Perhaps, the cynical side of my mind said dryly, it's because you've been hiding from God all day. Perhaps it's because you're trying to think about life but leave Him out of it as a person--leaving him as a power. Yes, perhaps that might be it.
Sarcasm is a most effective way of telling the truth. As long as you're telling it to yourself.
So I set down my computer and remembered that prayer is relational, a conversation, in many ways, between myself and someone else. A perfect, holy, awe-striking, fear-inspiring, worshipful, lovely, glorious being, yes, but a being. Not a wishing-machine or an electronic task manager; no, the God.
And I think He asked me what I wanted. I replied, honestly, that I wanted Him to rule my heart and mind; more, that I wanted Him to rule the hearts and minds of every person on my list, that I wanted His hand to be surrounding them and His will to be leading their lives. I remembered from all of my Bible reading and Christianity-studying, that my wish was already fulfilled, that God is God, over my life and my friends' and family's lives. My wish was already granted; what I really wanted was already so.
But it does not seem that way. I could not help but tell God that. I told Him what I saw--diminishing relationships with three of my friends, as their lives become too busy to speak with me. The hurt from that I quickly brush aside--I know what it is to be busy. But I'm not fighting their battles anymore, because I don't know what those battles are. But I know they're battling. And what of the friend who is without a job, and who has been for months? Or the friend as close as a sister, whose husband is getting to lost to his career that he is forgetting to seek the will of His closest friend, his Lord? What of her questions, the ones she can't find an answer to? What of my sister, whom I can't seem to speak to without offending her? What of the friend who has wandered away, and is still turning round and round as she tries to come back, what of the friend who is sick in health and sick in soul? What of the roommate who is searching for purpose and faith? God, where is your rule?
The question is a cry as much as it is a search for truth. Battles, battles, battles, battles at work, battles in my soul, battles in my body, battles with my time, battles for faith, battles for friends, battles for family, everywhere I look, nothing but fighting, bloody, tearing, wearying, endless fighting. Oh, God, if this is your rule, why is it a war?
Who wins, if it's a war? Not you, for your people are torn to pieces. That does not please you. But it pleases the enemy, oh yes, he'd just as soon we were torn to pieces as under his rule. Both he delights in.
So why isn't he winning? Why can't I believe Satan is more powerful? The questions remind me of the truth.
We don't stay torn; we don't even stay dead. We were crucified with Christ, and He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also bring life to our mortal bodies through His spirit who dwells in us (Romans 8). Suffice it to say, The war was won when our condemnation was set on another--and the war is not defeat, because every battle will be won and every scar healed, every cry answered, every tear redeemed.
Eventually.
Eventually--though the war is already won, the battles are not. And they do matter, these battles, because they can bring power and honor and praise to Christ, or they can be another setback. They put the brothers and sisters of Christ through the furnace--and, as Peter says, prove their faith, of more worth than gold that perishes though it is refined by fire. The battles grow our faith. My cry of seeking, ending in a belief--a heartsick, trembling, fainting belief, but a belief nonetheless--is one more growth of my faith. My God, I believe--help my unbelief! For my head knows you won the war, but oh my God, my heart and soul need to know you will win our battles, and bring us home, healed. Grant me faith to believe. In the name of the Savior who died that I might come home, in the name of Christ Jesus, amen.
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