All Things Well

“ And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it; and were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. ”

What do you think about a God who is always listening—listening to your words—to what you say, even under your breath. Listening you your thoughts—to your ideas, to your evaluations of others, to temptations that you probably suppress and decide against. Listening to your heart—to emotions, to every fondness or feeling of anger, estrangement, and opposition. Listening to your wishes, desires, regrets, hopes and hopelessness. What about a God who invades your inner world like that? Can you trust such a God?

Let's say the government could do that: plant some kind of computer chip inside your head that would monitor not only brain wave activity, heart rate, blood pressure and autonomic responses, like a lie detector, but could actually read the very substance of your thoughts and record them, along with what you actually say. What a Big Brother that would make! With that much knowledge of what we think and do, want and hate, love and lust: wouldn't a government be able to either meet all our perceived needs in order to control us, or put fear in us that even our hearts might betray us to the mighty state? I'd guess we'd all resist such controls. Nobody needs a government living inside our hearts.

It used to be popular to think of angels sitting on our shoulders, one good, one bad, each angel trying to show us the way. The angels seemed able to know what we were thinking, and putting thoughts in our heads as though we'd originated them was their job. One, a little demon, would tempt us with wicked ideas. The other, a holy angel, tried to help us resist the devil and give us more godly ideas. That's the stuff of cartoons, but it may be closer to reality than we believe. There is a spiritual world and beings we don't see with our eyes, ones who can at least make pretty good guesses at what we're thinking and wanting.

The Old Testament shows a belief by the ancient Jewish people of the great God on high, beyond the worlds, who had chosen Abraham and made Himself known to Moses. As things unfolded, the ideas developed that God's Spirit would be felt for certain people, that they would hear God's voice and feel His immanent Presence, see His activity in the world and know He was not simply far away. This was a God who cared about people, and He was right here. There was also talk of a future king, Messiah, who would have this Spirit of God so strongly in Him that he would never die, and would rule the entire world. The Jews, monotheists like the Zoroastrians, began to understand One God in Three Persons-Father, Spirit, and Davidic King. But it took the coming of that King to teach them more about Himself.

Jesus was and is an anomaly, what appears to be a walking contradiction. He is poor and little known, and yet He calls Himself a King to the governor. He has no home, no profession, no religious recognition, no church, no membership and a truly unstable following, and yet He is in charge of the Temple whenever He enters there. No one touched Him when He drove out the moneychangers. No one arrested Him when He denounced the priests and scribes. He will live forever, and yet He gives Himself over to be crucified. And He does the most marvelous public healings. One man, in a Roman city, possibly a Gentile, is brought to Jesus deaf and tongue-tied. Jesus put His fingers in the man's ears and on his tongue, giving the command, “Be opened!” And the man's hearing was restored and his speech made plain. Then Jesus commands everybody to keep this wonder to themselves. What are we to make of such a man?

If you get nervous in the bank when you notice the cameras trained on your face as you proceed to the counter; if you are bothered by cameras overhead at intersections of streets; if you are wondering weather the Patriot Act might have Homeland Security listening to your cell phone calls; if you don't like being under such surveillance: you know you are dealing with human government. Humans are faulty. People can have less than perfect motives in watching others. Peeping Toms and wire-tappers have no business in our private lives. Computers only serve to make their surveillance that much more efficient. We might fear our neighbors, and the people living among us who have evil intentions, but we don't like being the focus of other people's watchdogs.

But what about a God who is watching us? Could He have a wrong intention in this? Remember that Jesus was not like other men. What we could expect from Him He didn't do—rather He did very differently from the things other people did. He was not only much more powerful, but He used that power wisely and perfectly. He did read people's minds. Every time. They tried to trick Him and He turned the tables on them. They came asking one question, seeking one thing, and He gave them what they really needed, the answer to the question they didn't ask, the healing that they were afraid to ask for: “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

And remember this. In Jesus Christ, God became man. A God who sees all and knows all, who can read your mind and knows your secrets, is also a man . Men we distrust for men are sinful and corruptible. We may distrust God because He is the judge and is all powerful and knows everything. But if God is also man, is perfect in all His ways, and does all things well, might we finally be able to trust Somebody? Might we trust and welcome the Holy One who can have no evil intention, has all godly attributes, and Who is a man like us, who can be touched by our tears, our fears, our weaknesses and our failings. He knows temptation. He knows its power. He knows our physical nature. But as God He knows everything a man would not know as well.

He does all things well. The Collect for this Sunday is one of my very favorites in the Church Year. Hear it again.

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

God is always ready to hear us, even more than we are to pray. That's good news if you think your prayers tire Him out or make Him cross with you. No, rather He loves it when you stop and talk to Him. God wants to give us much, even more than we desire, and certainly much more than we deserve. So, if you were afraid to ask Him for something, know that He wants to give you even better things than you have ever thought of. He can forgive us those sins, even the ones that make us afraid to tell Him in prayer and confess to Our God. And He can give us good and wonderful things, far beyond our worthiness to ask. But we can ask, by the worthiness of that King who seemed not to be a king, that man who is God, that God who is man, that high priest who was offered as a sacrifice for the whole world.

Then why doesn't God answer all our prayers, poor though they be, immediately and show us how loving and kind He is? This is a hard one, because after a lesson like this we would want to prove how great He is, and how He can be trusted with the deepest desires of our hearts. Why doesn't He always grant such earnest and heartfelt prayers, our most desperate cases, our greatest pains with His rapid relief and miraculous help? Sometimes He does. Sometimes He waits. Sometimes nothing seems to change. Why?

He does all things well. There are prayers, desires, schemes and aspirations you might remember from earlier in your life that, if you had had your own way, might today be a real tragedy, truly a mistake. Now you are wiser. Now you know your former plan would have been your ruin. Now you realize what a horrible person he or she turned out to be and how your life would have been a wreck if your prayer was answered, Yes . Sometimes God says, No . And when He does, He is really saying this: “I have something much better for you, better in the long run: you'll see. It's going to hurt for a time, and you might be tempted to lose hope. But I'll be with you and you'll see in the end that many things were accomplished, things that wouldn't have happened if you had been given your earlier desire. You wanted something for yourself. That's okay. But you needed to be a different person. That person will desire better things. I knew that if you got that, it wouldn't have made you happy. I knew that you would only desire another thing that would also be a hollow disappointment. I knew that you might be contented with little things, comfortable things, easy things, and miss the great adventure . You needed to see beyond your youthful desires to the things that last. Nothing in this world will last, except the souls of human beings. That is my chiefest concern. What I do, I do for eternity.”

He does all things well. When God does not make sense to us, it's because we see only so far. From the vantage point of eternity, how beautiful it will appear to our perfected eyes, looking back on all those things God ‘did wrong' for us, or so we had thought. God ‘did it wrong,' and we were angry and despondent, but looking back His decisions, the tough decisions, the hard to make decisions, they were just the right thing.

Do you want God inside your heart and head, knowing you better than you know yourself? If you knew what kind of a Person He is, and how merciful, how generous, how far seeing, how loving, and how able—knowing the perfect timing and measure of grace—you would welcome Him in, you would tell Him to take all of you. You could never lose from that arrangement, because He does all things well.

PFH+