The Script Writer

How do you talk to God about the tragic circumstances that each of us encounter in life?

When praying, do you have ideas and suggestions for how God could sort out the situation?  I do.  Frequently, I find myself imagining how to orchestrate a meeting between people who need divine help; what they should say, how they should act.  How God would get all the glory if only my simple plan were followed.  It’s easy, I think.  Here God, this is the way to work it all out, just follow my script.  No matter that God has not asked me to figure it out, nor has He asked for my help; I really just want the sorrow and pain to be fixed and He is the only One capable.  I am only trying to help.

Then I am reminded that God has not asked for my insight but He has told me to pray.  He has not tapped me to script the scene, but rather to trust Him.  Trust Him to work the situation out, with fallen humans who also have been given a choice in the matter.

 In the end most things, if not all, come back to trust; to rely on the wisdom and character of another.   In my mind, figuring out how God should work comes so easily; trust is not so easy to come by.  Trust requires patience which means waiting and praying and waiting more and praying more.  Trust means listening for God to direct and to speak and then watching for Him to act.  All of these are passive activities and I want to get moving. I want to get the tools out and fix the situation.  Trust is not visible, action is.  And when something is wrong and we pray about it to God we want to see Him swoop down and fix it, NOW. 

However, what if our script, our design for fixing the situation, doesn’t allow God to be God; what if it limits Him?  That is the question I must ask myself, because He could have different plans, a different perspective than mine.  Our knowledge is limited, our creative ideas imperfect, and our power is deficient.  What ever we can do would be small, repetitive and weak.  We are like characters in a play, saying our lines and trying to rewrite the script as we perform it, ignoring the fact that all we know is contained on the stage.  We have no clue about the next act.  We know little to nothing about what is under or above the stage and we take exception to the playwright and His part in this little production. 

Recall a conversation from scripture between Jesus and Peter.  Walking along with the disciples, Jesus asks them who He is.  Peter answers, “You are the Christ, Son of the living God.” (Matt 16:16)  Then Jesus tells Peter that God has revealed this to him.  Can you imagine what that must have been like for Peter?  To know that God had used him in this amazing way would be overwhelming, stunning and marvelous.  

As the time continued on, Jesus explained what was going to happen to Him soon--betrayal, beating and death-- and He was heading to Jerusalem, so it could take place!   The words are just barely out of the mouth of Jesus when Peter rebukes Him and tells Jesus that this will never happen.  In Peter’s mind the Christ did not fall into the hands, nor give Himself up to anyone who could hurt or kill Him.  The Christ was a conqueror who would rescue all of Israel and restore the kingdom and rule of the land to them.

For Peter, his partial knowledge led him to limit the plan of God; to make it fit what he did know.  The vision of rescue Peter had was small and parochial.  The Christ, the Messiah, was to be a local hero.  The enemy the Christ would conquer was a human, political enemy.  The Messiah would rescue them this time, but what about the next time?  Peter did not think beyond the present.  His existential Messiah existed only in his time and his land.  Peter, like me and like you, I suspect, could not fathom what God had planned.  He could not see beyond the end of the stage.  Had Peter rewritten this scene, none of us would know of Jesus or Peter, except as footnotes in dusty history books. 

Peter proves the verse from Isaiah:  “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” (Is 55:8).

This is where trust and patience and knowing the character of God matter.  We all have to learn to trust that God’s ways are so far beyond our imaginings that we could never ever dream up what He already knows.  We really have no good choice but to wait, in trust; which means being patient for Him to act.  The best part of this is that if we know Him, His character and His promises, trust and patience will come more easily.  And we can know Him because He has shown Himself to us and He has told us about Himself.  He even came here to let us see Him.  Let God amaze us with His plans, stun us with His love and fill us with His joy in the uncovering of His great work.