March 3: Of Crisis, Doubt, and Battles Fought for Us

Psalm 46:1-3

God is our refuge and strength,

  an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, 

  though the earth give way

  and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam

  and the mountains quake with their surging.

Psalm 46:8-10

Come and see what the Lord has done,

  the desolations He has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease

  to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

  He burns the shields with fire.

He says, "Be still, and know that I am God;

  I will be exalted among the nations,

  I will be exalted in the earth."

I was talking to someone dear to me, and they were questioning why it was, if there was a God,  that He would allow cancer, and death, and suffering.  I admit this is a question that I struggled with a lot when I was younger, and still struggle with at times today.  

The truth is, I don't know.  And I probably can't know why God would permit such things to happen - to know, to understand, I would need to have the mind of God.  And if I had the mind of God, then God wouldn't really be God, then, would He?  I'd be just like Him, and He'd be just like me.  

The best answer I have is that God permits these things to remind us we AREN'T God.  That there are things beyond our control, beyond our ability to analyze, verify, validate and understand.  And so, when faced with these conditions - when mountains fall into the heart of the sea and the earth gives way - God gives us a choice.  We can despair in our own helplessness, or we can choose - and yes, it IS a choice - to acknowledge Him, and to trust in Him.  

When one of the two alternatives is my abject helplessness, I choose door B.  I choose to believe in a God who tells me He is my refuge and my strength, my ever-present help in the inevitable times of trouble.  I choose to take Him at His word when He says I don't have to fight the battle - that He will.  That, to prove that, He will take my bow, my spear and my shield - the tools I need to fight - and will break, shatter and burn them.  And He will tell me to sit down, shut up and watch Him do the work.  

It isn't easy, though.  If you're like me, you face a lot of pressure.  You face it at work, where your boss expects you to deliver results; and even worse, you face it from yourself at home, where the stakes - your marriage, your children - are inestimably higher.  And you worry, you can't sleep, you overeat, you get irritable.  

Father, we get desperate.  We face difficult situations, situations beyond our control.  Teach us like you did Jarius who, when his daughter was dying, beyond his ability to help, turned to you.  And, as we declare our faith, be just as merciful to us as we confess our struggle to believe.