A friend of mine I have known for years is in the hospital and is not doing so good. His family is continuing to pray for his recovery as are many many friends of the man himself and his family. There a many views of God's role in the lives of people and to be honest the only way we will know which, if any of those views is true is when we arrive in heaven one day.
My friend is a God fearing, and God believing man. I don't mean he fears God in a way we fear death or bad things happening. What I mean by God fearing is simply he is in awe of God and his power. A healthy respect if you prefer. My friend respects God and His omnipotence and omnicicience. I know those are big words but it takes a big word to describe God in the terms my friend (and me too) understand Him to be.
God is not some obscure being that looks down on us and never interacts with our lives. He moves within our lives in a way as to not force His will upon us. We have to choose Him. It is like a friendship. When we meet someone new, it is not enough to just choose them as a friend, we also have to be chosen by them. God has already chosen us to be his friend, He is just waiting on us to choose Him back. This is a concept my friend understands well.
My friend introduced me to God in a personal way 38 years ago when I was just 14 and still in need of a mentor to help me through life. I credit my friend with giving me the tools I needed to survive in this world. Faith in God and someone who had faith in me. That was all I needed at that time.
Now some 38 years later, it is still all I need. My faith in God has evolved as I grew older. I now have a better understanding of God's participation in my life. That faith in God has gotten me through many bad times: the loss of both my parents; a very bad divorce after nearly 18 years of marriage; a child who spent almost a year in a hostile country fighting for our country. It has also brought me into some very great periods: I have a wonderful wife who believes in me, and however blinded by her love for me, she believes me to be a better person than I feel I am. More importantly, I have come to believe in myself. Not in my importance or greatness, but in my ability to take what God blessed me with and use it to make it through life.
Each day in life, my friend has chosen to live his life in amazement of a God he loves, admires and reveres. This outlook in life he passed on to his sons and also to me, his mentee from 30 odd years ago. It is a legacy I will forever cherish because he took the time to invest time in me.
Getting back to the different views of God's participation in our lives, many people look at God as a being that is all powerful but they feel you can't really know God. Others look at God as a friend in time of need, but rarely ever interact with Him otherwise. Those are the ones we labled C & E Christians (for Christmas and Easter) because that was the only time they came to worship. Still others, like my friend, look to God as a confidant, a friend, a redeemer. Still others look at God with a little g. A mere figment of our imagination, an invisible friend to help us through the things we don't understand. What it all boils down to is something called FAITH, either you have it or you don't. I have no physical proof God exists that would satisfy a non-believer. What I do have is my own faith and the one thing that while it proves to me the existence of God, it wouldn't prove it to someone without faith. That thing is the life of my friend. Every day of his life has been a testament to the existence of God to me and those who have been fortunate to know him.
As my friend struggles, I am not sure if God will answer the prayers of family and friends the way we wish for him to and allow a complete recovery. One thing I do know is this: my friend is a friend of God's and he has already won this battle. If he recovers, he wins. If he does not recover, and God calls him home, he wins. This battle is already won. See we will miss our friend, but he will be forever with his friend and his God.
We are praying for a miracle but the miracle already happened. The miracle is that I met this man and he became my friend. Regardless of the outcome of this battle, I am amazed at the life I have had because someone took the time to care about me. I am amazed at the chance he took on me and the time he chose to spend with a young man like me who had no one to guide him in the way he should go. He took the time to be amazed at the wonders of God and passed them on to me. TODAY I CHOOSE TO BE AMAZED.
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