I love Chris Tomlin's song, Good Good Father. I need the reminder that God is perfect in all of his ways. It can take the perspective of years lived to sing those words with conviction, even joy and, sometimes, tears.
He's good. It's who he is. And I'm loved. It's who I am. Our good Father in heaven doesn't make mistakes. And, a good earthly father tries his best.
A GOOD DAD
One night when I was single and in my 30's, a former boyfriend called me to tell me he was going to be getting married. This was not a long phone call. It was in the days when phones connected to the wall, and in my case, there was only one phone in my new apartment and it was in the kitchen. To further set the scene, I had invited 25 or so young, mostly single people over to bake cookies, get acquainted, eat cookies, and maybe make a friend or two. Overall, a great time. Until the phone rang.
I couldn't hear my ex—too many people making and eating cookies all in close proximity. I pulled the coiled cord as far as it would go and put my head down into the sink so that I could hear all he had to say. I recall it was a stainless steel sink and not very deep. Not deep enough to hide. I wanted to hide. So I pulled harder on the cord to get as far down into the sink as I could and as far away from the noise as possible. He had some 'splaining to do and I didn't want to miss a word.
As it turned out, there weren't many words to hear. He'd met someone else. Someone from his past. His folks knew her family. He had known her as a child. Blah blah blah. And he was engaged. He wanted me to hear it from him. I think that was him trying to be nice. It reminded me of another phone call around 10 months earlier where he said even fewer words, "I want to break up." I remember that call was the night before Valentine's Day and all I could think was, "He just didn't know what to get me for Valentine's. That's why he broke up." Since I didn't hear from him until the night of cookies in a new apartment with a shallow sink, there may have been other reasons.
Now by this time, I didn't want to marry him, but there was no one else on the horizon. It was a lonely horizon which I didn't think about every day. But I did think about it.
I didn't mind being single in the present but wondered if I'd be alone in the future. I knew people who said, "Jesus is my husband and that's good enough." Not to knock Jesus, but I didn't share their sentiment. I Corinthians 7 was not my favorite chapter in the Bible. I thnk it's okay to have favorite chapters in the Bible. I'm just saying, I Corinthians 7 was not my favorite.
My dad used to tell me, "I'd much rather have you single than unhappily married." He was trying to be a good dad. Looking back I wonder if some of his friends had unhappy marriages. He was trying to be a comfort, "Consider the alternative, Sue, a good single life versus a rotten marriage."
He had a point. I still didn't like my lonely options and the view from my single bed.
HORIZONS, GOING ON AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE
Horizons can be beautiful but they are always just a little out of reach. Kind of like the man of my dreams. Last summer we drove through Wyoming and Nebraska where breath-taking horizons steal the show, and panoramic empty spaces go on forever. But there wasn't anything beautiful on my empty horizon the night of the PHONE CALL. Perhaps my singleness would go on forever. I might as well move to Wyoming.
Whenever I thought someone might be that one, ready and willing and able—maybe a little gorgeous, besides, or at least in good shape—with a heart for God, a stable job and a penchant for red heads—he disappeared, "poof" and there I was again, alone and wondering, Will I stay alone?
That evening, head-in-sink, I once again saw my single status going on as far as the eye could see. I don't mind a great view but I knew I'd feel better knowing that someday I wouldn't have to view all those breath-taking panoramas by myself.
I was a romantic from the beginning. At 10 years old, I had a crush on my Christian Education Pastor—who was happily married—which was a good thing. I didn't tell anyone—which was also a good thing.
But much later when I went off to college, I thought that I might major in being a pastor's wife. I was surprised to find out they didn't have that major. Nor did any aspiring pastor ask me—at least not any that I wanted to say yes to.
ARGUING WITH GOD (JUST WHY?)
In my 20's during a summer missions trip to Guatemala, I found myself circling a Junior High school track late at night with only the stars for company—arguing with God.
I'm not sure why we bother arguing with God. God being God comes with an unfair advantage but I imagine I'm not the only one who tries. There's that Jonah fellow from Nineveh. He argued but he ended up—well you probably know where he ended up.
Even Jesus who had a special connection, you might say, debated with his Father about the wisdom of what he was about to go through right before the cross. He went anyway. Alone, for the most part.
I should have known better than to argue. There's no point. But processing out loud is my favorite and God already knew what was in my head. And, while arguing takes two and I did most of the talking, I did get an answer.
"Lord," I began, "I know my own good dad would not want me single—in spite of his efforts at comforting words. And since you're my Heavenly Father, of course you think the same as my own dad, right?" I said this more than once, in more than one way. It was a big track.
"I know you love me but so does my dad and he has made it clear he would like me married and happily so. You know, it's dad-thing. So, as my Heavenly Father..."
The stars got a little blurry around then. Crying while arguing is not my favorite but it happens. I circled the track, as well my logical line of reasoning more than once but, in the end, it wasn't silence I heard, it was what I knew was true:
God: "Do you think I love you less than your dad?"
Me: "No, of course you love me more."
God: "Will you trust me?"
Me: "I'm trying to trust you."
God: "I need you to surrender, Sue."
Me: (I may have been full-on sobbing at this point. Words weren't needed.)
What more could be said? Like Peter who told Jesus, "Where else would we go, Lord?" Where else, indeed. (John 6:68)
I never forgot that track and those stars. I ended up surrendering that night and many nights after and beyond that walk around the track with only stars for company. I don't think it's just a redheaded thing, to keep surrendering. It's more a human-frailty thing. God gets it. He knows we're as lightweight as dust. (Psalm 103:14)
NOT WORRIED ABOUT GRAY HAIR
I wasn't alone in my life-plan to get married and serve God. My dear friend, Diana and I used to entertain our friends and family with a poem entitled "Oh, Unknown Man" written by the tell-tale, "Anonymous"—sometime before 1921—which isn't exactly biblical times, but old.
It included these lines:
"Oh, unknown man, whose rib I am,
Why don't you come for me?
Oh don't you sometimes feel a lack?
A new rib needed there?
Tis I. Do come and get me quick,
Before I have gray hair."*
We quoted the whole poem from memory, laughing on the outside because we were that funny—but not always on the inside. Diana would add this sentiment, "I just feel so very sorry for my future husband that he hasn't found me yet. It's so sad. He's missing out on so much. Such a loss for him." We laughed some more and wondered about that horizon.
At 30 I wasn't worried about gray hair. I had a great life. I just didn't want to grow old alone. I had a plan to love and serve God—but not by myself. Phone calls can mess up the best of plans.
GOD'S IDEA OF EXCITEMENT MAY BE DIFFERENT THAN YOURS
After I finished our short and awkward sink conversation with my ex- and my company all went home, I sat down and opened the Psalms. That's where you go when the horizon looks bleak and the house feels more empty than it did before.
J. Sidlow Baxter said, "The Psalms are in the heart of the Bible for the heart of man." I'm sure he meant woman too. If you open your Bible enough, you might know it falls open to the middle and my middle needed full-on comfort from God's heart to mine.
I read and I cried. To be honest, I did more than read and cry. I told God that I felt betrayed. By him. I had been a pretty-good-girl. I figured that counted for something, but it didn't seem to at the moment. I'm not sure God keeps score like on a giant whiteboard: "Sue is pretty good. I will now give her a pretty good life."
I kept reading and I kept crying.
The next day I still felt terrible and I told my friend, Jim, about the call in my sink and that I felt betrayed by God. We all need friends we can tell these things to. He said, "Did you tell God that?"
"Of course" I answered.
There are no secrets between me and God. Even more pointless than arguing with him. But I did wonder, feeling so puny as I did, how I was going to get through the next few days. I reminded Jim that in a week I was moving to Papua New Guinea for six months of missionary training. But I still needed some money to get me on my way and I had four speaking gigs lined up in three days—starting that evening.
I didn't feel like speaking. I didn't feel like much of anything. Betrayed-by-God isn't the best speaking material for raising missionary funds.
Jim may not have heard me because he replied with these words that must have been meant for someone else.
He said, "I'm so excited about your life!"
Again, maybe he had not actually heard my actual words. I'll give him that much. He's a little older than I am. Perhaps he has a little trouble in the hearing department. But since my tears were still nearby and stuck in my throat, I croaked out: "Why?"
Now if those tears hadn't been so close by and my throat in better shape, I may have said, "Are you crazy? Why are you excited about my life? Did you not hear me? I have to drive miles to four different churches, stay in peoples' homes, pretend I'm in great shape and tell my story four times in three days and I feel crummy. No, worse than crummy. Dismantled. Disheartened. Betrayed."
But instead, I croaked out, "Why?"
I'll never forget his reply.
"Because it's going to be so exciting to see how God gets you through this because you can't do it!"
I'm learning that God's idea of excitement is different than mine. He welcomes an impossible situation because to him nothing's impossible.
He knows we stew and fret and get stuck on a regular basis behind what we see as barricades. But he sees the other side of the barricade and how that's so much better than the stuck side. We just need to wait and see. And in the meantime, maybe cry for a bit but then hit the road and see how the next day plays out.
He reminds us that we can't do stuff on our own without his help. But that's not supposed to make us feel badly. It's just normal. Instead of worrying that I can't do this thing or that, I'm learning to ask him for help. It's one reason he's around. You can read about those kinds of things in the Psalms.
If we remember He's our perfect Father—and loves us even more than our own dads—and that he knows what's ahead, we can relax. Instead of stewing we can wonder how He's going to surprise us with something we would never think up on our own.
That's one of the fun parts about following God—the surprise factor. It gets me every time.
LADIES GUILDS AND LIK-LIK SNAKES
Maybe you were raised on the song, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." The Bible tells us one thing but we might feel another. I'm learning to trust God more than my feelings. Case in point: although I felt betrayed, I knew God hadn't betrayed me because Scripture (and the song) says God does not betray because God is love. Love and betrayal sit on opposite ends of the bleachers and I only wanted to play on the love side.
I got through that week. It turned out beautifully. The Ladies Guild in Fallbrook collected nickels for me. They prayed for my broken heart because I told them about the phone call. Ladies from Ladies Guilds understand a thing or two about broken hearts and they offer hope and whatever's in their wallets, even the coin purse part of their wallets. It helped. I experienced God as my strength in a way I wouldn't have without that hard time. Maybe that's the surprise God had waiting for me.
About four months into jungle training, two other interns and I were heading back to our village after visiting another nearby. It was dark and wet and had been raining 22 days straight. The mud sucked my sneakers right off my feet so I carried them and tried to avoid rocks and sticks. Our guides, men from our village, went ahead to find the best way home. The problem was that our trail had washed out and we had to find a spot to cross what was now a rushing river. God's idea of excitement was definitely different than mine.
Finally, the guys tested some trees that had fallen across the water, and we took turns stepping down into the water, hauled up by strong hands and arms, and then one by one, we stepped up onto the branches and made our way to safety. We couldn't have done it without them.
The next day I thought we should celebrate. My hut-mate and I invited the four fellows for dinner as a "thank you" for helping us out. I made spaghetti on a one-burner primus stove. I had not been a Girl Scout, but I liked to eat so I made it work. Our new friends had never eaten spaghetti and called the pasta "lik-lik snakes" which made sense and they seemed to appreciate the gesture.
It wasn't until after we cleaned up and later still, while in my bunk and tucked in under my mosquito net that I remembered what day it was. My ex- from the sink call had gotten married the night before. I hadn't given it a moment's thought. I was just happy I hadn't drowned. Surprisingly. And no gray hair in sight.
My dad was a good, good father. He wanted the best for me. And when the Man-in-Plaid showed up, he said this: "Finally, someone who can afford her!" Haha. A good father provides for his children. And even if you didn't have a good earthly father, you can trust right now in your Heavenly Father who can't help be good. He loved you to the cross and back. That's who you are: loved well and provided for.
If you'd like an audio version of this story, it's on my podcast this week. Feel free to share with someone who may need reminding of who God is—good, and who they are—loved.
No comments:
Post a Comment