If it was cool to be a fool
Why would we worship a God that seemingly allows travesties to hit us and those we love?
I've asked that question dozens of times, even more recently. Too often it feels like God is that punk kid with a magnifying glass burning ants just to see how they react.
Sickness is everywhere in this world. Rare diagnoses pop up daily, and kidney disease seems to be handed out like candy corn on Halloween — nobody admits to liking it or buying it, yet it overflows any candy dish you come across.
And on top of this already crazy world, a lady in our own congregation, in the middle of her own battle, is overflowing with joy in Christ and experiencing the best "high" life has to offer (her words) in her relationship with Jesus.
Ridiculous!
Followers of Christ seem to get no favoritism when life's hardships are dealt. I'd even stretch to say they get an even worse quality of life than the average person, at least judged by the standards of this world.
Sure, even Jesus said that His disciples would have tribulation in this life. And Paul doubles down in Romans:
but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope... -Romans 5:3-4, ESV
But believers?! Why do believers have to endure such crushing disabilities on top of the daily struggles of life? Scripture is riddled with passages of God's strength in the midst of our weakness. Paul echoes this himself.
These are wonderful platitudes, but where is the comfort? Lamentations tells us that His mercies are new every morning. Do these mercies actually show up? Do they sustain?
Last Wednesday was the monthly Prayer & Praise night at Calvary Ozarks. I was hesitant to even go. My brother is in the hospital for what feels like a debilitating disease from nowhere. When I called to check on him, he firmly told me NOT to visit him that evening.
Okay. So I went to church.
I won't downplay the Prayer & Praise nights. These cherished nights have consistently felt like the Spirit of God was actively moving in our congregation. That night was no different.
In the middle of endless suffering all around, we sat in that old cabinet shop and prayed together, worshiped together.
A family of absolute light to our congregation, while battling coordinating a transplant, praised God for new life being added to their family and prayed over the parents for strength to raise up a Godly child. Our woman riding her high beamed with joy over the fruit of God in her life while she struggled to even walk around.
And me? I felt led to pray that God would be glorified in my brother's illness. Not for healing...I've prayed that many times. But for Him to be glorified. It even surprised me a little.
But the mercy of God, that peace we hear so often mentioned that God provides, came over me.
Time and time again God has revealed His word to me in powerful ways. I've read some of these same passages and ideas numerous times, but knowing the truth of it in such a personal and deep way is something else entirely.
I still have to look up these references to share them, but the TRUTH of His word is being buried in my heart.
I've been thinking all day about a passage from 1 Corinthians.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. -1 Corinthians 1:18, NKJV
I guess I'm a bona fide fool!