Painted Flowers

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Painted Flowers

I bought these flowers for my wife yesterday. An early nod to Mother’s Day. Since we are having guests over at the house today, I thought she would appreciate having the flowers earlier to display.

They looked amazing online. They looked even more amazing when they arrived. Then I noticed the blue on the leaves and realized that the blue coloring was painted, not natural. Still beautiful. Still a lovely gift. But unexpected. Sometimes God works through us, literally.

Recently, I’ve been contemplating the role of us (me) in the world in relation to God. I didn’t grow up with a belief in God, but I have grown up with a sense of humility. My smallness, my being a limited being, makes sense to me both experientially and spiritually.

I experienced chronic pain for decades, then I was healed. It wasn’t “sudden”. It wasn’t inexplicable. But it was a miracle. I played an important role in my healing. I did the work. I practiced various mind and body techniques on a daily basis to achieve healing. I took (and take) medication for my related depression. I spent years in therapy. But I can now admit, without doubt, that I didn’t do it all on my own. God worked through us to create the learning and techniques that I applied to my healing and made it available to me. God worked through scientists to develop the medications. And God provided me the belief that I could be healed. He did all this without me believing in him. I know the teaching is that God is willing and able to heal us. We just need to believe. So why was I, an unbeliever, healed? I can’t say for sure, but I think it was in order to provide me with some evidence of His existence. To provide me what I really needed (more than physical healing) — faith. It’s been years since my healing from chronic pain, and only now do I have such faith. Like my healing, it wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t inexplicable. But it is a miracle.

In humility, I found faith. And in humility I also find grace. I have a role to play. I do good. I do bad. It matters. But, as with my healing, I’m not alone in this. God provides for me. The good in my life comes from God and I play a small, but important role in it all. What about the bad?

Today during fellowship, I learned about the Devil. At first I was distraught. I’ve only just started believing in one higher power and now you are asking me to believe in another? My brain started to try to logic through it all. There is something, cartoonish, about the idea of a Devil. A higher power that I name God with good intentions seems somehow more credible than one with bad intentions. But why? I don’t know. It’s just how I felt upon hearing the teaching. But as I listened to others share about how the alternative is to think that God is somehow testing us with all the bad things in our life. Or that we, alone, are the cause of all the world’s horrors. That it’s God’s will for a child to have cancer. Or that I have repeatedly hurts those that I love just because I’m a bad or weak person. I started to think, why not believe? Why not believe in a God that want’s the best for his children like every decent father does? Why not believe that we need protection from evil? And why not believe that there is also a higher power in this universe that favors chaos and harm. That there is a reason for all the horrors in the world. And that there is a pathway for all of us to be saved? Such belief doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility to do good (and not do bad), but it does provide me with the grace and forgiveness for my sins from the past. Yes, why not, indeed!

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Be well,

Monty

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