Skip to main content

Life Experiment of Faith

 What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. (Job 3:25)

What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.  In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.  (Matthew 18:12-14)

          COVID-19 has the world in its grasp – no big deal. But let my dog escape and “Houston, we have a problem.” I thought I’d closed the inner door, so I left the outer ajar to put laundry in the washer The next thing I knew, there was something honey-colored sliding by. It doesn’t happen often, thank God, but that might make it worse when it does. In the end, I think I had five other women helping me try to find and trap her – because she thought it was all a wonderful game of keep-away while I was imagining vultures cleaning up Shiba road-kill.

          So, I can honestly say that I know how the shepherd who goes off to find the one lost sheep, leaving the other ninety-nine on their own. All that mattered was finding and catching her. There was a lot of “Please, God, please.” The world shrank down to the size of a 20 lb. dog. Now, in the aftermath, while she’s chilling on the bed without a care in the world, I am asking myself what I can learn from the incident.

          God did provide. She didn’t run out the gate into the busy road. People did come to help. We did catch her. Some of my thoughts weren’t very gracious – some lacked hope and faith. I was focused on the task, and that’s OK when the task is urgent.  I don’t remember any “if You bring her back to me I will…and if You don’t bring her back to me I will…” There were no appeals to Cthulhu, Odin, high and mighty Science, or “any other god who brings her back to me.”

          I think I’d have to say that I responded correctly by going to look for her. I did show some faith because I didn’t walk away from God to find someone else to help me. I know that there are some people who claim to have walked away from their faith because something bad happened – something much worse than a run-away dog. At the same time, we’re told that there are no atheists in foxholes. We sometimes expect a traumatic experience to either produce faith or kill it. I suspect the truth is that the truth of the faith is revealed.

And what my minorly traumatic experience has shown is that I have faith, but it’s little faith. My focus was more on all of the bad things that could happen and not on God’s coming through. Oh, in the back of my mind, I knew it was likely that everything would end up fine – and it did. But my focus was on my fears.

And that makes it clear what one of the good decisions I need to make for next year is. I need to decide to focus on “the best that could happen” more and grow that sort of faith.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more