A
framed picture about God’s will hung on a granite wall where two main elevators
“ferried” visitors at what was then St. John’s Hospital in 1977. I firmly believed the message which claimed nothing
happens apart from God willing it so was terribly wrong. Our premature son spent just a brief part of
his 17 days of life at that hospital, and I was and still am convinced that the
diseases that took his life were not of God’s intended “good plans” for him.
Many
books have been written about God’s will, others exploring why bad things
happen to good people. I make no claim
to have everything figured out on this subject, but I do think it is important
for us as Christians to be very careful and discerning about what we choose to
believe concerning God and His will at work in our world.
After
our son’s death, I “discovered” Jer. 29:11—“I know the plans I have for you,
plans for good and not for evil . . .” at a Bible study one evening. I knew little about the book of Jeremiah at
the time, but I thought this statement was a very clear indication that God’s
plans were for good in general. This
seemed to be a fundamental standard to measure life’s events,
including the terrible illnesses that had afflicted our son and other children
I saw in the neonatal unit at Children’s Hospital when I visited Dan there.
In
the Lord’s Prayer, the only real one Jesus taught that was recorded, He
instructed us to pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven.” Why would we be encouraged to
ask for God’s will to be done if whatever happens is His will anyway? And if things here are to be as they are in
heaven, there is no sickness there.
A
scripture that has been a stirring one to me for many years is in Romans 12:
2: “And do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove
what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” First, “good,” “acceptable,” “perfect,” seem
to leave out much of what is awful about our human existence—disease, war,
hunger, hate, etc. But more interesting
is the presentation of God’s will as something to be proved, a process God
wants us to sacrificially offer our very lives to.
One
of Webster’s definitions for “prove” is “to establish the truth or validity of
by evidence or demonstration.” In this Roman’s
verse, God’s will then is something to be proven, to be established as true
by evidence. Jesus did this over and over again in his
ministry. He taught about God but He
also demonstrated the compassion and power of God over natural elements, like
storms, over disease by healing multitudes who came to Him for help. Never was anyone turned away; never was a
disease stronger than the power of God to heal.
I
have an Amy Grant CD called “Hymns for the Journey.” As the title suggests, there are well-known
hymns but some with new arrangements or additions. One of my favorite is “Come Thou Fount of
Every Blessing” which contains some additional lines. One that I especially like is this: “May I still Thy goodness prove.”
When I listen to
this CD as I did today, that line is my prayer. Jesus asks us still, what do you believe
about Me? He told Lazarus’s sisters He
was the resurrection and the life—to just believe no matter how things
looked. Anything is possible with God if we seek Him for the faith to believe
in what looks impossible. "Infinite possibilities born of faith” Mother Theresa
called them. It’s all from God and
intended for His glory.
