Divine Plagiarism

It is strange, I think, how seeing one little thing can take an experience and turn it into something quite different. Little of the facts may be changed, but a memory or a picture can turn one situation into something else entirely. Something so small can entirely change the character of something much larger.

I arrive at Urbana. Nothing too controversial, I plan to meet up with a bunch of old and new friends, and run my crazy new missionary idea by a few missions organizations. Standard church retreat, rehack my God currencies, get fired up for Him, ring in the New Year with Communion. A good plan, nothing too controversial, a plan where I could keep everything safe and under control. The plan lasts about four hours.

Paging through the welcome materials, I run smack into a picture of C. right above a description of one of her ministries represented at the conference. I had been operating under the assumption that she would not be here. That assumption, along with any assurances of stability that had come with it, was shattered in an instant. And I was transported, in a moment, to a place in between, a place where all the simple answers didn’t work. Any semblance of systemic control was gone.

As hard as it is to be in this place, I am real here. I am not totally sure I can explain why or how, but I know it to be true. I sand loud during praise, sang with all my heart. I am here with Him, terrified but resolute somehow. The message spoke to me, but it spoke about this story. Three times, three different messages all spoke to me about the story from three different angles. I heard Him in them, over and over. At first I didn’t want to. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between cajoling and inviting. Perhaps that difference is trust. But I am back in this place. Three years ago, six months ago, it would have been unthinkable. But I was a much different person then, I think. And as I change, this place changes. Not because it is different, but because I am different. What sounded once like a mockery sounds now like a promise. Like in C.S.L.’s ‘That Hideous Strength,’ what once looked like dwarves tearing my pristine world asunder now look like angels re-ordering my life into something more beautiful. I can’t say I totally understand this place. Nor why I am here. But He changes me here; I become more like Him here. I suppose that is enough of an answer.

It is as if His story here is inescapable. This what He wants me to hear, but it is the thing I least want to hear, because it is so scary. I want to ask for some sort of ending, some sort of resolution, but I know that endings are not my deepest desires. And I know that He wants my deepest desires. Not the safe offerings, the cheap investments small enough to control, safe enough that I will not shatter if I hope and fail. He wants the deepest desires, the ones that live in the depths of my heart and invite me to dive in. So I am honest with my deepest desire in this story, I do not run from it. I want her as my wife. And I am here. To whatever end.

A broken heart and a contrite spirit. This is what God wants. A man of God tells me this, and I thank him for it. Brokenness is what God wants, and this is the way He has found to get it from me. So be it. But this is not an academic exercise. I claim the verse about the persistent widow. Twice against my will and one time willingly, God has brought me back to this story. If this is His story, then I will wait upon Him to write an ending.

Abram and Sarah kept hoping. They did not hope in some theoretical, maybe-it-will-happen, passive sense. Their role in hoping was very active and very intentional: they kept trying to bear a child. At some point it must have seemed a mockery. At some point, Abram and Sarah must have shared tears in their wedding bed, hoping against hope to produce a child. But they hoped still, and they believed that if God said it would be so, then it would be so. They acted on that hope until it came to pass.

I do not have a license to sit back. But I pray with all my heart for His guidance, that He would be very directive so that I would do His will and not my own. At the same time, I pray for the courage to do the things He asks. I am absolutely terrified. I am back in that place on the ride home from Pensacola. I pray that God would come meet a weak man where he is at. Oh God, I believe, please help me believe.