Of Faith and Folly

(This is a very long entry, because it addresses a subject for which I have far more questions than answers. In hopes that it will help you in your own struggles, though, I'm inviting you into mine. --Ed.)

 
Click here to read the story in yesterday's news about the couple whose 11-year-old daughter died Easter Sunday after her parents, who believed God was going to heal whatever had been causing her health to decline over the weeks leading up to her death, refused to seek medical care for her.

I have very strong but very mixed feelings about situations like this one. I am furious with the parents. I'm appalled that none of the friends who begged them to get a doctor did more to intervene. I'm grieved at their loss of a child. I'm afraid for their spiritual wellbeing, since their particular theology teaches that if their daughter died from illness, they must have been in sin or lacked faith. I'm afraid for what will happen to them if they go to prison. 

I have personally been witness to supernatural healings -- injured muscles instantly mended, malignant tumors discovered to have "mysteriously" disappeared or to have been transformed into benign swellings -- that only involved medical personnel inasmuch as they were able to confirm through examination that what we'd prayed for had taken place. To deny that those things happen, then, would make me a willful liar.

At the same time, I disagree completely with the teachings followed by the parents of the now-deceased little girl -- that all physical illness is due to sin, curable by asking God's forgiveness and offering prayers with a sufficient amount of faith. There are entire sects built on this belief, and I cannot imagine how depressing it must be to serve as a pastor of such a group... since, following that logic, one must be failing as a spiritual leader if all one's congregants eventually die.
(In case you're wondering... they do.)

This subject strikes at the heart of my questions about God's sovereignty and goodwill towards creation. If God intended for someone to die but faithful believers prayed -- or, for that matter, the paramedics arrived just in time -- would His ultimate will be thwarted? Or if God wanted to heal someone through prayers but none were found with sufficient faith to offer them, would He sigh and reluctantly pull the plug?

Drawing a more concrete example from the previous entry: if a tornado is imminent, should I leave my son and husband sleeping upstairs and trust that because of my prayers, God won't let them be harmed? Conversely, is it lack of faith in God's ability or willingness to save us that causes me to prepare for threatening weather?
Is it none of the above?

In addition to the [otherwise] inexplicable healings I've seen, I've been in a now-infamous car wreck that, by all accounts, should have killed one or more of us. Given how fast we were traveling, the way we crashed and the number of potentially lethal objects thrown around in the car with us, the fact that we came out with only a couple bumps and bruises among the four of us makes no sense whatsoever.

The difference between the life-altering or potentially fatal circumstances I've brought up and the one addressed in the news article is that unlike the girl's parents, none of us refused the practical means of intervention that were available to us. The friend with vanishing tumors wasn't rejecting medical treatment for his cancer; he had recently been diagnosed and was a few days from starting chemo when we prayed for him. In the midst of the car wreck, I did indeed cry out to God but sure as hell didn't take off my seat belt as we launched into the air.

There comes a time when the line that separates faith from folly becomes impossible to see... and sometimes, that's because it's behind you.

********************* 

There's more coming, but it's well past my bedtime. Feel free to comment, but before you reach for the torches and pitchforks, please bear in mind that I'm not done going where I'm headed.
I'm not even in the handbasket yet. :)  

Comments

[J. Lo]

Christ is Risen!


I'm happy to say that we probably won't come to a clear theology on this one. In fact, it's probably oversystemization of God which caused the death of the little girl in the story.

Does God's sovreignty and goodwill towards man necessitate the questions you pose?

During both of our recent fence destroying storms, the family all gathered into the tub to avoid the worst, yet at the same time I grabbed my icons of Christ and his mother and begin to pray without ceasing that we would be delivered from harm. Neither seemed incompatible to me.

To one is given divine deliverance, and the next suffers and dies. Is God unjust?

I too have seen miraculous healings, I too have seen "meaningless" suffering. Perhaps his ways aren't our ways, and his logic is beyond our comprehension.

On this day, Bright Wednesday, we can stand and marvel at the Resurrection. But on Great and Holy Saturday, all that could be done was to weep and lament the desolation of Zion, as Christ lay dead in the tomb. The Holy Myrhh beareres went with weeping to the tomb as soon as possible, to annoint the Lord for burial, and instead found the risen Christ.

Perhaps we will see that some are redemmed through great tribulation and suffering, and others are redeemed by fervent prayer. If redemption is the outcome, than the means, no matter how lamentable, were worth it.

And of course it is important that death is not the end, but represents an unnatural state and is, per the Scripture, the final enemy to be overcome. As horrible as it is, it is but a pale shadow compared to the light of the universal ressurection.


Until then, we annoint with oil, we offer up fervent prayer, we go to the doctor when necessary, and let God, who loves mankind and has mercy upon us, do the rest.

In IC XC,
J to the Lizzo