Because They Thought God Would Save Them
WHERE WAS GOD when this happened? And if He is all powerful, why didn’t He stop this? He could change this today . . . He could fix this right now . . . He could do a miracle . . . So, why doesn’t He?
I made hundreds of suggestions to God about how He could fix all that was wrong while we were in our “tunnel of chaos” season. But God didn’t intervene like I kept thinking He would. I kept imagining all the ways God could stop all of this—the pain, the tragic destruction, the damage that kept compounding day by day. I prayed and prayed. Then I would get up from my prayers and watch in great expectation for glimmers of hope and small evidences of assurance. I kept setting up perfect scenarios for God to move.
And then surely if I saw God do what I thought He should do—rescue and restore—then I would do what He was requiring me to do: forgive. I wouldn’t have said I was trying to make a deal with God . . . but I definitely thought we both had parts to play.
I was holding my breath, waiting for a glorious shift where I could finally exhale with relief. Day after day I prayed, watched, believed, cried, fell on my bed exhausted, prayed some more, dreamed of better days, and fought off all the worst-case-scenario visions that nipped at the edges of my mind whenever I tried to sleep.
But the more I didn’t see any tangible evidence of God intervening with Art, the more unseen and unheard I felt. The more unseen and unheard I felt, the more my deal with God fell apart. “God, if You aren’t going to do Your part . . . how can you possibly expect me to do mine?”
Christian statements like, “I know God is carrying you. He is fighting this battle for you. He is working good even in the midst of this,” all started to feel like words good for posters that hang in churches or points for sermons or memes for Instagram, but not real promises for real pain.
My prayers that used to fill up pages of my journal were reduced to one question: Why?
Praise songs that I used to sing with bold assurance and raised arms were now mere whispers. I could barely make myself mouth the words.
The word hope has always been one of my absolute favorite spiritual perspectives. I loved it so much that the minute my first baby was born, I declared it as her name. I love what this word stands for. I love what it helps us stand up under.
Webster’s gives this definition of hope: “It’s a feeling of expectation and a desire for certain things to happen.”1 But have you ever heard someone say they are just trying to “keep hope alive”? It sounds more like a patient on life support than a promise on standby. The more I felt like hope was a risk rather than an assurance, the more I became afraid of the word rather than comforted by it.
To say I had hope felt like I was risking something on God’s behalf that could make us both look incredibly foolish. I wouldn’t dare verbalize it that bluntly. But when you are living out a story that makes no human sense at all, fear seems like the most rational of all internal commentaries. So “hoping” meant hurting even more with every passing, unchanged moment.
I no longer wanted to have hope in my situation with Art. And the more I lost hope, the more I resisted forgiveness. Maybe it’s because I equated forgiveness with moving on. But how do you move forward when you don’t have a clue which direction is forward? Do I move toward forgiving and healing that results in us being together in the end? Or do I move toward forgiving and healing without Art? Why isn’t God making this clear? Why isn’t God stopping this runaway situation? What good does it do to keep hoping?
And yet to say I was losing hope sounded like I had no faith. It was a no-win tug-of-war better dealt with by saying, “No comment.” Or better yet, just avoiding conversations where questions would surely arise.
Invitations by people who were kind and generous, wanting to spend time with me, felt terrifyingly threatening. I wasn’t sure what I might say that would definitely not line up with who I knew myself to be. Or at least who I once was.
I have this strange thing about my personality that I can’t always immediately determine exactly what I’m feeling. It’s either an up feeling or a down feeling, but exactly what I’m feeling is hard to identify. And even when I figure out from all the available emotions which one I’m feeling, then I have to work to figure out the right issue to attach as the cause. But in this situation, everything felt down and directly attached to Art. My life felt like it was on wheels, tethered to choices headed down to an abyss from which very few ever return. There I was, running beside the disaster in the making, trying to hope for the best, pray for the best, grab on to a life I very much loved rushing past me, and just getting yanked onto the asphalt, bloodied and bruised.
Everything hurt. Everything felt impossible.
Even everyday decisions about small things became overwhelmingly complicated. What to wear and what to eat seemed so trivial and exhausting all at the same time. I ignored texts, emails, and phone calls, and stopped going to simple places like the grocery store or the drugstore unless it was absolutely necessary. And even then, I was so scared someone would know me and want to talk to me, I would often never make it far enough into the store to actually get what I needed.
I was utterly lost inside my own life. I could be completely desperate to get home and drive right past my driveway without it even registering in the slightest that was where I needed to turn. And please note: I’ve lived in the same house on the same street for more than twenty-seven years.
God could see all of this. God could see my hurt, disillusionment, utter confusion, and desperate need for help. I absolutely believed in Him. But that became part of the problem. Because I’d seen Him do powerful things in my life before, miraculous things, I had astounding evidence of His faithfulness.
So, why did every request I made with my marriage seem to go absolutely unheard?
It was especially maddening when I felt like I had done everything I could to completely set the scene for God to move. I remember one Saturday morning Art agreed to go to a prayer service with me. I was shocked he agreed to go and felt an unusual surge of hope through my heart. I can see the whole thing in my mind right now, as clear as if the whole day was being replayed on a movie screen. When there’s extreme emotion tied to a particular memory, I remember the strangest precise details.
I remember the textured fabric of the gray seats in the sanctuary.
I remember Art lifting his hands in worship. I cried. I just knew God was doing something. The pastor led us through a short message and then instructed us to walk forward and pick up some cards to pray for others while we were also praying for situations in our own lives. Soft music and whispered prayers filled the air. Most walked around while praying. Some sat in their seats. Some prayed in small groups.
I hesitated before moving, hoping Art would want to pray with me. But after several minutes of him not initiating this, I decided to leave my seat and walk forward. White prayer cards were placed up front on the edge of the stage. When I walked forward to get a card, I saw it was filled out with red ink. It was written by a man in prison. He wanted prayer for his son. My second card was from another man in that same prison. And so was my third card. Though it seemed like I had nothing in common with the men behind bars, I knew exactly what it felt like to be trapped and unable to escape.
I walked back down the aisle and around the back, praying but also looking over at Art. Was he praying? Was he crying? Was God moving his heart, changing his mind, finally answering my prayers?
I couldn’t tell. Then I felt strange for watching. Maybe I shouldn’t try and see the miracle happen. I looked down and vowed to just let God move. I was so sure this was the day it would all turn around. Please, God, make this happen.
The prayer service ended with a beautiful corporate prayer and a send-off praise song. I watched people filing out of the church. I know they were not all smiling and laughing, but pangs of jealousy stabbed at me. They were returning to a version of normal that I used to have. Imperfect, yes. But so much more predictable than traumatic. I didn’t have to ask Art any questions to know the miracle hadn’t come. I could feel it.
We went out to breakfast. I could hardly choke down some eggs. Something unseen was squeezing my throat with so much emotional tension I knew if whatever was holding back my tears gave way, they might not ever stop. Later that night I was in the fetal position. One of my best friends was there reminding me to breathe.
Inside my head, I flat-out told God I could no longer believe for something so impossible.
I trusted Him to help me survive. But to really bring something this dead alive? I was too tired and traumatized by what I could no longer see to hope beyond the obvious.
I just kept thinking the least God could do is tell me which direction to point my hope in—that we would eventually be healed together or that I needed to move on without Art. Those two versions of healing seemed very different. Those two stories of forgiveness seemed very different. I don’t know how to say this, but I think it needs to be said. I felt I was working so hard to keep my heart in a good place—a forgiving place, a hopeful place—that I almost decided it would just be easier to let the bitterness have its full way with my heart. The payoff of forgiveness didn’t seem to be there like I’d hoped.
These feelings of disillusionment left unattended start to seem like facts about God when our circumstances don’t turn like we believed they would. In my last book, It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, I tackled a situation where physical pain brought me to this place of wondering how a good God could see me hurting and do nothing about it. But then when the pain was finally diagnosed and corrected with surgery, I learned God loves us too much to answer our prayers at any other time than the right time.
I still quote that to myself often.
But what do I do when the pain is emotional and seemingly never-ending? Who in the world do we process these kinds of feelings with? And what do you do when you know you need Him but trusting Him feels impossibly risky?
It’s not just your feelings about Him that seem shaky. Your bigger concern is, what does this unanswered prayer for this unending pain say about His feelings toward you?
In 2015, the New York Times ran an article called, “Googling for God.”2 In this article, author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz starts by saying, “It has been a bad decade for God, at least so far.” He goes on to ask, “What questions do people have when they are questioning God?” The number one question asked was, “Who created God?” The number two question was, “Why does God allow suffering?” But it was the third question that slammed into my heart and made me realize the depth at which many of us struggle when we walk through devastating situations: “Why does God hate me?”
I’m not alone in wondering about God’s feelings when circumstances beg me to feel betrayed. While I would have never used the word hate, seeing it typed out as one of the most commonly asked questions about God shows me just how dark our perspective can get. The most devastating spiritual crisis isn’t when we wonder why God isn’t doing something. It’s when we become utterly convinced He no longer cares. And that’s what I hear hiding behind that Google search.
And I shudder to say this, but I think that’s what was hiding behind my own disillusionment as well. What makes faith fall apart isn’t doubt. It’s becoming too certain of the wrong things. Things like: Forgiveness doesn’t matter. It’s not worth it. It’s not time for that kind of obedience. God isn’t moving. What I see is absolute proof that God isn’t working.
That’s when I can find myself getting more and more skeptical of God’s love, God’s provision, God’s protection, God’s instructions, and God’s faithfulness. And most of all, when I start fearing He really has no plan at all, and I’m just truly going to be a victim of circumstances beyond anyone’s control.
The problem with that thinking is, while it may line up with what my life looks like from my place of pain and confusion, it doesn’t line up with truth. And before everything went haywire in my life, I had already put a stake in the ground that God’s Word is where I would turn and return to no matter what.
What makes faith fall apart isn’t doubt. It’s becoming too certain of the wrong things.
I could resist this. I could run from it. I could, with bitter resignation, put my Bible on a shelf to collect dust for years. But I wouldn’t be able to escape what was already buried deep into my heart. I knew in this deep-down knowing place, that what I was seeing wasn’t all that was happening. Past seasons where I have seen God’s faithfulness remind me that I don’t always see God working in the midst of my hard days.
There are a few times in my life when I’ve seen dramatic moves by God happen quick enough for me to say, “Wow, look what God is doing!” But most of the time it’s thousands of little shifts so slight that the dailiness of His work doesn’t register in real time.
Looking back at all the years I kept thinking nothing was happening with Art, I see the makings of a very slow miracle. God was intervening and weaving and working, but my human eyes didn’t detect it.
One Sunday, two years into the battle, I woke up early. It was thundering so loudly the house shook. I was so very alone. It was pouring. I stared out the window. I didn’t have the energy to fight through all the resistance—the rain, the heartbreak, the walking into church all alone, and the feeling of people’s questions hovering around me as heavy as the gray clouds outside.
But, as I sat there thinking about what staying home would do as opposed to what going to church would do, I knew I needed to press through the storm and get to where I could be reminded that God is faithful. When “God loves me” feels like a stabbing question rather than a reassuring fact, I’ve learned I must go where I can be reminded that today isn’t the whole story. Today is part of the story, but it’s not the whole story.
That Sunday was a stormy day, perfect for staying away.
But it was also the sabbath day, perfect for going where I could be reminded of God’s faithfulness.
It was both.
It’s how I chose to look at that day that would determine not just what I did, but even more importantly, what I saw. I could be isolated at home staring at the storm. Or I could be listening to the truth of God being taught in a sanctuary. Both were realities that day. But the one I gave more attention to was the one that would influence my perspective that day.
It was my choice.
And the same was true with how I viewed whether or not God was answering my prayers.
I could look at all that God wasn’t doing and conclude He’s not faithful.
Or I could choose to conclude He is faithful, so if He’s allowing what I’m seeing, it must somehow be part of His weaving together a much bigger plan.
Now, I very much recognize that what is right in front of you may not have any kind of resemblance to what you thought the answered prayer would look like. I have a friend whose daughter is in critical care. I have another friend whose divorce was just finalized. And another friend who is struggling with so much anxiety right now, she feels she can’t leave her house.
I don’t understand how any of this is right or fair or good. It all just makes me so sad, so heartbroken for their pain, and it quite honestly feeds my doubts. I want to say this is where my faith revs up, my spiritual muscles flex big and strong, and a confident war cry explodes from deep within me: “I am confident God will heal your daughter fully and completely!” “I am absolutely certain God will make your husband break up with his mistress and bring him home better than ever!” “I declare Jesus’ name over your anxiety and demand it be gone and your peace and joy restored!” I have seen God do all of that before. But I’ve also seen so many circumstances where they don’t wake up from the coma. The husband never comes back home. And the illness stays.
And instead of a fearless, faith-filled war cry, I can be found just curled up on my bed in a full-blown ugly cry.
All those situations seem like seasons when we are waiting to see God move. As if God just has us in some sort of queue, on hold until He can get to us. As maddening as it is to wait on a service tech to finally get to me when I call an 800 number, at least they have an automated recording to tell me how long the wait will be. When I know help is coming in thirty minutes, twenty minutes, the next five minutes, I hold on. With God, it just seems mysterious at first and then cruel when long stretches of time pass with things maybe even getting worse instead of better.
But God isn’t oblivious to what’s happening. You don’t have to wait for Him to pick up the line to become aware of the problem. I don’t know what He is doing. And I don’t know how and when we’ll start to see Him move. But I do know His silence is not proof of His absence. And my broken perception is not evidence of His broken promise.
If you had asked me about how I was doing that day, staring at the storm, I would have said something like, “I’m desperately waiting on God to show Himself faithful and do what only He can do at this point. I’m in that hard, middle place where I’m honestly weary from waiting and tired of hoping.”
And hidden behind all that exhaustion was a girl stuck in so much grief, her perception of God was more informed by her pain than her past experiences of who she knew God to be. If we try and draw conclusions from the well of our deep pain, we will only have the sorrow of today to sip from. If, however, we draw strength from the deep well of God’s promises for tomorrow and His faithfulness to us in the past, His living water is the goodness that will seep life into our dry and weary souls.
Instead of drawing conclusions today, draw at least one line from a past situation where you can look back and see evidence of His faithfulness. And if the grief is too heavy for you to look back, see the fact that God got this book into your hands today to be a lifeline of hope. And if you are too afraid to dare to peek over the edge into tomorrow’s hope for God’s promises, there’s one more word I want to give you. Resurrection. Hang with me through a few more paragraphs.
Webster’s definition for hope is not the only definition for hope. Hope is the echo of eternity assuring us there is resurrection ahead of us. Faith is believing that whether we see it on earth or in heaven, God will return the world to the description of His original design: “It is all good.” The perfection of Eden isn’t just gone; it’s also in the process of returning.
In the words of my counselor Jim Cress, “Hope is the melody of the future. Faith is dancing to that melody right now.”
Isn’t that one of the most beautiful quotes? I absolutely believe that hope is the melody of the good that is to come. I absolutely believe that faith is dancing to that melody right now. And I absolutely believe that forgiveness, even in the midst of all the unknowns, is the way we stay in step with the beat of God’s heart. The more we forgive, the more we can know we are right in step with God, no matter what direction our life goes.
I think that’s what I was missing when I kept waiting to forgive until I knew how things were going to turn out, until I knew if I needed to heal apart from Art or toward the hope of being together again. Either way, forgiveness is always healing in the right direction. Even if you don’t know whether to turn left or right, looking up to God is where real hope can be found. That’s where the payoff of forgiving is the sweetest of all. That’s where our story aligns with His resurrection.
There was a song I kept singing that was released by my church the same year everything fell apart. The lyrics say, “The resurrected King is resurrecting me.” I loved the assurance of those words. I wanted that to be the anthem of my situation. But when everything looked a lot more like death than resurrected life, I found myself singing that song more as a fearful and tearful whisper than a confident declaration.
I think Jesus knew this is where His disciples would be when all of their hope for a better future would soon be hung on a cross and buried in a tomb. I don’t often remember in my own times of disillusionment to read Jesus’ words to them just before He died, but they are so powerful.
Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. (John 16:20–22)
He didn’t promise their grief would be taken away and replaced with joy. He promised the grief would turn into joy. The grief would produce the joy. The grief was a part of the journey, but it would not be the way it would all end.
What they had prayed for was someone to free them from the oppression of the Roman government. They got a servant who washed their feet. They wanted a ruler; they got a teacher. They wanted a justice-seeking king; they got a kindhearted healer. Their answer never looked like they thought it would. They thought they were on a journey to Jesus taking the throne, but instead He took up His cross.
They thought God would save them.
And He did.
The disciples were absolutely grieved . . . until they were utterly amazed.
Just like Jesus said would happen, their sorrow turned to joy.
Charles Spurgeon made such an incredible point about the writings of the apostles after Jesus’ resurrection:
It is most remarkable and instructive that the apostles do not appear in their sermons or epistles to have spoken of the death of our Lord with any kind of regret. The gospels mention their distress during the actual occurrence of the crucifixion, but after the resurrection, and especially after Pentecost, we hear of no such grief.3
And don’t miss that part of the script of the eventual resurrection was “forgiveness.” Some of the last words recorded that Jesus spoke were, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Then His death was the very thing that paid the debt of sin we could never pay ourselves. It sealed our forgiveness for all eternity. And pointed to the resurrection promise providing new life, perfect redemption, and eternal security once and for all.
The payoff for forgiveness is tremendous. We must never doubt that giving and receiving forgiveness is worth it and so very good, no matter how our circumstances go.
What if we’ve been looking at things from only what we think is good? From our vantage point, we can clearly see how what we’re asking from God makes so much sense. In our minds, we see all the good that would surely come from Him doing exactly what we suggest.
But what if our requests, though completely logical and reasonable, aren’t what we think they are? Yes, from an earthly perspective, they are exactly what makes sense. But what if God sees things we can’t possibly see? What if, from His perspective, what we are asking for is not at all what we’d want if we could see everything from His complete, eternal, perfect vantage point?
What if I’ve been thinking of this all wrong?
And that’s as much as we need for this chapter. Just let that question sit with you. Let it be the place you park your emotion. Let it be the door holder that leaves just enough space for you to believe the decision to forgive is possibly the greatest good decision you could ever make.
What if . . .