Please
take a few minutes to picture this. Just
today in the waiting area of the pharmacy in my local Walgreens, I was “testing” (by putting it
on a chair and sitting on it) the softness of a circular dog bed I just
happened to see on the end of an aisle.
Thank God, no one was picking up a prescription nor was anyone working
at the counter. And then . . . the
manager of the pharmacy department, a very nice looking woman in her 40s, I
would say, was coming toward me to take her place back behind the counter. Feeling like I needed to offer some
explanation, I just said I was checking out how firm the cushion was. It did seem softer than the chair cushion I
have been using because of a painful, multi-layered chronic pain in one buttock.
Holding
the cushion, I stepped up to the counter to pick up a prescription, the real
business of my being there. The manager
was behind the counter at this point, and as she began to check me out, she
said, “You do know that the cushion is for a dog.” I’m sure she sees all kinds of things go on
as she works with the public every day, but this cushion maneuver might have
been a first for her. Somewhat
embarrassed, I briefly spoke of the pain problem I have been having way too
long. She did at that point note how
what was for a dog could provide some relief for me.
That is
the funny part—ok, funny and humbling—but here’s the real value of this
encounter for me today. About two or
three months ago, I was at the same Walgreen store and stepped to the question
window at the pharmacy. This manager
came to help me, and I became aware that she was not her usual, healthy-looking
self. My impression was that she was
battling some kind of cancer. I have
thought about her since then and prayed for her healing. When I stood across from her today, she
looked so much more herself with her own hair, so I told her I was happy to see
her appearing to feel so much better than a few months before. She indicated she is feeling better and then
added, “It’s a process,” and I sensed a hopefulness in the way she said it.
As I
continued to rejoice in my heart at her improvement, I also began thinking that
faith in God’s promises can also be a process that should be based on God-given
hope, assurance, and expectations of good.
One of my favorite and most encouraging scriptures in the New Testament
is a passage in Romans 4:18-21 about Abraham being a “father of many nations”
when he and Sarah weren’t even producing any offspring of their own. The word “process” is not used, but clearly,
something that happened over time is described:
(Abraham) in hope believed . . .
not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since
he was about a hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God
through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced
(persuaded) that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
Over the years between God speaking
His promise to Abraham and the child being born, Abraham and Sarah tried to help
God along—don’t we all. But, at the same
time, he was submitting to the process of God’s spoken promise becoming the
thing promised by being strengthened, getting persuaded, not giving up on God
even during the years of waiting. The
well-known faith chapter in Hebrews reveals something similar going on with
Sarah: “By faith, Sarah herself also received
strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age,
because she judged Him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11).
“By faith” is a spiritual process
which should be initiated by God “speaking” in His still, small voice. Every part of the process should be
God-supplied; the hope, the assurance, the expectation of good all should be
stirred up in us by the living presence of the living God. Truly amazing, “impossible” things can come
to pass if we will with faith and patience wait for them. In the meantime, you might find me checking various
types of cushioned devices in your neighborhood store but otherwise
working really hard to appear normal.
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