Essay 43 (10-4-04)

JESUS IS WITH US, BUT IT IS STILL STORMY

Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. – Mt. 28: 20

Ouida and I take our turn in the Prayer Room at our congregation – the Singing Oaks Church of Christ in Denton, Texas. A number of us give an hour a week to this ministry, which makes for a continual all-day prayer vigil for most of the week in behalf of those who make requests. Some requests are turned in during our assemblies; some are phoned in or e-mailed. Ouida and I take turns. She goes one week and I go the next. We sign in, noting the hour, and post a notice on the door that the room is occupied, allowing for privacy. There is a stack of "Request for Prayer" cards on the table before us – sometimes more than a hundred.

Those in the prayer ministry do not consult with each other about how to do this, not even Ouida and I. If one takes the cards one by one, and prays for each one, naming the problem to the Lord, one would never in one hour get through all the cards – not nearly all of them – unless one employs a highly accelerated method of praying. We might solve this by dividing the cards, so that one would take up where the previous left off. Even then over a week’s time all the people would be prayed for again and again. But we don’t do this, even though I sometimes find some cards separated, as if the previous person was suggesting I might start where he or she left off.

But we don’t talk to each other about how to go about it. We just do it, each on his own, however differently. A private thing, I suppose. One thing especially interests me. When we pray for a person, we initial the back of the card, noting date, so those in charge will know the request has been honored. The older cards are saturated with initials, with hardly any place to write. Even new cards are soon abundantly initialed. It looks as if everyone is prayed for by all of us, every time! Perhaps as many as 150 cards, and in an hour!

It makes me wonder how the others go about it. Maybe they use my method. I do get through all the cards, scores and scores of requests, each time, but I thought I might be cheating. I read all the names to be prayed for, one by one and card by card – sometimes in a whisper, sometimes silently – mentally noting the request, which in itself can be a communion of prayer. Then, as suggested by the apostle Paul, "I bow my knees to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family of God in heaven and upon earth is named," and I hold up all the cards together to the Lord, and pray for them all together. There is enough time left to hurriedly initial the cards.

One cannot help but be overwhelmed by the vast sea of trouble and heartache reflected on those cards! Ouida comes home from her turn somewhat chastened. "Cancer!" she sometimes moans, "So much cancer!" Yes, there are those who fear the "C" word as they undergo tests ("Please pray that I don’t have cancer!"), or they are facing surgery for cancer, or they are dying of it – or a loved one is. How do you pray for someone whose body is riddled with cancer? And what is one to think when a card is removed from the stack marked "Deceased" -- one initialed and prayed over abundantly?

The Lord is with us, isn’t he? But it is still stormy.

The prayer cards are about more than cancer – much more. A young wife and mother asked that we pray that her truant husband will come back to her and the children. Another fears her husband is about to leave. Some are looking for a job or a better one, others seek decent housing. Some can’t pay their rent ("I don’t know what we’re going to do’). One card requested prayer for a son sent into harm’s way in Iraq. There are loved ones in the hospital, in wheelchairs, in a nursing home, in prison. We are asked to pray for peace, freedom, and justice in our cruel, terrorized world. Others ask that we pray that our youth might not go astray, for our elders and deacons, our ministerial staff.

Surprisingly, some request that we pray that they might be more spiritual and closer to the Lord. I was touched by a single line on one card, "Please pray that my husband will come to the Lord."

Sometimes as I hold up the cards I think of them as a microcosm -- a miniature of our sinful, troubled world. I could be praying over millions, even billions, of cards as well as a hundred or so. And the problems are much the same, all around the world. Even when many of the problems are of our own making, even our own sins, it is no less tragic.

I also sometimes think – and even dare to say to God himself – and this is the world to which the Messiah has come! This is the world that God so loves that he gave his only Son – but look at it! Jesus is with us, but it is still stormy. I think of all those that we pray for as on a ship at sea, with all their problems – a large cancer ward of course! – and Jesus is the ship’s pilot. Not only is the ship a kind of halfway house, coping with problems, problems, problems – but the sea itself is stormy! Jesus is the pilot and he is in charge – and he is omnipotent – but still the storms rage on.

It is a question I don’t know how to answer. I accept the reality of what the Scriptures refer to as "the mystery of evil" in a world over which God is sovereign. I can live with mysteries and conundrums. Isn’t that what faith is about? We are to walk by faith, not by sight. But one can point out that Jesus never promised that discipleship would be easy, or that there would be no problems – some of them very serious problems. He spoke plainly to his disciples, "In the world you will have troubles," and then added, "but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

That was the passage that led Malcolm Muggeridge, the British cynic and skeptic, to accept the Christian faith in his latter years, and to become an effective apologist for that faith. Jesus was not misled by a deceitful world – and he overcame it by being authentic – and that is reason enough to be his disciple, Muggeridge concluded.

Jesus overcame the world by dying for it. He came into a stormy world and ministered to a stormy world. And he died amidst the storm. The world will apparently always be stormy – at least until God’s tomorrow. The good news is that Jesus is with us amidst the storms. That is what he promised – not to steer us around the storms, or above them, or below them, but through them. And in the mystery of it all God uses the storms to mold us into what he want us to be.

Perhaps that is the lesson of Jesus calming the sea to the astonishment of his disciples – "Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey him" (Mark 4:41). Not that he will drive away every dark cloud in our lives, but that he will bring the sunshine of peace within, however fierce the storm.

Going on 81 and 86 as we are, Ouida and I know that, if the Lord tarries, one of us will soon face a storm of cyclonic force – going on without the other. As of now I can see it only as unbearable to give up Ouida, assuming that I draw the short straw. It is a storm that I dread and would choose to avoid. But I’ve been through storms of hurricane force before, and I’ve had something to hold on to – the promise of promises: "I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age."

The storm is sure to be fierce – aren’t they always? -- but there will be peace within.

Note

All these essays, along with other writings, are available at www.leroygarrett.org

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