Making Connections : What’s going on, what’s God trying to tell us?
Posted on Wednesday, October 8, 2008
What is going on ?
That is what I ask myself each time I watch the evening news. What I see is an endless litany of disaster and doom: Financial collapse, suicide bombers, meth labs, pedophiles, hurricanes, AIDS, global warming and still other things that you can't talk about in polite company.
Where is all of this coming from ? What does it mean in the grand scheme of things ? Or more to the point - what does it mean to me and my family ?
I know I am not the only one asking those questions. Everyone struggles to make sense of life at times. Bad things happen. Bankruptcies occur, illness strikes, fighting erupts, war begins. None of it seems to be decipherable at the time it happens. As we struggle to understand we feel like Jacob wrestling with the angel.
Years ago, when I was pastor of a United Methodist Church in eastern Arkansas, I made regular pastoral visits to a parishioner named Paul. He was in his 70 s and had once run a store in the community. Because of a stroke Paul had aphasia - he couldn't talk straight.
To this day I can recall every word he ever said to me. That is because his vocabulary had been reduced to just two words," You know. "If I asked how he was doing he would say," You know. "If I mentioned something about the church he would want to comment on it. With all the energy and inflection of normal conversation he would say," You know ! You know, you know, you know, you know. You know, you know ? "Sometimes he would laugh and sometimes he would cry. And most of the time I failed to understand what he meant.
But aphasia wasn't his problem, it was my problem. He knew what he was saying. I had to figure out what he was saying.
It is often our problem, our task, to figure out what God is trying to tell us when we wrestle with events in our lives.
I learned something about this from Paul's wife. You see, she could understand him. She often sat in on our conversations and "translated"for me. Why was it that she could understand what I could not understand ?
The answer is simple. She was with him daily and loved him greatly. When Paul spoke she wasn't just relying on his words. She was drawing her understanding from their lifelong relationship. As a result she understood his body language, his emotions, his personality and his past. And she could put all of that together to gain an understanding of what was on his mind.
There is the answer for us. It is easier to understand what God is saying to us when we have a loving and long relationship to draw upon. Loving God, living with God, walking with God and serving God faithfully is like having a spiritual translator at our disposal.
David B. Bentley is the pastor at First United Methodist Church of Rogers and can be contact at 631-7997 or by e-mail at rogersrev @ sbcglobal. net.
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