Next-Wave Ezine > church & culture

When God Won't Dance
By Bob Hyatt

I have no idea if our gathering "worked" for anyone but me today...but it worked for me. I got where I needed to go.

We walked through the first part of Luke 7. Jesus heals the centurion's servant. He raises a young child from the dead. These people see the promise of Messiah fulfilled up close and personal.

But John (the Baptist) is left, sitting in prison, doubting. He sends messengers to Jesus asking “Are you the one, or should we look for another?” Of course, the real question here is, “If you are the Messiah, then why am I still in prison?”

Jesus tells them to go back and report all the things Messiah was supposed to do, sight for the blind, the lame walking, the dead raised, all of that and more Jesus was doing. Of course, in quoting that messianic passage from Isaiah to John, Jesus leaves out the part about releasing the captives.

And Jesus says: "Happy is the person who doesn't get offended by the way I choose to do things."

Or don't do things, as the case may be.

The thing is, I was just about weepy through most of the morning. I felt a little goofy for not being able to get it together.

As we were talking about the widow who lost her only son, and the impact that would have on her, I told how a couple of weeks ago, when Amy's dad died, she called me in absolute hysterics. I couldn't understand anything she was saying to me, other than the word "dead." I heard "he's dead." All I could think was that she was trying to tell me that Jack, our son, had been hurt or killed.

For about 30 seconds, the bottom dropped out of my world. I can't even describe the feeling to you. I imagine some people reading this have experienced what I'm talking about, and for that I'm very, very sorry. The thought that I had lost my only child made me weak in the knees, everything was spinning, and all I could do was try to push that thought away and get some clarification from Amy as to what had happened.

Talking about that today, putting myself in the place of the widow in the story, just about did me in.
Of course, the most beautiful part of the story was the line, "and Jesus gave him back to his mother."

The problem is, what we were talking about this morning is the fact that sometimes God works miracles, and sometimes, He doesn't. Sometimes people are healed, sometimes the dead are raised and then sometimes, He says no. Even good people are left sitting, wondering, doubting. Sometimes, it feels like we are praying to a wall. Why won’t God just make things be the way I desperately want and even need them to be?

"How shall I describe this generation?" Jesus asked. "With what will I compare them? They are like a group of children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, `We played wedding songs, and you weren't happy, so we played funeral songs, but you weren't sad.' For John the Baptist didn't drink wine and he often fasted, and you say, 'He's demon possessed.' And I, the Son of Man, feast and drink, and you say, 'He's a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of the worst sort of sinners!' But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it."

Sometimes God just won't behave.

He stubbornly refuses to dance to the tunes we call.

So, as we read and talked I just kept thinking about all the people who are part of Evergreen, our community, who are suffering, so many people I know are going through hard times right now---it just seems abnormal.

And as we talked, I choked up, as we prayed I choked up, as we sang, I choked up.

For my wife and her sister who lost their father, for those struggling with infertility, for those going through the worst week of their life.

"Blessed is the person who doesn't get offended by the way I do things, or don't do them."

And blessed is the man who remembers to pray for his community, day in and day out, to ask God to listen, to answer, to act.

Bob Hyatt is husband to Amy, father to Jack and lead pastor to the evergreen community in Portland, OR. He is also in the beginning stages of launching the nextChurch network, dedicated to encouraging church planting through encouraging church planters.