God's Answer

While reading over the story of Saul of Tarsus in the book of Acts one more time before moving on, some things occurred to me.  Saul knew the light that knocked him off the horse was God.  That was a no-brainer.  But he asked anyway.  I’m supposing it was one of those irrational responses to the unexplainable thing that was occurring in his normally rational life.  Of course, he learned very quickly that Jesus was indeed God and that he took the persecution of his followers personally.

Saul thought of himself as a servant of Yahweh.  He had a vision of who God was and what God wanted him to do.  So God took away his sight for 3 days.  During that time, he formed a new vision of who God was and was finding out what God really wanted him to do.  Saul was ‘Charles in charge’.  He had it all – and then he had nothing for 3 days.  Stripped of his dignity and leadership, he was led by the hand into the nearest town.

We learn later in the book of Acts that Saul was a pupil of Gamaliel, a member of the Sanhedrin, who had advised them to step back from their persecution of Jesus’ disciples, noting that the cause would die of itself if it was not from God and they couldn’t stop it if it was.  And yet, his star pupil was going after the movement with a fury.  This is the man we find wandering blindly in the home of Judas on Straight Street.  

It is evident in this passage that the whole community of believers in that town knew who he was and what orders he carried.  I’m sure they were not displeased with the thought that he was blind, helpless and refusing to eat anything.  I am sure they knew that it was an act of God that put him there in that condition, but I don’t think they understood it at all.  I feel fairly confident in saying that they thought the judgment of God had fallen on Saul and saved them from his wrath.  What they did not yet know was that God had a much greater plan for this. God had orchestrated every part of this event not to destroy but to change Saul.

And so, there was a disciple named Ananias.  God said “Go see Saul and give him his sight back.”  Ananias explained to God why that was not a good idea!

Acts 9: 15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.  I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”  Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.  He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. 

Here are a few observations based on this and the rest of the passage in Acts 9. 

- God knew Ananias did not understand but he was firm in insisting that he ‘GO!’ anyway.

- Saul was destined to be a preacher for the name he had tried to wipe out.

- God assured Ananias that Saul would be persecuted and suffer much.

- Ananias did not hesitate after that.  He did not stop to reason or reduce the command of God to being some self-produced idea he could discard.  For some reason, I get a strong parallel to the Prophet Jonah here, but I'm not prepared to go there yet.

- Saul still had his papers, his authority, his soldiers.  But God changed his conviction and the others were powerless without that.

- God did not stop working –ever!  And he usually works in extraordinary ways.  I’m sure the entire community of believers, along with those in Damascus, was praying that Paul would be stopped.  I’m sure that someone had called out “Stop him before he even enters Damascus.”  But none, certainly not Ananias, had any idea of how that prayer would play out.  

Need and Needs

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:19

Philippians 3:18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

I saw a comment on Phil 4:19 that said 'Jesus is our only need.' I understand the reasoning behind that statement, but I am tired of people who constantly make the scripture so spiritual that it has no practical application to our lives.  Friend, in your 'need' to sound wise or Godly, don't strip the Word of God of its power.  Through Jesus, our physical, fleshly, emotional and social needs are also met.  Jesus was never confronted with a need that he ignored.  Even the need to save face and provide a good wedding was met head on.  Even the need to be rescued from a punishment that her lifestyle demanded was recognized and resolved.  Often going against the protocol of his day, he met the need of beggars, social outcasts and even the wealthy and powerful around him. 

He made a whip and purged the merchandising of devotion to God from the temple –two times.  He caused a fish to have money in its mouth to meet Peter’s need for public approval -after a kind reprimand.  He looked at a sea of hungry faces late in the day and with a plan in mind said to his disciples “We need to feed them.” 

Then he said “I’m getting ready to leave and you guys will have to do the stuff I did- even greater stuff than I did.”  He told them to wait for the power of God to come on their lives which he would send to them all when he rejoined the Father.  And signs and wonders followed these followers of Christ.  They began meeting needs in his name.

We must not dilute or emasculate the Son of God because of our own lack of power to live, to accomplish, to hear and follow, to dissociate from the merchandisers.  We would rather reason about the cross of Christ than to honor and trust it fully.  Not wanting to appear as fools in our generation, we become enemies to all the cross promised.  Over the millennia we have forgotten, we’ve misunderstood, we’ve assimilated the world.  But God is one God.  His plan was and is right.  His power is ageless. 

Jesus is our need –period.  But he meets our needs day to day, year to year, century to century.  Part of this world’s problem is in not seeing him as the need supplier, the wish granter, the great healer, the hope giver.  The sin of a generation is not trusting Him to supply our needs, but going about determining and trusting other sources for everything.

Jesus said reprioritize and all your needs will be met.  But we are so ingrained in our material, worldly reasoning that reprioritizing is extremely hard.  It was for a young rich man that Jesus loved.  Yet that man walked away from his need for Jesus because he had great wealth and I am sure great worldly responsibility.

So in conclusion, I say that when the one need is recognized and met, all needs are met in time and space.  It does become a matter of priority, of Godly thinking and of human trust and submission.  But my God will supply my need and my needs according to Christ Jesus.

To Age the Same

She stood there with a look of hurt frustration on her face.  I was there to clean up and help with my father.  The angry tirade tired me.  Her face dripped with sweat from the emotional intensity of her fit.  She knew we had seen and heard.  What she didn’t know was how many times we had seen and heard the same thing.  It was hard to imagine; it was harder to process.

There was a tendency to just scream out “You’re mean!  You’ve always been mean and you’ll probably die mean someday.”  I actually expressed that feeling to my husband in hurt anger at least once and probably more times than he ever wanted to hear.  I knew it was just a reaction to my own lack of answers.  

But after my father died, my thoughts went from what was to what needed to happen.  It didn’t occur quickly or as a single epiphany.  But through prayer and love I began to work through and see through the frustration in me and the frustration in her.  It became almost my obsession to see her healed of her emotional wounds.

I recall her standing there in a sweaty frustration, after one long irrational tirade that followed an event of incontinence on the part of my father, saying “When is it my turn?  Everyone cares about him; everyone feels sorry for him.  I’m old too.  You dote on his every word; you pamper him and doctor him.  You bathe him.  When is it my turn?”

I tried to turn it to a lighter mood by saying “You want me to give you a bath?”  But the mood didn’t lighten.  The look on her face said what her words could not.  Yes, she did.  I was dumbfounded and I wasn’t giving her a bath. 

My father was not far from death, though we couldn’t foretell that.  Taking care of him was what she needed me to do.  I was doing that for her as much as for him.  I cared about them both.  I doctored him early in the morning before she was awake, before I went to work.  Then I helped him dress, fixed him some fruit and water and went about my day.  In the evening, my husband and I went back to help him out of his trousers, to bathe and wrap his legs –recovering from ruptured ulcers caused by diabetes- to wash his arms and face down and prepare him to sleep in his recliner where he could breathe better and be somewhat elevated.  My mother supervised a private bath every couple of days. 

Daddy’s world had closed in.  He was still able to wander out to the small deck we had built on the back of the house so he could breathe the cold fresh air and listen to the birds.  On occasion, the wheelchair we bought him would cart him to the curb for a trip to the store or clinic and on rare occasions, we would load him and the wheelchair into our vehicle and take them for an outing – just because.  Everything in life right then evolved around daddy and his care.  At night we would share a snack and visit while the TV droned on in the background.  It always started amiable enough.  After a bit we’d get him to stand and help him out of his pants, covering him with a huge bathsheet for decency.  Then I’d prepare my warm water and ointment and the elastic wraps which would need discarded the next morning.  Eventually, the ulcers healed and I was able to use heavier ones that I could wash. 

Somewhere in the course of it all, the storytelling would begin.  Old stories that we loved to hear again: old fun and funny memories from my childhood and before.  My father was a story teller by nature and my husband and I relished the tales.  My mother, while thankful for the help, felt left out of the love.  She felt old, out of control and set aside and she became angry every night.  It was a struggle to regain her self-worth.  I would see that one day.

After my father went into the hospital and then into a nursing home, we stopped going every night.  I stopped going every morning.  I did go.  I took her shopping as often as she would go with me and I bought anything she wanted or needed that her funds didn’t supply.  I visited my dad fairly regularly, but the push, the intense time of caring was over. 

After daddy died, mom felt the neglect return.  There was no longer a need to go to the nursing home and supervise my dad’s mealtime.  Everything seemed so empty.  We tried to get her to join in our world but she would not.  She tried to make a world of her own but she could not.  She eventually moved to Louisiana to be closer to my sister.  But my desire for her to find peace and love and self-acceptance intensified.

Her visits were filled with a struggle to get understanding on my part.  And a struggle to convince me how bad her life had been with my father on her part. It was a time of alternated cringing and sharing.  She had so much anger to work through.  I just wanted her to be happy.

Mom was always an emotional person full of highs and lows, but I remember so many good times.  I remember how she loved to have me brush her long golden hair.  I recall her diligence in the gardens about our home and the excitement when she succeeded in some quest involving that plot of earth. 

She gave so much to others.  She really wanted the world to love her and be fixed: fixed of their illness; fixed of their emotional pain; fixed of their poverty.  Yet she always waited on a love that would be enough to fix her own pain and the illness and poverty of her past.  My father could not supply that –nor could I.  But in these final days she is learning the ways of peace.

I am getting old.  I often feel abandoned by those I love the most, like an old shoe that no one wants to wear, but no one can throw away.  My heart says things my lips will not –words I recall from my mothers days of frustration.  I ask myself “How much of this is just association and how much of this is a result of aging?”  And yet I’ve seen that road; I know its ruts.  If this is a normal process of aging, I must find my victory more quickly.  If this is the time of insatiate love that all older people go through, I must find peace before it alienates me and leaves me bitter.  I want to be a pleasant old person.  I want to be one of those prayer giants that smile a lot and believe the best.  It sounds like an easy choice; it’s not.  And yet, it is a choice.