THINGS WE DON’T UNDERSTAND
Where were you on September 11th, 2001? That’s a question that I suspect a lot of us could answer with a great deal of accuracy. What happened on that day defined a generation, much like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963…or the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Where were you on September 11th, 2001?
I was serving the First Presbyterian Church of Salem, Ohio at the time. That night we held a prayer service in our sanctuary. I remember standing up and saying, “I don’t know what to say. Let’s just spend some time in prayer. Let’s just let the Holy Spirit intercede for us, as the Apostle Paul says, ‘in groans that words cannot express.’” And that’s exactly what we did. We sat there in stunned silence, not knowing what to say. Some sat for close to an hour.
About six months later, my family and I took a trip to New York City. While we were there, we went on a bus tour of the city. We sat in the open top of a double-decker bus. Our tour guide told us that we were going to be the first tour bus allowed to go past the original site of the Twin Towers. I remember the tour guide saying, “We would appreciate it if people would give the site the reverence that it is due.”
We then went by the original site of the Twin Towers. It was nothing but a pair of gaping holes filled with rubble. And everyone on the bus was completely silent. No one could bring themselves to say a word. In a manner of speaking, we found ourselves on holy ground.
The events of nine-eleven shook up our nation. It seemed as if everyone’s faith was impacted…one way or another. On the one hand, the Sunday after nine-eleven, churches all across this great nation of ours were packed to the rafters. It was a spiritual revival that lasted for nearly a week. For many others, however, faith was impacted in a negative way. The question was asked time and time again, “How could a God of love have allowed this to happen?”
Theologian Serene Jones describes trauma as something that happens not just to those who directly experience violence. She says our minds are like offices. They store incoming information in one of the thousands of files we have created to make sense of the world. When trauma occurs, the incoming information is so overwhelming…that we don’t know where to store it. It fits none of our categories and we are left stunned and confused.
Traumatic events then come to affect our faith. They affect our faith…one way or another. In times of crisis, some will turn to God with renewed fervor. Others will turn away from God, disgusted with the way they perceive God operates. Along those lines, I have a story I want to tell you now. It’s called, Potatoes, Eggs and Coffee Beans. I think it’s really quite pertinent to the subject matter at hand.
A number of years ago a woman was going through some very difficult times. She complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she just didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of constantly struggling just to keep her head above water. It seemed to her as if – just as one problem was solved – another one cropped up to take its place.
Her father listened, nodded, and said, “Come with me.” They went into the kitchen where he filled three pots with water. He put them on the stove and turned the flames up high. Once the pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in the first pot, eggs in the second pot…and coffee beans in the third. He let them sit and simmer without saying a word to his daughter.
The woman waited impatiently, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, wondering what on earth her father was doing. After twenty minutes or so, he turned the burners off on the stove. He took the potatoes out of the first pot and placed them in a bowl. He took the eggs out of the second pot and placed them in a bowl. Then he ladled the coffee out of the third pot and placed it in a cup. Turning to her, he said, “My dear, sweet daughter, what do you see?”
“I see potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she snorted. “Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did so, and noted that they were now very soft. He then told her to take an egg and break it. When she did so, she observed a hard-boiled egg. Then he told her to take a sip of the coffee. The coffee was good, and its rich aroma brought a smile to her face. “But Daddy,” she said, “what has this got to do with all my problems?”
He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and the coffee beans had each faced the same adversity. Each had been placed in boiling water. The difference, however, is that each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting…but in boiling water it became soft and weak. The egg was fragile, with a thin outer shell protecting its soft interior, until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard and unyielding.
The coffee beans, however, were different. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and became something new. “Which are you?” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks upon your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?” In this journey we call life, many things will happen all around us, and many things will happen to us. Perhaps the thing that matters most is what happens inside us.
Back in 1978, M. Scott Peck catapulted onto the American literary scene with his best-selling book, The Road Less Travelled. The book was labeled, “A new psychology of love, traditional values, and spiritual growth.” Yet perhaps the key to its success was embodied in the very first sentence. The book began with these words: “Life is difficult.”
Life is difficult. Traumatic events will occur in our lifetimes that will make us or break us. I think of something Billy Graham said at The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. immediately after the events of nine-eleven. He said, “God is sovereign…even in things we don’t understand.” God is sovereign, even in things we don’t understand. With those words as the foundation of our faith, we are far more likely to persevere in the face of adversity. We are far more likely to be a coffee bean than we are an egg or a potato. The question is, how do we get there?
The answer is simple, but the process is complex. I think the answer just might be something that a friend of mine in this church recently said to me. He believes he received a message from God. And frankly, to me, it sounds exactly like something God would say. He said, “Read your Bible, and pray to Jesus every day.” Read your Bible…and pray to Jesus every day.
When we read our Bibles, it will come to shape our minds in accordance with the will of God. We will read the ancient stories of faith. We will see how God was active in the lives of faithful people who went before us. And we will begin to comprehend the way God works in the world.
When we pray every day, we will come to be in communion with God. As someone once said, “Prayer doesn’t change God. Prayer changes us.” And that might be the best part of all. Perhaps we will come to be transformed into a man or a woman of God.
Like I said, I think the answer is simple but the process is a bit complex. Let me try to explain. Fourteen years ago my wife was diagnosed with Sartoli-Leydig cell cancer…a particularly deadly form of ovarian cancer. Every woman over the age of 40 diagnosed with this particular cancer had died. She was 35 at the time.
It was the summer of 1997. Our oldest son Rob was eight, our daughter Mariah was five, and our baby Travis was three. I was faced with the prospect of having to raise three children all by myself. She was faced with the prospect of not seeing them grow up at all. It was a particularly trying time in our life of faith.
Back then, I was just learning about what we call contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is listening prayer. In other words, instead of filling the airwaves with my incessant babble, I actually took the time to listen for God. During one of those periods of contemplative prayer – thinking about my wife’s situation – I sensed four distinct words. I did not hear voices; I wasn’t losing my mind. I sensed four distinct words. Those words were, “She will be fine.” My immediate response was to ask, “Does that mean she’s going to live?” And again I sensed those four distinct words: “She will be fine.” Then suddenly I knew – that whether she lived or whether she died – she would be fine. And if she would be fine…then perhaps the kids and I would be fine, too.
That was the singularly most profound spiritual thing I have ever experienced. My faith literally moved from my head to my heart as I came to realize that the promises of God are true. We call that the move from secondary faith to primary faith. We move from secondary faith to primary faith – in other words, our faith moves from our heads to our hearts – when we come to realize that the promises of God are true because we have experienced the grace of God for ourselves. And in light of such an event, we come to develop a spiritual memory. When we have a spiritual memory, we come to believe that…if God was faithful in the past, then why would we think God might not be faithful in the future as well? Again, if God was faithful in the past, then why would we think God might not be faithful in the future as well?
Perhaps M. Scott Peck put it best when he said, “Life is difficult.” Life is difficult. Yet if we read our Bibles and pray to Jesus every day, perhaps we will manage to persevere. Perhaps our faith will move from our heads to our hearts as we come to realize that the promises of God are true. Then, as Billy Graham put it so well, we will know in our hearts that God is sovereign…even in things we don’t understand. Amen.
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