I have shared before that the script I would have originally written for Chaia's story would have been a brief, intense, touch and go stay in the hospital followed by people praying and her being completely healed of a disease that wins far more than it loses.
Even if not that, the script I'd pen might be God answering our prayer for our daughter's total healing one of the first thousand times we've prayed for it.
And yet here we sit, still very much in flux...in the world of unknowns...in a place of zero guarantees...zero certainty...zero answers.
And I'd be lying if I said this wasn't frustrating.
But this is the better script. His is the better story.
The no (or the not yet) of God is perhaps the place where His Story most shapes us and His Glory most resounds in us.
If we got bailed out of this hard road with one prayer or even one thousand prayers, would the end result be that we'd trust Him more? My sense is that we would praise Him for a season and bookmark it as a neat moment and then eventually forget that He moved. You read the Bible much and you find over and over that one of the primary issues with the people of God is their failure to remember who God is and who He's shown Himself to be over and over again.
The no of God forces us to our knees.
As John Piper says, God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him, particularly in suffering.
The no of God reveals the depth of our trust...the measure of our resolve...the passion of our persistence.
The reason you haven't seen healing...you haven't seen freedom...you haven't experienced victory...you haven't noticed relief...you haven't felt peace...you haven't witnessed God move...you haven't noticed breakthrough...you've spent more time in the wilderness than the promised land...is because you are being invited to want HIM more than you want what He can do for you.
Chaia isn't healed...yet. But she's still here and every gifted day we are given brings us to our knees again, persisting on her behalf that God can heal her, if He so chooses. Every day is a new opportunity to put all our eggs in God's basket.
To trust in His goodness even when things aren't good.
To encounter His love in circumstances that are far from lovely.
Every moment of trial...Every glimpse of affliction...Every day of your life is another opportunity for you to respond to the question, Do You Trust Me?
Sometimes we need the No of God so we can know that God is all we need.
It's a better story this way.
6 comments:
Wow...Ben....
That is so to the point..."we are invited to want HIM more than what HE can do for you"....boy, do we have a lot to learn. We are like little children having to be shown over and over again.
God Bless you all, and enjoy every moment of your sweet little family!! Thank you once again...Debbi
amen.
thank you Ben.
just read some of Piper this morning, Future Grace.
gen 50:20 God meant it for good
The Lord has given you much wisdom. We are all blessed by that. I pray for continued strength for your family. Many Blessings
Jesus is the "Divine Yes."
"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." 2 Corinthians 1:20-22
Interesting that Jesus himself experienced the No of God in asking the cup to be taken from Him.
God said NO to my pleading prayers that my mum would live and not die of cancer. She died. I was angry. 18 months later I realised that we had lost 10 more friends and family to death, including my mums best friend. My mum loved the Lord but was plagued during life with mental and emotional problems due to a horrific upbringing. Taking her first spared her of 10 situations that she would have found overwhelming....I Praise HIm everyday that he didn't give me what I asked for........God is Good All the time in Every situation!TRUST ......
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