Faith Like a Child

Several nights ago I was awoken from a deep sleep by the panicked screams of my 2 year old daughter. She was crying out daddy, daddy, daddy! I jumped out of bed and raced into her room. There I found a terrified little girl wanting to be held by her daddy. She had experienced her first nightmare. As I did my best to interpret the unique language of a toddler, I was able to conclude that her nightmare had something to do with some kind of crazy killer vacuum cleaner. As I held her firmly she started to calm down and melt into my arms. I could actually feel the safety and security she was experiencing simply by being held by her daddy. At that moment what had so terrified her moments ago mattered little for she was now in the care of her daddy!

I then told her how silly it is to be afraid of a vacuum cleaner! I told her that next time she has such an irrational response to her emotions she should try and work it out herself before involving me… Of course I didn't say that! I didn't care that her fears were irrational! I only cared that she was afraid and hurting. Nothing could have stopped me from comforting her! However, how often I handle my own irrational fears and immaturity as though God's response to me would be as I described above. I spend so much time 'processing' in an attempt to work out my own life. My adult brain tells me that I should not be feeling what I am feeling, so I try to logically convince myself that there is nothing to fear. The truth, however, is that I am still just a little kid afraid of a vacuum!

I think my daughters response to her fearful nightmare was such a beautiful picture of what it means to have childlike faith. My daughter didn't try to reason or handle her fear on her own, rather when confronted with something that frighten her she knew only one response... Daddy, daddy, daddy! Oh what I can learn from her!

Deliverance

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,[a] but no one could heal her. 44She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. Luke 8:43-44

We are all very familiar with this story. What an amazing healing after 12 years of pain and bondage! We meet this woman at the end of her long struggle. However, I believe the preceding 12 years truly tell the story. At times on her journey of healing this moment, standing face to face with her healer must have seemed worlds away. Was her healing simply in this moment? Or, had a sovereign God been preparing her for this encounter for all those years that she felt left alone? Had this passage read ‘a woman had suffered from bleeding for the past 5 minutes’ this healing would not have been so remarkable.

45"Who touched me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you."

46But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."

47Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Luke 8:45-47

I find it quite strange that the reaction to this apparent deliverance was fear and insecurity! She was just set free from 12 years of suffering! Where is the jumping up and down? Should she not be dancing in the streets? Yet, we find her trembling in fear, afraid that she will be discovered. I would suggest that her deliverance was still another word away! God had something more in mind for this woman than to stop her bleeding, He wished to reach her suffering heart, to speak something of himself to her and to declare her identity in Him.

48Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."

He called her daughter! That was the deliverance! This was the healing that started for her 12 years earlier. All the times over these 12 years that this woman had felt abandoned, alone, and rejected her Dad was at work for her good. He was orchestrating this scene! He had brought her to the end of all she knew, so that stripped of all else she could hear the tender, loving, and powerful voice of her dad proclaiming that she was HIS. A woman who entered this story broken, despised, and alone encounters her healer in her greatest weakness and it was here that God spoke life to her wounded heart! She came to him nothing and left a daughter of the King… a princess! Now that’s deliverance!!! Oh yeah, and her bleeding stop…

Never let Go

I played in a softball game the other day and on my way back to my car after the game I noticed a woman screaming at her daughter for not unlocking her door in a timely manner. This woman was truly enraged by what to most would seem so trivial. I do not think this woman is any more evil than any of us; her brokenness is simply controlling her life and actions. She is struggling to cope with her pain and tragically the amazing woman God created her to be is masked. This woman is a total stranger to me and I know nothing of her past, but I am willing to bet that her growing up was filled with anger and volatility and now her daughter will grow up much the same.


Let me back up a moment and tell you a little about what had been going on in my heart prior to noticing this exchange between a parent and child. As I was driving to the game I was listening to a David Crowder song called Never Let Go, the song speaks of God’s faithfulness and firm grip on our lives. I love this song and have heard it countless times; however in this moment I knew God was speaking to my heart something new. Back up even earlier in my day and I was reading a book that was speaking of the brokenness in our lives and our natural coping mechanisms. The author described how we can become damaging to the people around us and not even realize our action since we are functioning from a point of survival and our grip with reality is blurred by our own pain.


So, let’s return to the scene in the parking lot, this woman was painting a clear picture of the authors warning about our survival patterns. Reality would say that a child not unlocking the door quickly enough is not something to get angry about, however through the filter of her own damaged life that reality was lost. And this is what God was speaking to me through the song that I was moved by on the way to the game. He was faithful to not let go of me in my brokenness! That should be me; I should be lost in my world of coping and be leaving a legacy of damage and destruction. Yet, God in His amazing love and grace rescued me! He brought me the greatest blessings I could have ever hoped for, he brought me to reality! And what were the blessings that He used to bring about such healing? It was losing everything that I held on to for comfort, it was a few years of the greatest pain I have ever walked through. I will spare you the details, but the last few years of my life have been a bit of a roller coaster ride. Yet, I am more thankful to God for bringing me face to face with my pain than any other gift He has given me! God is not cruel; He does not bring the pain for its own sake! I already had the pain in my life; however, it was hidden in my world of survival!


I have prayed since the moment I knew I would be a dad that I would pass on a new legacy to my children, I didn’t fully know what that prayer meant, but I am starting to see the path God needed to take me down to answer that prayer. He needed to heal my pain! We often walk through a season of pain, failure, and struggle only to feel that God has abandoned us or worse yet that He is punishing us for not measuring up. This could not be further from the truth; we serve a God that will never let go of us! He is always working for our good. God had no other choice than to strip me bare in order that I might find Him as He really is, and it is here in reality that life becomes a passionate pursuit of Him that pursued us. I have tasted and seen that He is good and I am hungry for more! And this will be the legacy that I will pass on to my children! Run after God for He is more than you can ever imagine Him to be!

Adopted

10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us
19We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:10, 19

I struggle to write what is on my heart for words fail to express the picture I wish to paint. However, I will write what I can and pray that God will take the words and speak to your heart that which He has been speaking to mine.

I want you for a moment to imagine that you have decided to adopt a child. You know something of this child’s experiences thus far in life; you know that the home you brought him out of was a place of turmoil. His father was an angry man; he was verbally and physically abusive. His mother was emotionally disconnected and unable to provide the love and care the child so deeply needed. The only constant in his life was pain and fear. He had never felt loved or protected.

As you bring this hurting child into your home are you going to expect him to love you? Will you demand that he respects you? Will you be angry when he struggles to trust you? Would you not rather understand that this little boy will need to experience your goodness before he is able to start to trust? Would you not understand that he needs to know your love before he is capable of giving you love in return? Before I move on to my point I want us to remember that our goodness is but a rain drop to the ocean in comparison to God’s goodness.

Whether or not your home was as extreme as the child’s home I described above, we have all been broken and are in need of healing. God has adopted us and brought us into his home, and we like the little boy do our best to try and fit in, to follow the rules and act as if we are part of the family. Yet, deep down we fear we will be discovered and forced to leave this new found place of peace. Others tell us that if we love this Father who has rescued us then we will obey him. Here starts our belief that we must perform to remain in His family. We have moments of tasting the goodness of this new home and we long to love the Father who brought us here, yet the fear that it will all end the moment our true self is discovered tempers our joy.

However, when I read the proclamation in scripture that says we love God because He first loved us, I am captivated by the picture of Father God taking us in just like the damaged little child. As we are being brought out of our brokenness and taken into His loving, healing home He knows we are not capable of love. Yet, the Father with a zealous love runs to us, fully aware that we cannot give love in return. He pleads with us to drop the charade and our efforts to prove that we belong in His family. He wants to show us that he loves us even where we feel most unlovable. He wants us to live in the freedom that comes from knowing we are not going to one day be found out. He wants us to hear the good news that we have already been found out! Our secrets are revealed, our brokenness is exposed and we are still LOVED, cherished, and adored. We have been welcomed home! We have been invited to dine with the King and there is nothing we can say or do to be cast away from His presence!

What a powerful truth! God himself is willing to bend low and teach me how to love, to help me learn to trust. He is not demanding my affection or obedience, nor is He concerned about my performance, He just wants me! He is asking to walk with me through my darkness so I don’t have to face my pain alone. He is offering us the healing that comes when we cease pretending that we love God and honestly admit to Him that we feel unlovable and we do not know how to love. From this place of vulnerability we can allow an infinitely loving God to touch us at our deepest core. As His love begins to show us that we are safe in His presence and that we belong in His family, we can stand and take our seat at the King’s table in the unshakable assurance that we are passionately loved, completely safe and eternally secure. We have been loved and we will find that an authentic love for the One who loved us has been born.

Blindness

6He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they did so. 7They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. 8The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. Mark 8:6-8


14The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. 15"Be careful," Jesus warned them. "Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod." 16They discussed this with one another and said, "It is because we have no bread." 17Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18Do you have eyes but fail to see and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember? 19When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?" "Twelve," they replied. 20"And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?" They answered, "Seven."
21He said to them, "Do you still not understand?" Mark 8:14-21

Imagine the surge of faith that must have come from watching 5,000 hungry souls be feed with 7 loaves of bread in the middle of nowhere! What a moment! What a powerful display of the unlimited resources of God... And what was the response from these men of faith at such a sight? “Oh no, we are out of bread, now what are we going to do for food!” As much as I wish I could stand and throw stones at the disciples for their blindness to the wonder of God, I must confess my close kinship to their pattern of thinking!

Jesus responded to his followers doubt with these soul piercing questions, “Do you have eyes, but still fail to see? Do you have ears, yet fail to hear? Do you still not understand?” As I read these words I hear my heart resound with a deafening YES! No matter how good God showed himself to me yesterday, I still doubt today! I long to stand boldly in unwavering knowledge of God like Jesus! I ache to respond when I stand in need as he did and confidently say “thank you Dad for these 7 loaves which are obviously not enough to feed this crowd, yet I know you! I know you can not only feed them with these small loaves, but I know you are so good, so extravagant , that there will probably be an abundance left over!”

I don’t know why my eyes fail or my ears go deaf when I am faced with what seems to be not enough. Yet, He remains faithful whether I believe it or not. So, all I can do is reach for Him in the darkness of my failing eyes and admit my blindness. I stand afraid crying out to the one who opens the eyes of the blind… Have mercy on me, I want to see!

Mustard Seeds and Mountians

19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"
20He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:19-20

Were Jesus words to His disciples simply a reprimand of their lack of belief that the demons would leave the boy? I have always imagined this passage in the following tone: “you weak minded disciples! If you had faith as small as a little mustard seed you could cast a mountain into the see, yet you don’t even have enough to cast out a demon!” However, as God has been rewriting my definition of faith, I am finding that faith is not about my power to believe in a desired result; rather it is about my knowledge of the nature of Him in whom I have placed my trust. With that perspective on faith this verse takes a much different tone for me.

I do not believe Jesus is simply using hyperbole, I believe the vivid image he paints of a mountain being cast to the sea was meant to capture the imagination of his audience. He meant to enthrall them with the majesty of His dad! What I hear Jesus saying is “dear child, if you only had a mustard seed sized glimpse of the glory of my Father, you would know His heart for this little child that has been tormented. And more than that, you could say to that mountain over there, cast yourself into the sea and it would be done! I was there when the voice of my Dad called forth that mountain from the sea; I have heard His powerfully tender word bring peace out of chaos. I have seen the author of all life and He is good! My friends, you have not yet begun to discover the greatness of this God who loves you!”

I no longer believe that the answer to the struggle and pain of my life is in the amount of my ‘faith’. If I am sick, do I need to have more faith in healing? If I am poor, do I just need more belief in prosperity? No! I believe the answer to all our pain, fear, and anxiety is God himself. I believe real faith begins when we remove our masks and our attempts to care for ourselves. When we take our raw unfiltered brokenness into the throne room of our Father and allow Him to tenderly replace our distorted views of Him with the healing revelation of His goodness. No matter what the circumstance the need is the same, we need God to show us more of Himself!

Though my life is often a roller coaster ride of up and down emotions, I am fully convinced that the answer to my turmoil is summed up in this thought… If a mustard seed sized revelation of God can send a mountain into the sea, what must He be like…?