Shaken Faith

I’ll be honest with you my faith is shaken. A prayer was answered. Yes, I’m surprised, because I wasn’t expecting a positive outcome. I used prayer as an activity to keep myself busy during a crisis. I’m astonished it worked!

I give prayer a lot of lip service. I talk to God daily. I write about prayer. I believe in it’s power, after all I’ve had answered prayers before. And yet, watching the immediate response this week I was surprised. Here’s what happened.

The doorbell rang. There was my neighbor. A mutual friend’s daughter had been in a serious car accident and her spine was crushed. The next ten hours she’d be in surgery. So right there on the front poach we sat and prayed. I prayed all day in fact, every time the girl came to mind. That evening my neighbor returned telling me the surgery was a success and the girl could feel her toes! Huge news! And I was surprised.

I didn’t credit the quick paramedic team, skilled surgeon, caring nurses or even the strong patient my immediate thought was: Thank you God for this glimpse of healing. She will have weeks of recovery but it looks good. God gets the glory.

Why does this shake my faith? Well because I really didn’t think God would do it. I thought he could but would he? I never think of God coming in to our modern world, not like he did in Bible times with all kinds of healing miracles recorded. Hmm. Maybe I chalk up modern medical miracles to the wrong things. Maybe it never is the quick paramedic team, skilled surgeon, caring nurses or the strong patient. But wait that can’t be true either. More likely it is a mysterious combination.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20. And there it is. I never imagined immeasurably more. I never let go long enough to think God was bigger than my little piece of the universe. I feel foolish for doubting. The God of the universe can do anything. We asked this girl be healed and it was granted. It shocked me to think I doubted it would work. Why is it so hard to believe? Just maybe I was not feeling worthy. Why would God listen to me? He doesn’t really care enough about us to heal a broken body. Does he? I mean if he did no one would ever get hurt, right?

Mulling over my doubt I found something else to consider. All those miracles whether we see them or not are God’s gifts to us. We are in fact worthy. He loves surprising us, caring for us. It seems he has to do it over and over again for us to truly see it is from him. There are those who will look to the healing of this girl as the efforts of the quick paramedic team, skilled surgeon, caring nurses and the strong patient. But I humbly suggest that it was God at work through all those people and he gets the glory. Scary as it is to give him that much control. Wonderful as it is to be that loved. Hard as it is to believe. It is all God.

Posted 6/4/2008 @ 2:48 PM | Weekly Thoughts