afterhours

I am here:

Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.

-Job 40.4

I can add nothing to that.

Well, God, I've tried everything else.

Last fall, during one of those late-night/early-morning talks that are oh so indispensable during the college years, I was introduced to an Idea that has stayed with me since. Through it I am spending my last-summer-at-home, my time-before-grad-school.

The night I went to Mo's room to debrief the day, according to tradition, and ended up falling apart about something, according to habit. Questions about Life, the Universe, and Everything, as specifically applied to our own microcosmic existences, were batted about for the next few hours. These are generally very cathartic experiences, helpful for the momentary release of stress or tension but of little lasting impact (other than, of course, the inestimably great additions they make to the "quality time" foundation of friendships).

Susan smacked me with this one, though, that shook me up so much I haven't forgotten this particular conversation, while hundreds of its companions have been lost to recollection.
She said something roughly akin to the following:
"So I pray for my family. So I worry about my family. Well, when I pray, even for good things, like my family, from a place of worry and fear, I am not praying because I believe God is the answer. I'm praying because I don't believe anything else is. And that is not faith."

Often, that is how I pray.
Often, when I am afraid of something, I pray as a defense against what I fear. When I need something, I pray as a last-ditch effort. If Plan A or Scheme B falls through, well-Jesus-it's-all-in-your-hands-now-your-will-be-done. When it's not His will I'm seeking at all, it's mine, with the rubber-stamp thumbs-up of divine sanction on my actions.
Seems that this kind of prayer is somewhat insulting, if He is who I say He is.

So. Do I mean what I say?
Does He mean what He says?

I've gone too long treating God like the panic button.
Like the joke about the old lady and the captain of the sinking ship:
"Well, ma'am, we'll just have to trust in the Almighty now."
"Oh, captain, surely it's not as bad as that?"

As a matter of fact, it's not as bad as that. It's as amazing as that. It's as true as that. It's as factual and splendid as that.

So an adjustment had to be made. Is still underway. I'm still praying about many of the same things. In same cases the ship is still taking on water. Everything hasn't transformed. But some things have; some things have been answered and resolved so incredibly I can only credit Christ. Which is exactly how it should be, and, so help me God, how it will stay.

Faith is a funny thing. Where I don't see, I'm told to believe, and more than singing it or thinking it or even philosophizing it, I have to do it. He's not a long shot, not a dark horse candidate who can maybe pull something out at the last minute if I'm lucky.
That's how I've acted, though.

So much has happened in the past six months, and so much more looms ahead.
Bring it on. No matter the outcome. He who began the work will complete it, one way or another: I know in whom I have believed.

Not the last resort. The first choice.