragedy to bring us back to that realization. How can God be enough for your needs? How can you get back? What do you need to remove that takes your dependance from him?

Because there is freedom in the Lord – and when he is enough we experience life in ways beyond what we ever dreamed.

Jesus saved you so you could go to heaven.

True. But also incomplete.

Jesus paid the penalty for our sins on the cross so that we could live in reconciled relationship with the Father, God.

And that relationship starts now.

Because Jesus story doesn’t end at the cross. And the resurrection seems to be more about living than dying.

The narrative of our faith should be just as much about we live as it is about what will happen when we die.

And that’s why it matters that we give our lives for the distant, marginalized and oppressed.

And why it’s central to our faith that we live as a people of peace, reconciled to God, to ourselves, to each other and to the planet.

And that’s why everything is so urgent. Because our time is limited to work out our faith on this planet, and every step counts.