A Thousand Years

It’s no secret Francine Rivers is my favourite novelist. So it goes without saying that I was pleased to find one of her latest releases added to her part of the shelve at the public library seeing that I had already read through all the other older books. I’m half way through with Bridge To Haven and I’m loving it, I read it every chance I get. It is a lovely story, told beautifully in a way that oozes faith. I read the last chapter this morning. It’s a bad habit of mine, that when I get half way through the book, I read portions of the end (I’m inpatient like that). It’s also why I google the plot of each movie I watch. (I suck, I know.)

Anyway, there’s something that has gotten to me so strongly about one of the characters in this book. I’ll try to get my point across without turning this into a spoiler. I’m so taken by how Pastor Zeke finds it so easy to trust God. His answer to everything is prayer, and once he has prayed, he refuses to feel anxious over the matter, and keeps praying about it instead, just as Philippians 4 instructs. It’s no small matter by the way. Being deceived by a promise of love she thought she never had, his daughter is lured into an elaborate plan of the devil that draws her away from God and everyone she knows. She loses so much in the processes, her innocence and identity amongst the losses. He has been praying for his little girl from birth and he keeps praying from the day she leaves home. Because she left by choice police couldn’t do anything, and because of the terrible letters she left behind, he knew she wouldn’t come back even if he chased after her.
Years later, she re-emerges as a popular Hollywood star. Knowing where she is, he could chase after her. But he doesn’t, he waits on God to be the one to bring her back. Because as much as he could drive out and maybe convince her to return, it wasn’t just home she left, and it would take only God to heal the wounds that made her leave in the first place, together with the ones she incurred along the way.

Being Zeke, I wouldn’t handle well the fact of how long his daughter is away seeing how prayer for her went out from day one. Maybe a few months, but surely not years. That would mean God didn’t hear their prayers, or he didn’t want to answer them…right?
I read the last chapter, so I know she returned home in the end, home home. Her relationship with God was restored and so was her relationship with her family, in all its unique dimensions. In the end, God answered every detail of what Zeke prayed for, he just did so in His own way and time.

This tied in so well with a Scripture studied yesterday.
“There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.” Mark 7:32-35

These people brought this man to Jesus because they knew Jesus had the ability to heal him. It’s great that they had the faith to believe Jesus could help this deaf and mute man, but their mistake was in dictating how Jesus should do it. Prayer should never be understood as a tool to manipulate God into doing what we want, when we want it, the way we want it. God remains God, he remains sovereign. And as God, He has a will and a purpose, and he works everything in conformity with it (see Ephesians 1:11).
Jesus had his own plan of how this man would be healed, and His way was more complex than just laying a hand. Why? Because this way would reveal something about Him laying a hand wouldn’t.  This is why God doesn’t do the exact same thing in our lives as a collective of Christians even when we get to what seems to be the same place in our lives, because there is a distinct purpose for each of our lives.

Jesus’ way took more time. First, he isolated the man, then put his fingers into his (hopefully clean) ears, then spitting on that very hand of his which hasn’t been washed since going into the ears, straight onto the man’s tongue. I have no great revelation as to why Jesus had to involve saliva yet again in a miracle, I just trust that he knew what he was doing, and so did this man, who, unlike the blind man, watched and allowed himself to go through the process. That’s all we need to do, get over ourselves and our little knowledge and trust God that He knows what He’s doing.
Jesus wasn’t done yet. He then looked to heaven, sighed and made a declaration, only then was the man healed. What’s important is that, in the end, the man was healed, just like the people wanted. Our focus should be on the end result, only then will we realize that God never fails.

So take heart, saint, your prayers are heard, keep them coming. Trust God’s timing, even when what you’ve asked for is beyond your lifetime, it surely shall come to pass.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:8-9