Yet...God said...no.
His child was sick, on the very edge of death.
As any faithful parent, when prayer and medical treatments had done nothing, he was left with a chasm of sorrow, at the prospect of what laid ahead.
"As his daughter lay very ill, Dr. Martin Luther said: "I love her very much, but dear God, if it be Thy will to take her, I submit to Thee." Then he said to her as she lay in bed: "Magdalene, my dear little daughter, would you like to stay here with your father, or would you willingly go to your Father yonder?" She answered: "Darling father, as God wills." Then he said, "Dearest child, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." Then he turned away and said: "I love her very much; if my flesh is so strong, what can my spirit do? God has given no bishop so great a gift in a thousand years as he has given me in her. I am angry with myself that I cannot rejoice in heart and be thankful as I ought."
Now as Magadalene lay in agony of death, her father fell down before the bed on his knees and wept bitterly and prayed that God might free her. Then she departed and fell asleep in her father's arms. As they laid her in the coffin he said: "Darling Lena, you will rise and shine like a star, yea, like the sun. I am happy in spirit, but the flesh is sorrowful and will not be content, the parting grieves me beyond measure. I have sent a saint to heaven."" (Taken from accounts of Luther's life, this took place in September of 1542)
Martin Luther was a man of towering faith and great resolve. He changed the world with the depth of his belief, and his love for Christ was renowned. You would think, if any man would ask God to spare his child and have that prayer answered, it would have been Martin.
Yet...God said...no.
Sometimes, we pray, and we get the answer we want, and naturally, we are happy.
Sometimes, we pray, and we get silence, and we wait. (And sometimes grumble.)
And sometimes, we pray, and the answer is no.
Now, that "no" can often be seen, in our lifetimes, to be for our good. We pray for a job and don't get it, but later see that a better position has come up. We pray for an opportunity, and the answer is no, but later, a better one comes up. We see that God's no was a protection for us, and that He had a better gift waiting all along, and then...we are happy.
But sometimes...sometimes, we get a "no" that is very hard to handle.
A loved one gets sick and dies, especially a child, and we say, "Why God, why didn't you just say yes and heal them?"
A family member dies in war, and we wonder why our prayers did not aid in their protection.
A friend dies in an accident, and hollowed out hearts and questioning prayers are all that remain.
Why? Why no and not yes? Why?
In some cases, we'll never know. The days of a man's life are numbered (Job 14:5-7), and some are long and some are short. But we all will die, it is a simple part of this life. We grieve and shout in the echoes of our soul at the loss of a loved one, but sometimes, there may be a very good reason why someone goes at the time they do.
"God desires all people to be saved" (1 Timothy 2:4.) God did not make us to cast us aside like trash. He calls us to Him, but we must go towards Him. We must accept Him through Christ and be reconciled to God. God loves us enough that His Son, Jesus, very God of very God, part of the Triune Godhead, died upon the Cross to reconcile us to a holy God. This is not the action of a God who is indifferent to us, or angry with us. This is the action of a God who deeply loves us, calls to us, woos us, waits for us.
God is all knowing, He sees each heart as we see faces. He knows when we are closest to Him, He knows when we are His. And sometimes, He brings us home at a time period when we are firmly in the faith.
Cancer and other chronic or terminal conditions are horrible. But I can tell you from a first hand point of view, of having been diagnosed with cancer once, and living with a heart condition that could kill me at any point, viewed in the right manner, such conditions can become the biggest blessings of all. They *force* you to look at eternity, to see what you value most in this life...and the next. They can deepen faith more than anything else, because you realize how fragile life is.
War, I imagine, is much the same way. You know you can die at any moment, so you are focused on being ready to die if it happens. You can't just leave things to chance, you have to stare at the specter of death we all spend so much time trying to avoid. War can call a man or woman to a higher sense of self and duty, to a deeper degree of love of brother (how many have died to save a fellow soldier?), and to treasure their loved ones all the more...because no day is guaranteed.
"If active service does not persuade a man to prepare for death, what conceivable concatenation of circumstances would?" C.S. Lewis on the topic of war.
Sometimes God says no in this life to save a soul in the next.
We see life in the short term, in what we presently experience, but we cannot see past a few moments hence, let alone what tomorrow will bring, or next year. We don't know what evil might befall us, or what horror might overtake us, but God knows. God knows our todays and our tomorrows, and often He calls us home to Him at the very time of His choosing in order to assure that we will spend eternity with Him.
God may be saying no now, so that a yes in eternity is possible.
This life is but a drop in an ocean; the dedication page to a novel ten thousand pages long. We live now thinking that this is all there is, that this is what is important, when this life is but the testing ground for the next. All the grand adventures are still ahead, and our real lives are yet to be lived.
We think short term, but God is eternal. We want a yes now; to an illness, or the life that is on the line due to an accident, but God may gently call them home; choosing now because His timing is perfect. We may not understand it, but He does.
God is not cruel. He does not take our loved ones from us out of spite, out of pettiness or out of indifference. We all will pass into death at some point, and those left behind will mourn and ache. But if God is calling our loved ones home, secure in Him, they go into His eternal light and love, and we will have endless days to share with them again.
Sometimes God says no now, so that a yes in eternity is assured.
-Beth Haynes Butler
(With thanks to my dear husband, scholar and sounding board, Charles who let me talk this piece over with him and gave me great feedback. I rarely write anything that doesn't have at least a touch of his views in there too. )
His child was sick, on the very edge of death.
As any faithful parent, when prayer and medical treatments had done nothing, he was left with a chasm of sorrow, at the prospect of what laid ahead.
"As his daughter lay very ill, Dr. Martin Luther said: "I love her very much, but dear God, if it be Thy will to take her, I submit to Thee." Then he said to her as she lay in bed: "Magdalene, my dear little daughter, would you like to stay here with your father, or would you willingly go to your Father yonder?" She answered: "Darling father, as God wills." Then he said, "Dearest child, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." Then he turned away and said: "I love her very much; if my flesh is so strong, what can my spirit do? God has given no bishop so great a gift in a thousand years as he has given me in her. I am angry with myself that I cannot rejoice in heart and be thankful as I ought."
Now as Magadalene lay in agony of death, her father fell down before the bed on his knees and wept bitterly and prayed that God might free her. Then she departed and fell asleep in her father's arms. As they laid her in the coffin he said: "Darling Lena, you will rise and shine like a star, yea, like the sun. I am happy in spirit, but the flesh is sorrowful and will not be content, the parting grieves me beyond measure. I have sent a saint to heaven."" (Taken from accounts of Luther's life, this took place in September of 1542)
Martin Luther was a man of towering faith and great resolve. He changed the world with the depth of his belief, and his love for Christ was renowned. You would think, if any man would ask God to spare his child and have that prayer answered, it would have been Martin.
Yet...God said...no.
Sometimes, we pray, and we get the answer we want, and naturally, we are happy.
Sometimes, we pray, and we get silence, and we wait. (And sometimes grumble.)
And sometimes, we pray, and the answer is no.
Now, that "no" can often be seen, in our lifetimes, to be for our good. We pray for a job and don't get it, but later see that a better position has come up. We pray for an opportunity, and the answer is no, but later, a better one comes up. We see that God's no was a protection for us, and that He had a better gift waiting all along, and then...we are happy.
But sometimes...sometimes, we get a "no" that is very hard to handle.
A loved one gets sick and dies, especially a child, and we say, "Why God, why didn't you just say yes and heal them?"
A family member dies in war, and we wonder why our prayers did not aid in their protection.
A friend dies in an accident, and hollowed out hearts and questioning prayers are all that remain.
Why? Why no and not yes? Why?
In some cases, we'll never know. The days of a man's life are numbered (Job 14:5-7), and some are long and some are short. But we all will die, it is a simple part of this life. We grieve and shout in the echoes of our soul at the loss of a loved one, but sometimes, there may be a very good reason why someone goes at the time they do.
"God desires all people to be saved" (1 Timothy 2:4.) God did not make us to cast us aside like trash. He calls us to Him, but we must go towards Him. We must accept Him through Christ and be reconciled to God. God loves us enough that His Son, Jesus, very God of very God, part of the Triune Godhead, died upon the Cross to reconcile us to a holy God. This is not the action of a God who is indifferent to us, or angry with us. This is the action of a God who deeply loves us, calls to us, woos us, waits for us.
God is all knowing, He sees each heart as we see faces. He knows when we are closest to Him, He knows when we are His. And sometimes, He brings us home at a time period when we are firmly in the faith.
Cancer and other chronic or terminal conditions are horrible. But I can tell you from a first hand point of view, of having been diagnosed with cancer once, and living with a heart condition that could kill me at any point, viewed in the right manner, such conditions can become the biggest blessings of all. They *force* you to look at eternity, to see what you value most in this life...and the next. They can deepen faith more than anything else, because you realize how fragile life is.
War, I imagine, is much the same way. You know you can die at any moment, so you are focused on being ready to die if it happens. You can't just leave things to chance, you have to stare at the specter of death we all spend so much time trying to avoid. War can call a man or woman to a higher sense of self and duty, to a deeper degree of love of brother (how many have died to save a fellow soldier?), and to treasure their loved ones all the more...because no day is guaranteed.
"If active service does not persuade a man to prepare for death, what conceivable concatenation of circumstances would?" C.S. Lewis on the topic of war.
Sometimes God says no in this life to save a soul in the next.
We see life in the short term, in what we presently experience, but we cannot see past a few moments hence, let alone what tomorrow will bring, or next year. We don't know what evil might befall us, or what horror might overtake us, but God knows. God knows our todays and our tomorrows, and often He calls us home to Him at the very time of His choosing in order to assure that we will spend eternity with Him.
God may be saying no now, so that a yes in eternity is possible.
This life is but a drop in an ocean; the dedication page to a novel ten thousand pages long. We live now thinking that this is all there is, that this is what is important, when this life is but the testing ground for the next. All the grand adventures are still ahead, and our real lives are yet to be lived.
We think short term, but God is eternal. We want a yes now; to an illness, or the life that is on the line due to an accident, but God may gently call them home; choosing now because His timing is perfect. We may not understand it, but He does.
God is not cruel. He does not take our loved ones from us out of spite, out of pettiness or out of indifference. We all will pass into death at some point, and those left behind will mourn and ache. But if God is calling our loved ones home, secure in Him, they go into His eternal light and love, and we will have endless days to share with them again.
Sometimes God says no now, so that a yes in eternity is assured.
-Beth Haynes Butler
(With thanks to my dear husband, scholar and sounding board, Charles who let me talk this piece over with him and gave me great feedback. I rarely write anything that doesn't have at least a touch of his views in there too. )
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