jesus christ

He asks us to trust him

My mom is scheduled to have voluntary surgery on her neck tomorrow. She has one or more herniated discs that have been causing her pain for some time. The problem is that the discs are pressing up against her spinal cord. This makes her two options of either getting the surgery or not getting the surgery both risky. 

On one hand, even with our modern standards and practices, surgeries are inherently dangerous, especially around the spine. There is a risk that the surgery may not help her, or that it could make things worse. Additionally, some other unforeseen issue like an infection, for example, may arise as a result of the procedure. We simply can’t know. 

On the other hand, if she does nothing, the problem remains. She will have to live with the pain that has been bothering her for some time. Additionally, she has been warned by multiple doctors that, because her discs are pressing against her spinal cord, if left untreated, an accident could result in her being paralyzed from the neck down. This threat of paralysis is ultimately what motivated her to get the surgery. 

But I’m worried. I’m worried because I cannot predict the future and I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m worried because the whole thing is out of my control. While I know that this worry doesn’t help and it won’t change the outcome of the surgery, fear still haunts me. And yet, as I write this, I’m reminded that all God really asks from us is that we trust him. 

Since the beginning of time, God has been asking this one simple thing of his people, but, in spite of the fact that he is always faithful and always keeps his promises, we still hesitate. From Adam and Eve, Abraham, Noah, Moses, and the people of Israel, to David, the prophets, Mary, Joseph, the apostles, and Jesus himself, God asks us to trust him. 

He promises that he loves us, that he is always truthful, always faithful, always just, and that he will never lead us astray. He proves this in his written word in the Bible, in the living word of Jesus Christ, and in our own lives day in and day out. But like Adam and Eve in the Garden, we so often don’t believe him, like Moses at Mount Horeb, we are reluctant to answer his call, and like Thomas after the resurrection of Jesus, we doubt him and demand proof that he is who he says he is.

And yet, in spite of our prideful mistrust and disbelief, the Lord remains steadfast. He provides what we need, even when it is not what we think we want. He is faithful even when we are not and he loves us even when that love is not reciprocated. So, am I worried about my mother’s surgery? Yes. I am. Do I have reason to be? Well, I guess that depends which part of me you are asking. 

The selfish, broken, and sinful part of me worries because, like Adam and Eve, I have eaten the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and I want to be like God, knowing what God knows, seeing what he sees, and determining the outcome of all things. But the faithful, trusting, and humble side of me knows that my Heavenly Father is always good, that he knows what is best, and that he has a plan that is beyond my understanding. And so I remain to pray. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Snowmen aren’t forever

As we were coming home this evening after a long day of church and youth wrestling, my daughter and I noticed that the snowman she built earlier this week had started to melt. It still has its general shape and the sticks she used for arms are still there, but it is a smaller, less distinguished version of itself, and its holly-leaf eyes and nose are gone. “Awww,” she said, “My snowman is melting. I worked so hard on him.” 

“Sadly dear, nothing in this world lasts forever,” I told her, “So we have to appreciate them while they are here.” “But daddy,” she replied, “I saw a sign the other day that said, ‘Presidents are temporary. Wu-Tang is forever.'” I grew up listening to the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan so I couldn’t help but to laugh when I heard this.

“That’s just hyperbole, dear,” I said, “Wu-Tang is not really forever any more than your snowman is.” “What’s hyperbole?” she asked. “It’s an exaggeration,” I told her, “but its an exaggeration not meant to be taken seriously. It’s a joke. Wu-Tang Clan has been making music for over thirty years, but, like your snowman, they aren’t forever. Only God is forever.” 

Now, I realize that this is too much for a nine-year-old to fully comprehend. Honestly, the concepts of transience and eternity are too much for any of us to fully comprehend. However, I don’t think it’s a conversation that should be avoided. Our time here is extremely short and our time with our children is even shorter. What good does it do to withhold the most important conversations about the most important subjects from them? 

Of course, I want my daughter to enjoy her childhood and to be a kid for as long as she can be a kid, but I also want her to know that there is more to life than simply what she sees and feels. My hope is that, by understanding just how impermanent her snowman, or Wu-Tang Clan, is, that she appreciates it even more while it lasts. 

Her experience of building that particular snowman in that particular moment was truly one of a kind. It never happened before and will never happen again. Her sadness in seeing it melt is real and it should be acknowledged as such. If she cared about what she created, of course there is some grief in its passing, even if it is just a snowman. This sense of loss is real and it will not be the last time she experiences it. 

But I don’t think God created this world of impermanence simply for us to exist in a perpetual state of sadness, grief, and loss. Rather, the fact that we live in an ever-changing world where everything that is born eventually dies and everything that is built eventually crumbles should make us appreciate the preciousness of each and every moment, experience, and interaction as the amazing gift that it is. Furthermore, this experience of impermanence calls us to go deeper, to seek or settle into that which does not change, does not die, and does not pass away (Malachi 3:6). 

Like my daughter’s snowman, “Everything around us is going to melt away, (2 Peter 3:11).” So our task, it seems, is to cherish our time here as much as possible without clinging to it. As St. Francis of Assisi said, we are to “wear this world like a loose garment.” But we are called to do so while loving so deeply that, through our example, others may also come to know the constancy of God’s eternity through Christ Jesus (John 13:34-35). 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Be right or be free

During the recent snowstorm we had, my wife unknowingly parked in a parking space that someone else had shoveled out for herself. By the time she parked there, almost every parking space in our complex had been cleared out, so it seemed harmless to take whatever space was available. But when she returned to her car, there was an angry note on her windshield. 

The note read something like, “I don’t appreciate you parking in the parking space that I shoveled out for myself. I had to get surgery and was counting on being able to park in that space when I got back. That’s why I put the orange cone there.” 

The problem is that, when my wife parked there, there was no orange cone. It was simply one of many empty parking spaces. She also had no way of knowing that the person who shoveled it out was having surgery. Nor was this an assigned or handicapped parking space. It was truly an innocent misunderstanding, but this misunderstanding created an unfortunate chain reaction.

Anger is a funny thing. It often seems as if it’s contagious. For example, my wife unknowingly parked in a parking space that another woman believed belonged to her. The woman got angry and left an inflammatory note on my wife’s car. When my wife read the note, she got angry. Feeling she was unjustly criticized, I then got angry on my wife’s behalf. But I soon began to see the absurdity of all of this anger over a parking space. 

As I sat with this thought for a while, it occurred to me that resentment is really a distraction. In fact, it’s a deadly distraction in that it separates us from God. It prevents us from looking to him for guidance and listening for his quiet voice. Resentment convinces us that our feelings are more important what Jesus’s says is the greatest commandments of all, which is to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40 NIV). To willfully hold onto a resentment is to defy God himself. 

And so we have a decision to make. We can either be angry or we can be obedient. We can hold onto resentments or we can make room in our hearts to hear God’s voice. We can be right, at least in our own minds, or we can forgive and be free. As it says in the book of Matthew 6:14-15, if we forgive others, God will forgive us, but if we choose not to forgive, we will also not be forgiven. A heart filled with anger has no room for love and, since we are told that God is love, that means that a heart filled with anger has no room for God (1 John 4:8). 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

The love of the Father

It pains me to see my daughter suffer. When she is sick, injured, or melancholy, it hurts my heart. It’s not hyperbole to say that I would do anything in my power to alleviate her suffering, to save her from pain, and to keep her alive. If it came down to it, if her life hung in the balance and I could take her place in death so that she could live, I would do so. 

I know I am not alone in this. I’m not special for feeling this way. In fact, I assume that every loving parent feels exactly the same way about their children. Perhaps this is a God-given instinct because, according to scripture, this is how God feels about us, his children.

God loves us so much, in fact, that he came to the world in human form, as Jesus, simply so that he could take our place in death. He sacrificed himself for our salvation. He died on the cross so that we may live with him in eternity. Is there a greater expression of parental love than this? What could be more loving than to give one’s own life for the sake of someone else? Yet this is exactly what God did when he sacrificed himself, in the form of his only son, so that our sins may be forgiven. 

And since this sacrifice has already been made, we do not even have to ask for it. We did not, cannot, and do not deserve it. All we can do is to accept it. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.