I've been thinking a lot lately about being disappointed with God. Whenever I am faced with an issue--either personal or pastoral--I often come back to the writer who is the source of so much contemporary writing, C.S. Lewis. Cherish these words from 'The Screwtape Letters.'

"Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anti-climax which is certainly coming to the patient during the first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servants--"sons" is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to "do it on their own." And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If only they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much less harder to tempt."

It occurs to me that the "initial dryness" doesn't go away after we've been disciples for a while, but re-occurs at every intersection in which we attempt to step out with Jesus into something new.

We are never safe because Jesus makes all things new.

God in the Shadows

There is probably no more lonely a feeling than when we are disappointed with God. We think and expect something to be one way, and it turns out to be another. That kind of disappointment has visited and revisited our home a lot over the last few months. Death, reversals, rejection; they all have a way of questioning what we think life is and, more importantly, who we think God is.

Is God concerned about us--personally, intimately? Is God acting and active on our behalf? Or are we created vessels seeking to strain out the best of the numbered breaths we have been given? What is God up to, anyway? And why doesn't He allow His faithful to peek behind the curtain to bear witness to all His plans?

Honestly, there are times when I fear that we are on our own, that life is random and God has gone on vacation. There are times that seem as though the vast emptiness I feel in the pit of my stomach--when disappointment comes--must be indicative of the void space of a creatorless creation. What explanation can be given about a God that asks us to speak to Him in prayer, but seems slow to respond? How can we explain a God that commands faithfulness and trust, but so frequently works in arenas we cannot see?

A God that works in the shadows, should not expect to be trusted, should He? The prostitute, the mugger, the cat-burglar and rapist all hide in the shadows for good reason; the evil they perpetrate is benefited by the darkness. Why would a good God not illuminate His handiwork in order to guide those who would willingly follow? If there is a plan for our lives, wouldn't it work better if we could help work the plan?

All I can figure is that the plan must not need our help, that God doesn't need an assist. Perhaps trust and faithfulness are the only designs we can bring to the plan. Or better yet, the plan exists to produce in us faithfulness and trust and the particulars are incidental. It must be that God's plan is only to bring us to faithfulness and trust and the distinctives of our lives are like roads in ancient Rome; bumpy, dangerous and crooked, but all leading to center of the great kingdom?

I've been preaching recently about the spiritual life. What is it? How do you know when you're spiritual? Oftentimes the spiritual life is different than what we think it is. Check out these words from Watchman Nee.

"Christians deem their spiritual lives to be at high tide when they feel the presence of God, and at low tide when they feel low or dry. Yet these are only feelings and as such do not represent the reality of spiritual life. Those who have moved on to maturity clearly understand this and thus do not place much trust in these transient feelings."

The Waiting Game

I should have known it was going to be a late night when my 4-month-old daughter fell asleep during her last bottle of the day at 9:30 pm. That never happens. She gulps until the bottle is on the verge of implosion from the sheer pressure of suction. Enfamil formula must be Maxwell House coffee for infants--good to the last drop.

So, our wonderful daughter arose at 3:00 am--a little fussy, but with a smile. She doesn't wake up to eat anymore in the middle of the night, so I tried everything to get her back to sleep, but finally gave up and gave her her bottle about 20 minutes ago. Usually after an hour and a half I'm a little but frustrated with this stage of early childhood development, but tonight's a little different. My sleep wasn't interrupted by the cries from down the hall. I wasn't asleep anyway.

It started at 2 am when I woke up and realized that I had left a window open. Thoughts of JonBenet Ramsey rushing through my mind, I quickly went and closed it. Most of the time I would quickly go back to sleep, but not tonight (really this morning). My mind is busy tonight.

You see, right now, in our lives we are waiting. Waiting for a decision. Waiting to make decisions based on that decision. Financial decisions, career decisions, big decisions. What we're waiting for is not a decision we can make, only one we have to live with, but that's not the problem. The problem is waiting. I don't know if there's anything in the world worse than waiting.

Rochelle is waiting to see her father again. I'm waiting to see if the South Beach Diet, a personal trainer and 24-Hour Fitness will make a difference. We have friends who are waiting on children. We have friends who are waiting on love. Right now I'm waiting to see if my daughter is really going to sleep the rest of the night or will I again have to arise from my state of non-sleep where I will be staring at the ceiling...waiting.

But ultimately, being a Christian means a lot of waiting. Our bodies will one day be healed, but we have to wait. Our relationships will one day be restored, we're waiting on that one too. Soon our hearts will be at peace, but not soon enough--we'll spend some time waiting on that. The hearts of the children will turn to the hearts of the parents, we will race to the arms of Jesus and we'll know as we are known--but only after we wait.

I'm not sure if I have any deep spiritual meaning to hang on all this waiting, but I know that I am waiting to be with Jesus. And His sacrifice means that He's waiting to be with me too.

Maranatha--"Come Oh, Lord."