God-given resolve

               Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat—let me count the places my husband and I have seen this powerful story.  Last Saturday at the Fabulous Fox must be the 9^th or 10^th live production, beginning with a community presentation at Meramec Community College many summers ago. Seeing the show on the Goldenrod Show Boat certainly stands out on the list.  Wherever we have seen it, however, what remains the same is the catchy creativity and wonderful reminder of what is truly amazing:  God’s providential working for great good—no matter how impossible it may seem at times.

               The Biblical account of Joseph unfolds over 13 chapters in Genesis, beginning in chapter 37.  Jacob, a patriarch of the faith, has 12 sons and favors Joseph—never a good idea.  He gives Joseph this amazing colored coat while his brothers receive nothing.  Then Joseph tells his brothers about his dreams, “and they hated him even more” (Gen. 37:5).  As envy and jealousy set in, the brothers decide to kill Joseph.  Thus begins a pattern of Joseph rising and falling in various circumstances, finally chained and alone in an Egyptian prison.

               All the while, Joseph does not lose sight of God’s hand on His life and His faithfulness to achieve the good He has planned.  Even after betrayal, lies and mistreatment, he clings to his dreams and their inspiration.   While alone and chained in prison, Joseph sings “Close Every Door,” a stirring confession that no matter how persecuted and thwarted, God will prevail in it all.   A chorus of prisoners and the narrator then cheer Joseph on, singing:

               “Hey dreamer, don’t be upset

               Hey, Joseph, you’re not beaten yet . . .

               Don’t give up Joseph until you drop

               We’ve ‘read the book’ and you come out on top.”

               I love the “read the book” line.  Those of us who have read the Bible story do know that despite these terrible experiences, God’s going to put things in order and use Joseph to save many lives.  What gets Joseph out of jail is his God-given ability to interpret dreams—a very useful talent when Pharaoh is troubled about his own dreams featuring fat and skinny cows.    Joseph discerns that the cows represent seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.  Brilliantly, Pharaoh frees Joseph and promotes him to supervise storing up the surplus for later use.

               When the time of famine comes, Egypt has plenty for its people and also for others, including Joseph’s brothers who come for food.  They don’t recognize Joseph and are afraid when he finally reveals himself to them.  But he forgives them and sees God’s purposes in it all:   “you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Gen. 50:20).

               As our church service began this last Sunday, the word “resolve” came strongly to my mind.  Later in the sermon, the pastor shared how her mother had a “strong inner strength.”  Webster defines resolve as “determination” and “a fixity of purpose.”  Joseph’s dreams gave him a sense of being “tapped by God” for a purpose at an early age.  Being shut out and closed in for years did not shake his resolve.    He knows that “Children of Israel are never alone . . . we have been promised a land of our own.” 

               Godly purpose, a strong resolve to trust in God’s faithfulness—gifts of God for the people of God who like Joseph have, at times, partially perplexing and terribly trying seasons.

God wants to be in the response

               “Call the Midwife,” a beautifully written PBS series, is set in a poor area of London after World War 11.  Anglican nuns, some who are midwives, live among the people and host and support young midwives who help in the clinic and at the deliveries usually in the ladies' homes.   Often the narratives and actual words of the characters are insightful and profound.

               Such is the case in a recent episode when the boyfriend of Jenny, one of the midwives, survives a bad fall but then dies suddenly a few days later.  As Jenny pours out her heart and despair, questioning where God could possibly be in all that has happened, the head nun has a gentle, striking reply:  “God is not in the event.  God is in the response to the event.”  She continues explaining that God is in the love and care demonstrated by those who “come alongside” to help those who are suffering.

               Annoyingly given to looking for improvement on many things, I would suggest God can be in the response to the event to the extent that we allow Him to be or even seek Him to be.  We hear the disasters on the evening news, we learn of a neighbor’s misfortune, we get “bad news” for ourselves or someone we love.  What is, what can be of God in our responses?

               After years of physical therapy and visits to various specialists, I heard the term Primary Lateral Sclerosis for the first time ever just recently.   It has been presented as an explanation for the increasingly painful and limiting stiffness and spasming in my lower body.  Thus the event.  On to the response.

               Chronically given to looking for Christian inspiration most anywhere—inspiring commercials and news stories,  and movies, lots of movies—I loaded up the DVD player and watched certain parts of “Under the Tuscan Sun.”  It is one of the few movies I have paid for when it first came out—that is how much it touched my heart from the start.  After a devastating divorce, the central character goes to Italy on her friends' tickets.   On a whim, she buys a very old villa in Tuscany and starts a new life including her work as a writer. 

               Soon she finds the venture more challenging than expected, but it is an encounter with a snake that “sends her over the edge.”  She calls the nice Italian man who sold her the house to check the room where she had seen the snake.  After she voices her general fears and frustrations, he tells her a story, a wonderful story about an impossibly steep section of the Alps called Semmering.  He continues about how people “built tracks to connect Vienna and Venice.  They built the train track even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip.  They built it because they knew someday the train would come.”  In my mind he was saying they built these tracks by faith, believing that a more powerful engine would be coming.   

               The church of the scriptures was endued with power from on high.  The saving, healing ministry of Jesus was continued among them just as Jesus said it would be.  “Signs and wonders” are to accompany “those who believe” (Mark 16:17), signs that include laying hands on the sick and seeing, actually seeing them recover.  Well, you might say “I’ve been working on the railroad” trusting that this same power is working in me.  By watching parts of that movie, I was seeking God to be in the response to this event in my life.  May God give all who seek the faith that is of God and comes from Him, faith to not be defeated by the event, but to see the full and mighty healing response of God to the event—just like in the old days.

Stepping back and listening

               In the winter of 1992, my father’s prostate cancer (diagnosed in 1989) “went on a rampage” to quote his oncologist.  He had emergency surgery to clear a bowel obstruction and to save his life.  For the next four weeks, he remained in the hospital and left with a permanent colostomy and a catheter to remain in place over the three months his doctor said he had left to live.

               As the only daughter, I had been a “major player” for some years with both mental and physical health issues  my parents faced.  And at each point of difficulty—and there were some bigtime points—I reached out and prayed for God’s counsel and saving intervention.  There are some impressive stories of God’s faithfulness to be “a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1) over those years.  But now this oncologist was telling me I should arrange for hospice care for my father and get my mother into some assisted living facility.

               Our family and friends had been praying, and there had been times I would wonder if the surgeon’s and doctor’s reports would ever contain anything good.  But—another one of God’s buts—as I had been in a Bible study one night, my attention fell to the story of the healing of the centurion’s servant in Mathew 8.  It especially “spoke” to me because my father did not give voice to any faith he might have had or to any prayer requests he might have wanted.  How did that factor in to what God would and/or could do for him?

               Nothing is known about the servant’s faith in this story.  What is known is that his condition is very serious, and the centurion cares enough about him to seek Jesus out, and he recognizes Jesus’s authority as he says, “only speak a word and my servant shall be healed” (Mat. 8:8).  The centurion also realizes his own unworthiness and the greatness of Jesus's power.  Having remarked about the centurion’s great faith, Jesus sends him on his way, adding, “as you have believed, so let it be done for you” (8:13).  

               This story, added to the “file cabinet” of God’s counsel and answers to prayer in the past, moved me more toward faith than fear in what the future might hold for my father.  I had already taken a pass on doing adjunct teaching that winter and along with others, continued seeking God for my father's healing and helping my parents.  My father slowly regained strength and after a few months, his oncologist was referring to him as his “miracle man.”  He was not dancing and leaping, but he was alive and able to enjoy most of the three additional years God gave to him.

               This last Tuesday, I had my weekly session with a physical therapist I have worked with periodically over the last three and a half years.  She has been my weekly “helper, prodder and encourager” since last October.  I shared with her the information from the two neurologists I had talked with since the week before.  At the end of our session, she asked me how I was feeling about these new, defining medical conversations—not a usual finish to our times together.  And this became my reply:  “I have heard what the medical information is, and now, I need to step back and hear what God has to say.”  And so, I am. 

              Every day I try to do this "listening," but now seems like an even more important moment to “be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46).  It is His counsel, His instruction, His truth about it all that matters most.