Bargaining with God
By Audrey Stallsmith
This corona virus thing has many of us bargaining with God just now. That can be what we rednecks call “a tough row to hoe” when the One with Whom you are negotiating can read your mind.
One of my most recent attempts to strike a deal with Deity was over my father taking my car to be inspected. Dad usually does that—partly for my sake because I know nothing about cars and partly because he enjoys chatting with all the people who drift in and out of the service station.
Although men always accuse women of gossiping, I contend that it’s the guys—especially elderly guys—who always want to know the who, what, where, etc. of everything that is going on. Of course, males also have a macho image to uphold. Dad took his mask with him, but I knew he probably wouldn’t wear it if the other guys weren’t wearing any. And I turned out to be right about that.
Meanwhile, I was doing some of that bargaining with God that I mentioned earlier. “I know that any place with people coming and going all the time is not the best place for a 91-year-old to be just now. I should either have taken the car myself or insisted that we drop it off and pick it up later. But the governor is lifting the stay-at-home order, so we must be out of the woods now, right? And you know that I always am too much of a worrywart and need to change my ways about that.
Besides, Dad really needs that sort of thing rather than being stuck at home with somebody who does most of her talking inside her head. Okay, one reason I didn’t put up more of a fuss is that I really hate-hate-hate dealing with mechanics myself, when I have no idea whether what they want to fix is valid or not. And I really hate-hate-hate having to argue with Dad about anything, because the father is supposed to be the authority figure. Not to mention that, as with most of us stubborn Stallsmiths, opposition usually only makes him more determined. So please keep him safe anyway, okay?”
No doubt, I think I ‘m going to win a few brownie points for being honest. But God can see that just as well as he sees my other deviousness. And I suddenly realize that I am treating Him as if he were a hard-to-please tyrant who would rather not be bothered with my requests and will find any excuse He can to refuse them unless I pester Him enough. Sort of like the unjust judge in a certain Bible story.
In reality, God is a loving Father Himself who enjoys being able to do things for His children too. Do I really think He is going to kill off Dad just to teach me a lesson?
Of course, there is a difference between causing such a catastrophe and allowing it to happen. Sometimes, to answer our prayers, God would have to change the natural course of things. So how does He decide when to do that and when not?
The service station proved to be just be the beginning. Since our congregation is a small one, we were able to go back to church on Mother’s Day, which was the first time we had met since early March. I was extremely happy about that, as virtual services really don’t approximate the assembling of ourselves together which Paul reminded us was essential to our Christian life. But, since our congregation is a mostly elderly one, I also was asking God to prevent our being the death of each other too.
And then there was Dad’s birthday party, when 15 or so family members gathered to celebrate his turning 92. In our small house, social distancing was impossible for anyone but the cats, who always make themselves scarce when guests arrive.
Not that the corona virus is the only danger out there—just one of the newest ones. And there are many we never even think to pray about. For example, the sister of one of our acquaintances recently died in a freak accident when a glass door shattered and pierced one of her veins.
It got me to thinking that our attempts at guarding against physical dangers must always be inadequate, to say the least. Besides, the spiritual ones are so much more important.
I’m guessing that more people have been pondering on that since the corona virus reared its red-noduled head, and they actually have had the time and motivation to think about such things. But I’m afraid they also are likely to stop thinking about them once life gets back to a more hectic normal. And that is where the real danger comes in.
Those who aren’t believers can easily forget the spiritual pondering that the virus provoked, while we Christians may add attempts to protect ourselves and restore our finances to a to-do list which already is crowding out Christ. As Dallas Willard notes in The Great Omission, “God never gives anyone too much to do. We do that to ourselves.”
I’m convinced that most people who lose their faith don’t abruptly repudiate it. It just gets pushed out by other things, as many of the seedlings in my garden get choked out by weeds which I never got around to rooting out.
Or, to use another metaphor, we might say that spiritual health too easily gives way to drift. While our church was closed, we did listen to a virtual Sunday morning service from a larger church in our denomination. But I hate to admit that we seldom did anything about replacing our Sunday and Wednesday evening services. That, I now see, was a mistake, since spiritual health requires a constant pulling against the current, while spiritual drift can be as insidious and deadly as any virus.
Fortunately, other habits such as daily devotions and the reading of Christian books or magazines can help keep us on track too. Still, I am glad we now have other church members holding us up to our responsibilities again. One of the advantages of belonging to a small congregation is that those other members notice if you aren’t there—and want to know why!
When we were driving home from the evening service on our reopening Sunday, Dad’s CD player reassured me with the lyrics of “I Know Who Holds Tomorrow” by Ira Stanphill. Perhaps that song always speaks to me because it acknowledges we can’t see what dangers, either spiritual or physical, we will face in the future. But we do know Whom we can follow through them. I should be asking, as Willard did, “Why should I fear anything that cannot rob me of God and why should I desire anything that cannot give me possession of Him?”
I’ve changed the pronouns in the verse of Stamphill’s song that brings me the most reassurance:
The path that is our portion
May be through the flame or flood,
But His presence goes before us
And we are covered with His blood.